Original Terministic Screens

Growing up I knew that people saw the world differently than me but in a sense I didn’t understand how they could see things differently. I didn’t understand that our opinions, selves, and backgrounds shape how we see the world. Growing up I had many identity issues due to being adopted by white woman, growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood and going to a predominantly white school my whole life.

Growing up I genuinely thought I was a white straight woman. I had no clue how to connect to my roots, culture, or heritage. I never even wanted to because being “white” seemed easier. I grew up with white people and went to school with white people. I also was only friends with the white girls in my grade, and I never even realized I was the token friend of color. I didn’t even understand that that was a thing because I was so disconnected from the thought of even being a person of color. Along with that my moms never pushed me to learn about my culture or anything like that. As I grew up and between 8th-10th grade I resented my parents because of how they didn’t expose me to my culture or push me to connect with my Guatemalan heritage. Once I was older I was able to connect more to who I was deep down. High school was a good time for me in the sense of finding myself. I was able to join affinity groups and talk to people who had similar stories to me. But due to this identity crisis I dealt with and how I view myself now, my views on the world changed a lot.

Prior to starting to take the time to understand my identity I was not informed or as concerned with social issues or injustices. But around 8th grade when I started to do more work on myself and identity I started to become interested in social injustices and politics because I saw how they effected both me and my birth family and friends. I found that my experience shaped how I viewed the world and which social issues I gravitated towards. I became very much into protests and exploring my social justice side. The school I attended definitely played a hand in this because we did many projects where we could look into specific social issues.

I believe that the classes I was able to take in high school and my personal experiences really helped me shape my lens’. I think that without those difficulties I would never have developed the passion for social justice I have or have created this specific lens I have to view the world. Everyone has their own stories and backgrounds and those things shape how they see and perceive the world. If we all saw things the same there would be no diversity and nothing would be interesting. Everyone having their own views makes the world interesting, while you might not always agree with everyone it is interesting. I am proud of how my identity has changed/evolved and changed my outlook on the world.