My parents opted to send my siblings and me to a private Catholic school because they wanted us to get a good education, while also learning about our religion.

As a middle class family, my parents worked very hard to ensure we can become the best versions of ourselves and this is why they invested in sending us to a private school.

Catholic principles were instilled in ever since I was a young kid. We had daily religion class that educated us all about the Bible and this began to form my morals as a young kid. Although I am not too religious to this day, this school still instilled some good morals in me. For example, I live my life following the Golden Rule which states "Treat others the way you want to be treated" and this was the biggest lesson I took away from my time in Catholic school.

This was a big moment for my family since my mother broke tradition and married a man outside of her race. Unfortunately, this led to many members of her family saying negative things to her about my father and wishing bad things. She endured abuse from her family, yet she did not let their racist ideals get in the way of what she wanted to do.

Additionally, this was also the first time I experienced racism. The older Polish kids in grades above me often targeted me because I looked different. They began to make fun of my Mexican origin and would say bad things about me in Polish, which confused me at the time since I understood everything they said to me since I was also Polish. This occurred every once in a while until these kids eventually graduated. This led to me becoming ashamed of my Mexican heritage and even having anxiety about it. This was a turning point in my life because I realized that not everyone is inherently a good person and some people will not like me simply because of how I look.

This is also when a lot of confusion with my racial identity began. Culturally, I was more Polish since most of my Mexican family is not in America, so we defaulted to celebrating holidays the Polish way. However, I looked Hispanic and enjoyed many aspects of my Mexican culture, such as Mexican food, soccer, and the music. I was in a cultural identification crisis since I felt like I was too Hispanic for the white kids, and too white for the Hispanic kids.

Later in life is when I realized the privilege I had growing up. My parents worked a lot, but it was because they wanted to go above and beyond to create a better life for us compared to what they had. They sacrificed their dreams so we can fulfill ours and that is something not everyone had growing up.

This is when I began to become proud of my Mexican heritage again. I was not afraid to speak about my culture since my friends encouraged me to educate them about the Mexican side of my family since they did not know any Mexican people very well. They empowered me and made me love my Mexican culture again.

As a person living with no disabilities, I am in a privileged position because the world was built for people like me to live in. Those living with disabilities have a more difficult time in the world because some places may not have thought to accommodate their needs. This is something I became more aware of when I was in high school and saw a student who was permanently in a wheelchair. I never realized how accessible the world was to me until I noticed her daily life in a public-school setting. For example, she had to often go across the school and use the elevator to get to class and then go to the other side of the second floor

This is when I found who I truly am. I was proud of my ethnic background, proud of my interests, and proud of the trajectory of my life. I am a first generation college student and there were so many other people like me on campus, which is something I did not get to experience much growing up. This is when I truly realized the importance of diversity and how beneficial it is. I became friends with people from all over the world and different faiths. This has stuck with me today and has led me to continue advocating for diversity across several aspects of life.

Today, I can say that there are many privileges I have. For example, being a male. Something as simple as going outside alone at night does not make me feel anxious, while many women will feel anxious because they might experience street harassment. I hate that many women have to feel this way, but this is something I became aware of in college when my girl friends would always carry pepper spray on them to protect themselves in case anything happened. That blew my mind when I first heard that, but it also opened my eyes to the privilege that I have since that is something I never needed to worry about.

In regards to the racial/cultural identity development model, I would place myself in stage 5 which is the integrative awareness stage. In the earlier stages of my life, I would have placed myself in stage 1 due to being ashamed of my Mexican heritage. This was primarily due to being in a “bubble” of mostly Polish people who I had some trouble identifying with. I wanted to conform within my environment and look more like the Polish kids I grew up with and this led to me depreciating my Mexican culture. As I was exposed to more diversity and interacted with people from various regions of the world and heard their stories, it made me begin to appreciate my Mexican culture again. This made me feel empowered and boosted my self-esteem as I was finding out who I was in my 20s. After some reflection, it made me realize that diversity is incredibly important and it’s something everyone should be exposed to so all cultures can be celebrated. This is why I continue to advocate for things such as more representation in books, shows, movies, etc. Growing up, there were no books including people who looked like me and there were minimal children's shows. Exposing children at a young age to diversity will help kids be proud of their cultural or racial identity and will make them feel empowered and confident. 

Additionally, I am bilingual, so I have the ability to work with a community that most people can’t due to the language barrier. Social work is a female-dominated field so being a Hispanic Spanish speaking male will allow me to have several opportunities that are unique to who I am. This will allow for a lot of job growth potential and will also allow me to connect with more members of my community and helping them get the assistance they need.