Stephen's Photo essay

Caption 1

“Unity”, that's the word I think about when I see this picture. The blue shirts that spell out “Reality Changers” are a form of commitment for every student that is wearing one because it shows that they are there to support the group. These students in return including me, wear the blue shirts at special events and community service. In which the organization has supported them through earning big amounts of scholarships for college to have same financial advantages. These individuals have been there since 6:30am united to show pride & support for Reality Changers to go on a journey of knowledge to UCSD's event “Comienza con un Sueño (3/7/09)” traveling on a forest-green bus provided by “Pt. Loma Nazarene University”. As the bus waits for Reality Changers, we hop on knowing we are in for great things at UCSD and feeling carefree as we transform into new people with a positive attitude while wearing that blue shirt and participating in the event, and volunteering.


Caption 2

As we arrive smoothly at UCSD for the event, we walked for a while until we came to the registration stands in order to be able to enter the event, and in my mind during that time I ran thoughts of “Impatience” to see what was happening. After we walked towards the UCSD Library to have a lunch of Rubios’ breakfast burritos at the event, we ate with wonder about what the event was going hold. As I turned towards the stage, I was amazed by these young girls wearing dresses with a spread of bright colors all over and dancing to “Ranchera” music. The first word I thought of was “Hispanic Culture” because those girls were up there performing their talent with pride and ignoring rude comments that were said out loud by individuals in the audience. The thing that caused the biggest impact on me was how a teenage girl in the audience realized the disrespect others were giving to performers on stage. The teenage girl said to herself; “These girls are really pretty performing and the audience is being selfish to their moment of shine, but I'll stay quiet because at least it'll be one less individual to the chaos.” I felt it was very rare for someone to have and say an epiphany out loud all of a sudden.



Caption 3

After seeing that, I thought back and realized that we people in the blue shirts have had many epiphanies during moments in the group and always become more responsible and aware for the actions we do and others actions as well. After the performance, our group leaders handed us optional essay assignments that UCSD decided to give out to the audience for a chance to win at $500 and also present their essay to UCSD's student body. We all had to fill out the background information that they asked on the sheet, so on our spare time we can get ahead to attempt the prompt. Even though, I knew the chances of me winning the grand dollar prize was 1 in 1000, I thought about the richer reward in that offer is earning high quality writing skills instead because I knew that any writing offer will improve my chances in life to high outcomes that one could never imagine.


Caption 4

Later that day, our group leaders handed out flyers to us that listed some free workshop presentations in the “Comienza Con un Sueño” event. As we walked as a group to the other side of the campus, we headed straight to the classroom where we were going to learn about “The Education Challenge for Young Chicano Men”. My first impression being inside the class was “school... school”, but soon after, the attention span in the room grew due to the instructor serious tone. My view of the connection she made upon the corruption of security forces and the life of an illegal immigrant and the risks they take every single day was sturdy. The knowledge that I gained throughout the first part of her discussion led me to feel serious and emotional for illegal immigrants. It is sad, because a citizen that has had the road paved for them by birth gets to live without worries most times and while the tables are turned for immigrants because they worry every single day that they will be caught by the ICE agents in a job/street raid. This attitude is unusual for me but situations like these open up my eyes, and make me realize on how good I have it.


Caption 5

Moments after recovering, my feelings changed from sadness to outrage while watching the slides the instructor showed of harmful threats to illegal immigrants and the overall the minority citizen society. These images caught my eye because instead of always seeing the security forces as protagonists, they showed that they have a dark side. A group of Lincoln High students that are part of M.E.C.H.A (an activist group for minority races such as African American & Hispanics against militant forces) captured footage of an ICE agent tackling an undocumented individual at 24th and “C” Street. The individual was waiting at a bus stop for work in order to make ends meet for his family, when a white van pulls up and Ice agents jump out of the van, and tackle the individual. The question in the bottom of the picture made a good case because I used to see militant forces as a good service for our country, but I didn't think about everyone when I say “Our Country” because I can think of it as my country, but not every one can call it home.


Caption 6

After coming from the first class of “The Educational Challenge for Young Chicano Men”, I found myself looking forward to going into another workshop presentation “Latino Youth: From Survival to Success” because of how interesting and life touching the first workshop was. As I walked in the class along with few other students from Reality Changers, we managed to get comfortable with the instructor after getting multiple laughs from his “George Lopez impersonation” which made the whole audience feel really welcomed. As the instructor did his presentation, he helped us find our self-esteem with the question of “How to be successful” and surpassing any limits when it comes to dreams. In the same way, he managed to remind me where my roots were and made me relate with my connection of using my Uncle's motto of “Difficulty is easy, but the impossible takes a little longer” as a big mote in my life. Lastly, I feel that without his personality and the life situations he explained, I wouldn't be able to relate to him on any common ground.


Caption 7

Lastly, arriving back from the event at UCSD on the Forest green bus provided by “Pt. Loma Nazarene University” to the Reality Changers building in City Heights, we sat down with everybody and had everyone share at least one interesting part of the event. In the Reality Changers organization there's more to it then only wearing a blue shirt, there's bonding involved and truly a second family for me because these are people that are always going to stand up for you through thick and thin. One great cause is that we are a second family for others because we will support a member's and other families by setting up events and taking leadership and placing it before our names. As the day ended, we waited for everyone's ride to arrive because of our loyalty for each other. As we move forward, we manage to show how us members from Reality Changers come from different backgrounds, yet use all lend a hand back to the community, that also gave us a chance of succeeding higher level education, and in our career paths.