Why Dream? ~ An Autobiography

    Fortitude, perseverance, strength, grit, guts, Endurance. All of us have had to endure many challenges in life, physical and psychological, what we do with those experiences defines who we are. In my humanities class, Endurance, we have been exploring what it means to endure and what it takes to do so. 

    In this first chunk of the class, we learned about (or were refreshed on) Morpheus, a fictional character in The Matrix franchise. We recalled the choice he gives the main character, red pill or blue pill, wake up or keep dreaming, and we each made our choice. We refreshed ourselves on the concept of a hero's journey and how it affects you and the people around you, not just fictional characters. 

    We thought about our own hero's journey and where we were on the 12 step journey as well as what our strengths and weaknesses are. Using this information we developed our own mission statement, something a lot of companies and people develop over time. Mine so far is: My mission in life, what makes me feel the most fulfilled, is creating things that make people react. Especially when the reaction falls under; represented, seen, understood, loved. I want to create for the people who don’t have anything made for them. 

    We conducted some experiments to test our own endurance like holding an ice cube in our fists for a minute (I made it to 2 minutes :D). We have also begun to read Night by Elie Wiesel to study one of the most unimaginable endurance situations in human history, the Holocaust. Full of all types of endurance: psychological, mental,  and emotional.

    For this Action Project (AP), we were to write the first chapter of our autobiography, explaining the first steps of our hero's journey and identifying how our childhood and adolescence shape our mission in life. So, here is chapter one of my autobiography; Why Dream?

~ Chapter 1 ~

Why Does it Bother You so Much?

    Why does it bother you so much? A question I’ve been asked each time I show my passion for representation. Every time I point out insensitivity, humiliation, stereotyping, or jokes at the expense of a physical trait, I get asked the same question. Why does it bother you so much? I could never verbalize my explanation in a reasonable amount of time, so I’ve written an entire book to tell you why. I never ever saw or read about someone like me, and I ingested a LOT of media so how was that possible? How was it possible that every teen scholastic book was about a white, fit, teenager who was so average but had everyone pining for them? How was it possible that every novela I watched with my mom only had light-skinned, skinny actors? How was it possible to only see people who were so outrageously in the gender binary? How was it possible that all of these characters are so very heterosexual?     The only times I saw anyone who was overweight in media was for a gag or for comic relief; the only times I saw someone gay they were evil or the villain; the only times I saw people of color was to include a problematic race joke; the only times I was people out of the gender binary they were the joke. It bothered me immensely, but I didn’t know how to articulate these feelings. Every time I tried I was stabbed with the same question: Why does it bother you so much?     I was flipping through channels on TV and stumbled on a channel 11 show I hadn’t watched in so long, Wild Krattz. I was brought in by the information on wildlife and technologically built superpowers, and I stayed for the characters. The main characters were real-life zoologists Martin and Chris Kratt who showed me that you can be a guy who is kind, empathetic, smart, and caring. Koki, an African-American mechanical engineer and computer expert, was one of the first instances of POC (people of color) representation I ever saw that was not based on stereotypes. She is smart, determined, serious, sarcastic, and she is not afraid to speak her mind. Then there’s Aviva, a Latinx engineer and inventor, and the leader of the Kratt brothers' support team. She is kind, confident, incredibly smart, competitive, and loving.     Aviva was the first instance where I saw someone, outside of Hispanic novelas, that was Latinx and wasn’t a caricature. Koki is also someone I found to be very comforting because she didn’t really fall into the gender binary and was as sarcastic as I am. I was ecstatic to see different types of people, especially in a kids' show! But, it wasn’t enough. I wanted more media with POC, gender non-conforming people, people with different body shapes, I wanted diversity.     I thought everyone was interested in seeing different types of people, as an artist I am fascinated by people. I love drawing the details of people that make them unique, a birthmark, a scar, an asymmetrical face, everything I wasn’t seeing in media. I would absolutely hate having to draw the same type of face over and over, yet, I was seeing the same face over and over. This was not just in media, my entire 900-student middle school was Hispanic or Latinx, with 1 or 2 African American children. There were still different body shapes and people were from different Spanish-speaking countries; but the culture was all the same, the sexuality was supposedly all the same, everything felt sterile.     In high school I was so lucky to have met so many different types of people, I learned so much from them and I was so inspired by them! GCE opened my eyes even further to inequality and the lack of representation and inspired my biggest project yet. I had taken a class about game design and I fell in love with the process. I spent months creating my very own board game, HUSKS. My main goal was to make a diverse, small, and fun board game. I spent months working on it, and I loved the outcome. I know it’s not the best board game ever, but when I put it on Kickstarter and I got messages back from backers I felt so fulfilled and happy. I had people emailing me from all over the world about how they never saw themselves in board games. I never thought I could reach people in Puerto Rico or Italy with my little game, and yet I did!

 Ok, yeah but, why does it bother you so much?

    Jeez, I’m getting there man...The truest answer is because I almost lost my life to not being like the people I saw in media. I had a similar experience to actor and LBGTQ+ activist, Laverne Cox. She and I both felt like we weren’t acting the way we were “supposed” to act (according to our assigned sex). She and I were also bullied for years in school, and we both attempted suicide at an early age. It was hard for me to stop starving myself, self-harming, and just utterly hating myself. Laverne is an inspiration to me and I try to follow in her footsteps. She has come so far and has so much further to go. She survived and became an award-winning actor, activist, and icon.

    I survived too, but there are many who don’t. I never want anyone to feel the way I have or do what I have done to my body. I want people to be happy and comfortable with themselves and who they are. I want people to be kind, loving, and tolerant. That starts with information and representation. If my small board game managed to reach 60 or so people and change their perspective or make them feel seen, I have begun the change I want to see.     From the first kids' show I saw with representation, I knew that was what I needed to do, I needed to push, fight, and create representation to the world. I am stronger having lived through the psychological hell that was middle school, the physical damage I made to myself, and the pain and frustration of knowing about inequality without knowing the solution. I am learning every day to love myself, and I want to help others do the same so that no one has to pass through what I did. If you are not disappointed in where we are as a society, you haven’t opened your eyes. If you do not feel like the world needs to be remade, you are not listening enough. Why does all of this not bother you? There is so much to fight for, so many to fight for. Your fight may be physical, it may be mental, it might even be creative, but you must fight. If not for you, for those around you, for your children, family, friends who may be fighting a losing battle within themselves.     I always dreamed of remaking the world into a better and kinder place, I still want to remake the world. I have remade the world, and I will continue to remake the world until it is a better and kinder one. I will continue to fight because all this bothers me so much, and I know it needs to be fixed, and I know I can help fix it. So, I will.

GGS. Me. 2021.