But to understand where the Fourniers, come from, I needed to find out where we came from. I sought to find out where my grandparents came from. My grandmother and grandfather from my fathers side were both born in El Paso. I asked if any way they were affected by the Repatriation Act. I was surprised to learn that she had never heard of it before as well as the treatments that immigrants were receiving during those times. They are both unfortunately not with us anymore so I can't ask them more questions about those times. I did find out that my grandpa's dad did migrate from Mexico to El Paso. The timeline gets alittle fuzzy after that, but they are not just from Mexico. They moved from France to Mexico and then to the United States.
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Where do you come from
I did some extensive research to find where the origins of my family came from. I first wanted answers as to why I was the only one born in San Diego, California. Everyone else in my household was born in El Paso. It turns out that my dad was training to be apart of Border Patrol. And the training required him to move his family to San Diego. Eventually I came into the family. They lived out in San Diego, for a year and a half after I was born and then relocated back to El Paso. Eventually my two other sisters were born in El Paso, and we have lived here ever since.
Friday, November 22, 2019
Mi Cajitas
Throughout life I have loved to collect little memories and put them into little boxes. Just little things that I could go through and remember where I had gotten the memory. I have recently decided to move from my childhood home and went through all my boxes! It was so exciting and emotionally to see all the memories. Huge Tupperware filled of childhood memories, and I had to decide what to take with me to my new home. My parents home is located on the westside of El Paso, and I moved all the way to far east El Paso. I naturally could not take all my boxes of memories with me I ended up narrowing it down to a few of my memories. Boxes of stuffed animals are still at my parents house, and I still plan on moving them, but one box at a time. I chose a few of my cajitas to present to the class and for the blog. It is not all of them because they are hidden in different spots of my house.
The first of my cajitas is a book that I have had in my possesion since I was a young child. It was previously my mom's. She used to teach special education, I believe she wanted to use the book for a lesson in class. I don't know if she ever did, but she handed the book down to me. I remember reading it in one day, one sitting. It was an amazing read! I even bookmarked certain pages with quotes. They are mainly motivational quotes. It truly makes you think how much we take for granted in life. And now that I live away from my mom, it reminds me of my mom.
The next cajitas I keep by my side, is my nana's memorial card. I had the most memories helping my mom take care of my nana. She forever holds a place in my heart. I keep her close to me. It is displayed on my other cajita she gave me as a baby. She was a very religious, and always sought to teach the religion in a positive view.
The other cajita I have is a license plate that my Dad had given me when I was a baby. I was born in California. I am the only one in my family born from another city. But strangely enough I love El Paso more than San Diego. Being away from my Dad, it reminds me of my dad.
Another cajita I have is a picture of my first dog. He was my first puppy baby, my first major responsibility. His name was Chico and he was a wonderfully puppy. He unfortunately ran away, so I have always kept his picture with me.
The last cajita I have is a gift I received from my first job. It was my first job that I had when I had turned 16. I worked at the movie theatre. I started at the very bottom of the chain and by 18, I became an assistant manager. I worked there for 5 years and learned many lessons from there. This was my first Christmas gift, given has a manager and I was thrilled. I also collected every key I earned working at the theatre. The keys were little rewards I earned. When I decided to quit, I took my keys with me. I earned them lol.
Friday, November 1, 2019
Gwen Araujo's Story
The story of Gwen Araujo is a powerful story about a journey
through society, where you are labelled as the “black sheep”. It’s a story that
is usually never seen through popular forms of media such as movie theaters or
even in the paper. Much less there is little to no coverage if they are of a different
ethnicity. I do feel partially ashamed that I did not know the story of Gwen
Araujo, before watching the documentary. I would say that I am a high advocate
for the LGBTQ community, but I do feel ashamed that I did not know about this
story. It coincides with my culture and my beliefs.
Growing up I experienced a lot of gender specific
stereotypes. I grew up thinking that baby boys were identified with the color
blue and girls were identified with the color pink. Being raised in a heavily
influenced Hispanic family, the girls in our family were raised to be extremely
feminine. The women were expected to wear dresses or pretty looking clothing,
the hair is always supposed to be kept tidy (wearing in pulled up, would be
considered trashy). The women were also expected to be the ones who stayed at
home and cooked ALL the meals, cleaned everyone’s messes, and then grow old
enough to have babies and raise the children. This is represented in the Gwen Araujo
documentary. So I grew up with these
stereotypical gender roles in my mind thinking this is perfectly okay. It wasn’t
until high school that I really started to see the world in a different view. I
was able to meet people who didn’t particularly identify with another gender.
They were kind-hearted with feelings and emotions. Although they were able to
act normally among the group of friends, it never really occurred to me the daily
challenges they might face. My representation for the LGBTQ community is new, but
growing up it wasn’t taught to me that there was more to gender beyond “boy”
and “girl” label. As I continue to grow up in the world, I try to make sure
that I am as respectful as possible to anything people identify as. I try to
keep myself open minded towards other peoples emotions and feelings. I am a
huge advocate for genderless restrooms, I try to advocate the vote for
genderless restrooms in the workplace, schools, and shopping centers. It is the
least I can do, but I do eventually plan on expanding advocating for genderless
labels. I have also decided that when I plan to have a baby in the future, that
I wanted to have a gender reveal party, and the colors I would use was yellow.
I wouldn’t even reveal the gender, it would be more of a celebration of life
party.
There is a specific memory that I will never forget at UTEP.
It was raining really hard at UTEP one day, and I had to run across campus to
get to class. I stupidly had forgot my umbrella and my jacket that day, so I
was running across campus with a book above my head. I was soaked and only half
way there, as I was running someone ran up next to me and shared their jacket
and their umbrella with me. They didn’t say their name they just said, “Here we
can run together, where are running too?” We ended up running together through
the rain, to the same building. As we were getting ready to walk into the
building I looked at their face and she was wearing the prettiest make-up and a
beautiful wig. She eventually told me her name was Rachel, and we parted ways.
I thought it was the sweetest gesture she did for me. Especially because on my
first part of the run, no one was offering a umbrella and she went out of her
way to help me. She was super sweet and I wish I could do more to thank her. I
will never forget the memory of how she helped me. It encourages me to want to
be more to helpful to the LGBTQ community.
I want to share this video with you. Warning it will make
you cry, I cried, it’s a step towards teaching our children to break the gender
placed roles.
References
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