My Indigenous culture has had a very large influence on my life, this is because i grew up with elders and parents that taught me not to be ashamed of my culture and to rather embrace it and strive to learn more about it. My biggest inspirations are of course my parents because they are the ones who have been raised in that culture, they gave me a name in my language which i feel is the way to start decolonizing ourselves and they enrolled me in a school that teaches everyone aztec culture, language and heritage. I thank my parents for taking me to ceremony, Danza circles, and other cultural events like Powows, sweats and indigenous people gatherings and these types of programs so i can learn more about not just my culture, but also others peoples cultures. Navajo people are cool. My elder Tata Cuaxle has taught me my language, songs and how to use Aztec instruments and him being a really fun elder to learn from and to gain experience from and that is something i have always looked up to from both Cuaxle and my parents. They three have inspired me to learn what i can about my peoples culture, language and history with the colonizers and i want to take native american/indigenous studies to bring the history and knowledge back to my community to keep the youth woke and to show them that the problems they face in life is a result of colonization and white privilege. On behalf of all natives, i believe we should have easy access to our history, culture and language which is why i want to bring that back to my community and to help fix these problems of colonization by introducing more culture and heritage to the youth.
nativeyouth2college.org 