I am a very awkward person and I learned this by being around other people who learned to accept who i am by laughing in unison. I have learned a lot more about by being around people and peers that i can trust and love with all my heart. I have also seen the trouble maker side of me so i know how to tone my behavior down a bit. This is pretty much it. (and that was “Knowing Coyotl with Coyotl). =)
Blog
Day Unknown
Today is honestly such a blur. All I remember is the cadaver lab and leaving after tearing up… it was so hurtful to see people who have ,made impacts in the world whether they were small or large. The people they’ve met and all of their memories…them in front of me along with hundreds of others. I just couldn’t. Whoever does this for a living, PROPS TO YOU!!!! Sorry, tonight just isn’t something I want to brag about. But it was good, trust. (;
-Aolani
Christine’s Inspiration
There are many people to look up to in this program and so many of them inspire me. Honestly i cant just pick one person who has so far inspired me in this program i cant even think of one. I can on the other hand think of 27 people who inspire me, 27 amazing people. These 27 people who I’ve just only meet in this past week have inspired me one way or another. Everyone of these pitzer program students have a different story that they have overcame and that is what truly inspires me.
As i sat in my chair i looked around and saw blankets in the far right corner of the room, the tired faces of my fellow friends and elders entering the room i automatically felt such a strange feeling as if something big was gong to happen. Once we were told what we were going to do I did not expect what was to happen next. Once our activity started I quickly started feeling so uncomfortable and started feeling heavy from my chest that was filled with such anger. Towards the end of the activity I saw how affected my friends were by what they experienced. Once they started sharing how they felt about this activity I saw how even though there families were perhaps affected by what the colonizers have done they were still so brave on how they overcame the destruction the colonizers have left behind. These 27 people are such an inspiration in my eyes each and every single one of them will do amazing things.
Peace and Love Christine
Friday, July 21
Today, many of you went to Gross Anatomy Lab where you looked at cadavers and examined our insides. If you feel so moved, you are welcome to blog about your experience there. If you didn’t get to experience that today, perhaps you’d like to write about not being allowed to attend.
Otherwise, we’d like you to write about knowing yourself. That could mean…
- knowing your body on a deeper level (literally!) than you ever thought you would
- knowing your spirit and your connections with all of our relations
- knowing your strengths and limitations (because both are important!)
- taking care of yourself
- knowing your heart and living by it
¿How are you getting to know yourself? ¿What are you learning?
love and light, G+G
zion day 10 change
today we met with joe parker a white hair, nice pair of glasses, nicely dressed middle aged white man. Imagine a bear in a four cornered room walking around writing on a black board. I compare him to a bear because bears are strong and he has a lot of wisdom. When he passed out his papers I got excited because it was about the zapatista movement. I felt like we learned from eachother. I kind of corrected him. He wrote women and I told him to write it with a y (Womyn). He was like woah. And surprised. Everyone else in the room was like what are you talking about. I explained it to kids who asked me after class. I told them its a womyns empowerment movement. My mom put me into that she said “its womyn spelled with a y!” I tried to think about it today. So the word women has the word men in it so the only way they can self identify is with the wo because theyre not a man unless they identify as a man.
He had a lot of knowledge about revolution and that kind of stuff. He was a white man, but he knew what he was talking about. And I want to know what im talking about, when that knowledge needs to be shared.
Nauis blog 7-20-17: Change.
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.
Aleyah’s Legacy
Im going to leave a legacy simply because i am me. I have dreams and hopes to go far in life, but sometimes you get what you get. Even if I’m not gonna have the future i had in mind, i will always be grateful for the risks and opportunities i have took so far and that i will take in the future. Leaving a legacy is a privilege, and I’m willing to take that step, do whatever it takes to go far and soar to success!!!My legacy is gonna be icy best believe ;)When i grow i already know what I’m going to be, a criminal prosecutor. I want to be a lawyer because I’m good at starting arguments and winning them, being loud, being debateful and always stand up for what i believe in and i always stay my grounds. Lawyers are always successful , and thats what I’m going to be. Once you set your mind to something , you can never stop. You are unstoppable and powerful. One person i look up to in this program is my close friend who is actually in this program, Alyssa Flores. She always has a positive mindset and is involved with her culture so much. She is never afraid to speak up or embrace her culture, At such a young age , she’s president of a student council, has a job, spends her summers going to extra curricular activities and joining programs very much like this. I am honored just to be able to know her an socialize with her. Growing up her dad was always in and out of jail, her mom was never home and she was the oldest of her sisters. So with her parents never not really there , she had to step up. She was still a child herself, but had to look out for her sisters. She woke up almost all the time to make them breakfast nourish them and get them ready for school, she would make them dinner, and just be there for them when her mom or dad couldn’t. This taught her a lot about leadership . Learning all these leadership skills she decided to be useful with them and started getting more involved with her community. More and more people started to recognize her for all her actions. Too this day, she is still involved with her community and sets examples for younger kids, like me i guess you would say.
