It was hard for me to pick what pictures I should include in my photo collage since I am lucky enough to have so many beautiful moments captured on camera. I will begin by describing the pictures on my collage in relation to who’s in the picture. The first picture is a photograph of myself and my favorite hockey player, Anze Kopitar. The second picture going down is a photo of me and my only sister, Mariel, posing with the Stanley Cup which for those of you who don’t know, the Stanley Cup is the championship trophy awarded in the NHL presented to the team who wins in the playoffs. The third picture down is a photograph of my father, my sister, and myself in our hockey jerseys. The next row includes a picture of my boyfriend and myself, a picture of me and my best friends at the SlutWalk, and the last picture in the row is a picture of my family, my sister, father, myself, and my mother at my sister’s graduation. The last row is a picture of my grandfather and myself when I was a three years old. The next picture is a photograph of my nieces, my niece Sasha who is 3 years old, and my niece Minerva who is 3 months old. The last picture in my collage is a photograph taken when I was 5 years old that includes my sister, and my cousins, Pamela, Sergio and Eduardo.

As you can tell by looking at the first row going down, and as I mentioned in my bio at the beginning of class we are a family that is super into hockey. It’s something that not only bonds me and my sister, but also my dad. Unfortunately, my mother hated going to Staples Center, where the Los Angeles Kings play, but we do watch it at home as a family when were unable to go. I love that it’s the one thing we can do together, we usually go to a game every weekend during the season when everyone’s off work or if not you can catch us gathered around the TV cheering on our team. Its’ really nice to have something that we can all do together and that we can all talk about, I just went to a preseason game last night and it was nice coming home and my parents asking me about who won, who scored, how many fights there was, it’s fun to come home and have my family interested in something that I am super interested in. I know some of my friends who aren’t into sports say that they were not allowed to watch sports as young girls because it was for boys and they had to go play with their dolls. I feel lucky that my parents never told us that and that they allowed us to watch sports as young girls. I decided to include the picture of myself and my favorite Anze Kopiter as well because it just feels like home when I’m at the games, I always call it my church, because it’s the place I feel most at peace. About 6 years ago I was going through a really hard time and was really depressed, and my sister dragged me out of bed to go to a hockey game when all I wanted to do was die… Literally, it was a really low point in my life and her dragging me out of bed and taking me to a game really picked up my spirts and helped me get out of this weird funk I had been in for a few months. I always give credit to my hockey team for helping me get out of a really bad depression. The next photo in my collage is the one of me and my boyfriend, I included that because he’s been my rock for the last two years he has supported me through all the ups and downs. He is so supportive when it comes to all my goals and dreams, he’s been helping me with a short film I’m trying to get finished which is really nice because I know he believes in my dreams. I do notice the differences between us though culturally, we come from a different background, him being white. Our families are completely different, his parents never really cared about what he was doing after he turned 18 and he has to take care of himself, as for my family I’m 25 and my parents still help me and let me live at home. At his home he comes home and has to cook and clean for himself while I come home and have a nice cooked meal from my mom waiting for me. Also my family Is really close to one another and his isn’t and I always tell him how I think it’s so weird because I’m always with my family. I’ve also unfortunately experienced a lot of racism with his family especially his father. His father, who is a Donald Trump supporter has told me that he would deport me and send me back on the “big green bus” even though I’m a US citizen. Our worlds are just so different. The middle picture in the second row is a picture of me and my girlfriends at the SlutWalk last year. The SlutWalk is an event started to end rape culture. I am extremely passionate about ending rape culture, and it’s so great to share this with my friends. It’s such a great event where I am able to tell my story and listen to hundreds of other stories from other women like myself and also to come together with women who share the same drive for bringing an end to rape culture. The rest of the pictures in my collage are of my family. I included the one of my grandfather and myself because he was my best friend, he supported me through everything and was my biggest fan. He was so loving and kind. He unfortunately passed away in January and it’s still hard for me to deal with every day. He was a huge feminist who believed I could accomplish everything and he would always tell me focus on myself and not worry about boys. I try harder every day to be a good person and to make sure I accomplish my dreams so that I can make him proud. The picture of my sister graduating represent the importance of education in my family. my parents never went to college so they remind us every day how import it is for us to pursuit higher education. My mom always tells me that no one can ever take my education away, and that it will help make my life easier. My mom was unable to finish high school so I think part of my pursuit of higher education is for her, I love coming home and telling her about everything I’ve been learning in all my classes. As for my sister, she is my role model, she is an engineer who works so hard. I want to get my degree and also go to Grad school and make them all proud. The pictures of my nieces represents my future. I love those two little girls more than anything in this world and everything I do is for them. I want to graduate and get a good job so that I can spoil them. I want to be someone they can look up too. I want to be someone they can come to when they have troubles. I want to protect them from the world, I think that’s why it’s so important for me to be a voice to end rape culture because I don’t ever want them to be slut shammed or catcalled, or raped. I included the last picture with my cousins and sister because ever since we were kids, we have always been super close and I think it’s because of how we were raised. As Next of Kin mentions the importance of the family. All my aunts and mom would get us together as much as possible and we even lived together for a while when we were really poor. We all have a really close bond and always have each other’s backs and I can only hope that the next generation of kids will also be this close. I do laugh at the picture because it shows gender roles, in the picture I’m the bride getting married to my cousin, Sergio. I find it funny that we were playing wedding, I was five years old what did I know about marriage. I do remember we were allowed to play anything we wanted, we use to always play power rangers and no I wasn’t the pink power ranger, I was the blue one. I also remember my boy’s cousins playing Barbie’s with us, they would get their G. I Joes instead of the Kens and play with us, which I think is cool because I’ve also heard stories where boys aren’t allowed to play with the girls. I think my family has instilled a lot of hard work, drive, and also the drive to push traditional gender roles and I’m thankful for that.