New Year… New Scares

Imagine the world you want to have by the New Year, imagine the type of person you want to be. As I look around in my room, I see vinyl records, a college banner, Polaroid pictures on the wall, painting and drawings, stacked books, and Christmas lights hanging on the wall. Everything is I; I made it to my reflection and everything I am. I still don’t know what I want to do in life and that scares me but the reality is…the future scares everybody no matter what age you are in. Nobody wants to be told that they will never win more than $9.50 the hour for the rest of their life. Nobody wants to be told that they will have to live on a limb to barely have clothes on their body because they barely win money. However, nobody knows the future…I could go from being broke to a millionaire in a second if I put the right numbers for the lottery or if I could suddenly be famous because I am genuinely funny or I invented something so useless that people feel the need to purchase it because it feels convenient to have. Anything could happen and anything could vanish just make sure to prioritize the right things from the bad.

Equality

I was was given a assignment for my history class to write a essay about the American Ideals and I feel so strongly empowered by one of my paragraphs:

Equality is the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities. Equality was highly mentioned in the Declaration of Independence however was it really promised to Americans? No, not at all. Slavery is one of the most inhumane things you can do to a human being, and for America to create the 13th Amendment took more than a hundred years later after the Declaration of Independence is a shame. But after slavery stopped the injustice doesn’t end, the worst part is there weren’t any Civil Rights made! How long did that take? The Civil Right laws were made in 1968, another hundred years after the 13th Amendment was made. In other words, it took the United States of America 200 years to fulfill equality for minorities all over America. The sad part is that some people had to die for these rights and that many of the most close-minded people ran this country for all that time. Equality certainly hasn’t been the most present ideal in America and probably won’t ever be. Today, there is a lot of controversy about the injustice between the 99% and 1% percent of America and gay marriage. With this being said, there is certainly no equality in America and there if there were a day for it to come hopefully I can be alive to see it.

This idea was produced in the making of my essay and I strongly stand for it. 

Communities and Music

The power of music is extremely important to our culture of human beings. Different types of music always evoke a different feeling and thats what create our personal genres. For example, in my phone I have different playlist in my phone one labeled “Party” the other “Workout” obviously the “Party” playlist evokes happy and a dance-y feeling whilst the “Workout” playlist gives a more empowering feeling.

Everyone has their own preferences, with that being said it is self explanatory. There are people who just like country while other like dubstep and they disagree with each other sometimes. Personally, I am the type of person who says “I like all types of music” but if I am true to myself then I lied. I don’t like country and I don’t like certain rap artist. I could be very picky with country and it is very hard for me to like a song. As for rap, it is completely different. I don’t like the ignorant rap music which talks about killing people and being ignorant towards lower class communities. I myself come from a lower class community, I am what most call a “minority” because my parents are from El Salvador. I proudly say I am a Salvadorian American because I have pride for both the United States and El Salvador. I also have pride from where I come from, born and raised in South Central Los Angeles where the 40s, Crips and Bloods are from. False, growing up I hardly saw the stereotypical gangs shown above but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t blood spilled on these streets.

I remember one night, I was sitting next to the couch with my mother I was reading Beastly and my mother talking on the phone. Keep in mind, my father is pretty active in our backyard at night fixing our cars, listening to music or fixing his job car to work the next day while listening to music or just relaxing with music. So we heard some gunshots and my mother quickly ducked my head down which wouldn’t do much protection since the couches were so old they sunk down leaving the back piece taller. Anyway, curiosity got the best of mother and she lifted her head and peeked up. It was on the other side of the street and it stopped. The night was quiet and we didn’t see anybody move so we calmed down. My father came inside and we told him what happened. He said he didn’t hear or see anything. The police came and interviewed everyone of us and we said “I saw nothing but I heard it.” It is better that way. After the police left my father told my mother that he was outside walking around the house to the lawn he saw the man running away from the killer. He was stumbling and thats when the killer finished him off. He was unseen because he hid in back of one of the cars and he saw everything. Days after the murder in my street, the a black Jeep passed my street everyday. Thats why we didn’t say anything, they were finishing off witnesses and my dad was one of them. Till this day, we don’t know what truly happened but hopefully there was justice for the mans death.

Maybe thats why I am very protective of my native community because I say there are gang members everywhere, there is drugs everywhere and there is certainly killers and most importantly there are good people everywhere. We are oppressed because most of us don’t make more than 50,000-40,000 dollars a year but we have each other. In my family there was hunger days and there were full days but through all these stereotypical assholes we are still people and we are not what the media says we are.

To me its a fucking shame that people won’t even get a chance to see how happy we are being minorities because once you’ve lived through the hate and shaming there is nothing after that that can stop you from being happy.

So fuck you ignorant rappers.

Two Types of Parents

The Clingy

Its self explanatory, “The Clingy”, to be straight to the point – it’s the type of parent who wants to know everything that their children is doing. There are perks of this type of parent and there are cons to it too…believe me…I am living it. Although it isn’t that bad, I like my mom being the type of person who wants to know everything – it made me feel safe when I was in my lowest. However the judgmental side of her comes when I get into mistakes for when I need help. Then that pisses me off, just thinking of the many times she did things for me and I could have done myself didn’t fuck me over at the moment but when I had to do it myself it was hard. She had “babied” me so much that sometimes I don’t even know how to do things and I struggle so much when I really needed it. So through constant failure and embarrassment I learned how to do it myself. For example, when I was fifteen my mom signed me up for Confirmation class. Now the coordinator didn’t exactly like my mother nor me and I did either. She went to go talk to her and well shit went bad shit after that. So a few months later the coordinator called me out of class and literally tried to shame me in front of my own teacher. I (metaphorically) rolled my sleeves up and thought to myself I am not going to be a fucking bitch, I would rather be fucking dead before this bitch thinks she can talk shit without me saying shit to her. Anyway, I fought with her but lost my pride when I began crying because I couldn’t hit her. I knew then that my argument would be taken as a joke. After that verbal fight, I had another one and I didn’t stutter, I didn’t cry, I didn’t even blink. And that moment, I knew that when I cried I left that childish bullshit behind and continued to be me but with a feisty trophy on my side.

The Self-reliant

Just like the “The Clingy”, “The Self-reliant” is just as self explanatory – the parent expects their children to be independent and grown up from the start. I couldn’t really think of it not being ideal but in one way – the self-reliant parent isn’t always there in serious situations and that isn’t good. However the self-reliant child is more likely to be independent and they have more chances to succeed in the real world. For example, my father would be the perfect example of the self-reliant parent, he works all day and in order to not fuck that up don’t fuck around – simple as that. My father loves and although he has only went to only two of my parent conferences in my whole life it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about me. He does care about my grades and he does care about my life but he can’t always be around. He can’t always be there when I am sick, I have to toughen up and take medicine then leave it in the past. My father is all about progression and fun while my mother is about fixing problems and bringing up the past to fix the new. Both parents have different ways of parenting but both give the same message: Don’t fuck around and don’t fuck up because I either don’t have time or I don’t want to pass through that so be fucking good and keep moving forward.