Johanna – Inspiration All Around
This program is quickly coming to an end, with a couple days left to spend with these inspiring and unique individuals. I can proudly say that each and everyone one of them including the mentors, staff, and coordinators of this program will make a change in our discriminating world. There are so many individuals that have inspired me to do better for myself, my community, my school, my family, and my world. I do not think I can not choose just one person to write how they inspired me, which is why I will be writing about many individuals who have touched me in different ways.
I would like to begin with the coordinator of the Native Youth to College Program at Pitzer College, Scott Scoggins. This man has put so much work into this program, to only for us to get to know different people and have fun, but for the youth to share their culture, learn new culture, and connect with other indigenous people. To mentors who have inspired me to do better in my community are Neeka and Belmont. I have had the opportunity to speak to each individual separately and have very deep conversations about our beliefs, how we think we should make this world a better place, and how most of us have lost our culture. The most important people that have impacted me were the youth from this amazing program. Sylena, the way she came in not knowing much from her nation or culture, but will be leaving with so much knowledge from different people, which inspired me to share my culture with the entire world. Katherine, a young lady who knows so much about her own culture and others, but still came with an open mind to learn more culture and traditions from others and see their perspectives on their values about their indigenous nation. This last person is one of my closest friends, Ansel, he has always been a well spoken leader to my school and community. The way he puts himself above everyone and is always prepared to learn about the history of our ancestors to prepare himself to make a true change in this world for our indigenous people.
Once I leave this program, I will take every single person with me, everything they have shared with me and their inspiring words. Even tough we all might be young and not know much about our corporate world, we are determined to make a difference for our people to continue learning their culture, language, and traditions with the purpose of not letting our indigenous roots die. So, thank you youth for coming to this program and sharing your culture and traditions with me, I really hope you all keep continuing what you are doing because eventually there will be a change in our world.
always happy, Johanna Osuna
The 7th Generation will change – Alyssa
As I’ve been advertising to many of my peers. Our generation is the 7 Generation. As said by sitting bull we are the ones to bring back our traditions. To bring back the language, food, teachings, and stories. I truly believe that we are and will live up to the expectations. I will take back the songs of the many different nations that I’ve learned over these 2 weeks. I hope to see in the future that we will stay true to all the things that our elders are teaching us about other earth. That mother earth is our protector she is the one keeping us alive she is our everything. I hope to see that all us young adults will teach others on how to treat the earth on what and not what to do. We did research at the Chumash Village. We learned that global warming is happening and it’s making the sea level rise quick. I remember being at Wishtoyo a year before this. There was a decent size beach and walk way . Than when we went the other day i noticed there was very little room to walk and hardly any beach space. It’s awesome to be the generation that is watching it happen. We can also be the ones to slow down or change things that we were are doing now to increase the speed of it rising. Our group talked about things we can do as a community to help. One is the eat less red meat to decrease the about of pollution in the air. We also thought that if we would to keep our cities clean and to use less plastic. Lastly we thought to plant more greens and plants. To decrease the amount of green house gases. I would say a role model to me here. would be my lovely friend Aleyah she has been apart of my life since she was 6 and I was 9. Some people say its weird or would never look up to somebody who is younger but to me its perfectly fine. Adults still as they older learn from the younger generation. I have seen her from being a little girl always asking questions and being annoying lol. To becoming a great, mature and power young role model to many. I hope to continue watching her grow up to be one who leads our people.
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Huitzilin chases her culture!
Being apart of this program has made me feel really inspired and has pushed me to be more open with others about my culture and have a positive attitude. Now that I have this ball full of energy, power and motivation I want to go deeper and really educate myself more about my culture and not just focus on Danza Azteca. Like for an example I want to practice more on the nepohuantzinzin and learn more of my traditional songs as well as learning how to speak in my native tongue. Hopefully later on I will complete these goals in my future, eventually when I have I children I will past down my knowledge to them and expect for them to continue the traditions and culture to the future generations. In the program the person that has made think about this is Vicente, Vicente is a very passionate human being that has made me really reflect upon myself and since we share the same identity it makes me even ,more engaged and feel even more humble knowing that I have another peer in my community who’s educated about our culture and who’s taking the time to share his experiences and knowledge with me.
nativeyouth2college.org 