I come from Bakersfield, California, a small city that everyone drives through or stops to get gas on their way to or from Los Angeles. We are the top city with the highest level of pollution, highest teenage pregnancy rates, highest illiteracy rates, and the list really can carry on. Fun fact, Kevin McCarthy, the GOP Leader represents the elite part of the city. I would never have thought that I would actually leave.

I always dreamt that I would move to Boston, but that was it, simply a dream. Now do not get me wrong, I love my hometown. I would not change my background at all because it has constructed much of who I am as a person. Yet, I wanted more. Since a young age, I read book after book and would drag my mom to Borders with my money that I would save from Avon sales. Seriously, I sold Avon since I was six.

There was always the weight of expectation that I would go far, and GW has helped place me on the threshold of this idea I have of success. I owe much of it to the Institute I am a part of as they took me in and taught me that my resume, networking, and business cards were essential. Yes, I know that sounds very GW of me but the difference at the Institute was that they taught me not to lose myself in the process of trying to make money moves.

Now having worked three jobs with a full course load, I can admit I got lost. It’s okay to get lost. It happens, DC sucks you in, but the important part is that you remember the 9 to 5 life will always be there. College will not always be there.

I came in thinking I was going to major in Political Science and join Congress or become a lobbyist. I still crack myself up when I thought I was going to law school (future Evelyn if you do end up going to law school, I am impressed). However, GW has taught me that every door is open right now and I should never close myself off to what could turn into a passion.

I took one class, the famous Latinos in the US class in the American Studies department, and I fell in love. Dr. Peña’s class made me want to learn more and became the only course at GW that was actually about the culture and body politic. The following semester I took a Spanish class that covered many of my favorite stories, plays, all type of literature and again fell in love.

I realized that culture is much more important to me than theories that try to encompass everyone into a box. We are much more than a box. We are a community that is so diverse within itself and no one can take that away.

Recently I was at a dinner with middle and upper-class white individuals and I automatically felt that I had to prove myself. I wanted to take out my resume and say, “look I am good enough to sit with you and have the position that I hold here.” But why should I have to prove anything to anyone but myself? Why do I have to make sure that my American Studies degree is marketable when it is a passion of mine that I love to study?

I finally realized that it was to make it to that 9 to 5 job which sure pays you and you can do fun things with money (*internal sigh* oh capitalism). I wish I had that privilege that my white counterparts had, major in Art History and not fret about the limited job opportunities. I have to worry every day that I make the right decisions, so I can live on my own and beat statistics that I am automatically placed against because of the color of my skin.

Now you’re probably wondering well what are you going to do? I do not know, all I know right now is that I want to keep on reading and hustling without over doing it. This stigma around GW that you need to run around like a chicken without its head is overrated and you lose yourself along the way.