The one movie I remember that widened my eyes in theaters was “Wall-E”. I was very small, probably 5, and going to the movies was always a tradition with my parents in Mexico. The scene where Wall-E, the main protagonist, was flying through space made me so obsessed, it was beautiful and left me in awe. That was one of the many times my breath was taken away in theaters. Art was something that drove me, it is a passion, my obsession. Ever since I can remember I always wanted to do something related to art. My mother taught me how to draw at first. Doing doodles of dresses and girls modeling them, it led me to want to be a fashion designer; however, after getting discouraged by a teacher I pursued other options in middle school. I moved back to the States in my 8th year, and my middle school had a new elective, “Animation Class”, by this time I had my interests in animation so I took my chance and selected it. It wasn’t the best, not going to lie since the class was fairly new and I had to draw with a mouse, but it did introduce me to programs like Photoshop, Animate and After Effects. As we were approaching graduation dates, we had a presentation to the possible electives one could choose for high school, and one of them was an animation class, which I had to wait until my second year to choose. I waited anxiously my first year of high school until I was able to choose it, though to get the class you had to be selected and have high grades. Nervously thinking I wasn’t going to make it, since there were other high school students that were applying outside of my own, it made me doubt myself. Thankfully I made it, and spent the following years of my high school submerged in that class. Up to day computers and technology, Wacoms, a 3D modeling and animation program, the Adobe Suite. This class had it all. My teacher was also a professional animator who taught us and helped us very thoroughly. She really encouraged me to pursue this passion of mine, and helped me improve my art skills via warm ups, and outside of my comfort projects and assignments. In my last year I finished an animated short with 6 other students. It was a hard assignment to complete but we managed to do it. After high school with my own resources I enrolled in a community college to further study animation. Which is where I am now. Drawing 24/7 I’m building up my portfolio and continuing to improve my art skills. Working to one day enter the industry and publish my own work as I continue to develop my stories. Art has always been with me, as a medium to tell stories and a way to vent pent up emotions and uncomfortable thoughts. And it will continue to be part of my daily life until I die. It’s my constant goal to take away the breath of my audience, to fascinate and entertain them, to spark passions! That is my one goal I want fulfilled, knowing my art touched someone just as others have touched me will be enough for me once I’m old and retired. Until then, I will work to achieve it.

Drawing has always been a passion to me, and thanks to the pandemic I had the time to cultivate my skills as an artist. During the summer of last year I enrolled in pre-college classes at an art school where I learned some tips about character design, illustration, and screenwriting. It was exciting to develop a character, writing a story for the and illustrate it. I also watched a lot of art tutorials on Youtube, which helped me discover other creators and platforms where I could post and share my art online, where I could receive feedback. The time I was at home was used to create stories, design characters, develop ideas and make concept art. I wish it could have been done with other people, as I enjoy other’s company, but I learned a lot about art, and my family. Especially my sibling, who came out as non-binary. We spend those summer nights talking and talking until we fell asleep late at night, discovering more about each other and bonding. I’ve never been too close to them before, and now I feel I cannot confide in anyone else. The pandemic gave me time to grow as an artist, and to rediscover a best friend.

Mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes, right? Wrong. The models, the heroes of our world don’t make mistakes, that’s foolish! Why else would they be heroes or models? The same reason older siblings’ mistakes seem bigger and almost written in bold letters, so the younger siblings don’t do them. That’s why when I would wet the bed at my 9 years of age, my parents would yell, punish me and use me as an example of what it is not to be a big kid. It didn’t matter that I had a problem with my bladder, oh no! Wetting the bed is a nefastus act that only babies do. And probably the reason why my younger sibling never peed the bed, ever. The older siblings are the heroes, the role models of the younger ones, we have the responsibility to set the example. Whether the example is good or bad, is another thing, but we are the ones that set the expectations, which is why we must never, ever, make mistakes. I understand the pain of being a younger sibling, we older brothers and sisters expect them to be our personal servants. They must also excel at our wins, or be on par with them, and are expected to avoid the same mistakes we did. However. They are the babies of the family. They might walk in the shadow of an older sibling, but aren’t the one carrying the burden of being showered in light, expected to cast the big shadow. We must pave the path for them, we have to. I have to. As a child, I was always showered with “How smart and cute your girl is!” “She will become someone successful!” “She could be a doctor” “A lawyer” “A teacher” Only for me to end up drawing for a living. It’s hard to please everyone, to explain what you want to do for a living, to explain how you won’t become a “starving artist.” My sibling on the other hand. They were never showered with expectations, but ended up wanting to be a veterinarian or a zoologist. Respectable careers! And they were able to choose this path on their own. They didn’t have the eyes of relatives, family friends, and teachers. They were free to do as long as it wasn’t worse than the older sibling’s choice. Which in my case, isn’t a lot of a big shadow I suppose, as artists aren’t considered to be the most important job, career choice, or the best paid one for that matter. Which led to my sibling being showered in compliments when they told our family what they wanted to do, and where they wanted to study. Which was Canada. Of course, my family has never had anyone go to university outside of Mexico, me being the first, and then my sibling who wanted to go up and beyond (a bit literary) with Canada. University is a whole other matter. Before coming here, my parents never thought of me going to the university. They wanted me of course, but the thought wasn’t as present as the parents here in the U.S. And once I started high school in America, they finally realized that “Oh… She will eventually go to the university… Crap!” Needless to say we did not know how or what to do. I sort of understood what would happen, since the teachers would tell us to do assignments around us picking universities or majors, but I never took them seriously or thought seriously of them. I just did the assignments as told. Then, in my Sophomore year, it slapped me on the face. Suddenly I had friends who were preparing to go to university, who applied to dorms, and scholarships and I became overwhelmed. My dad helped me a bit, but with the little he knew, of course. I was suddenly hit with the realization that I had to apply, somehow. But instead of taking action, my brain decided to flip into “attack or flight” mode and decided to just ignore it, that it will eventually be solved. Junior year passed, (COVID happened) and I still hadn’t taken any action except for the SAT. And then, my Senior year comes. “Oh... I need to apply, and quickly!” It didn’t help me that I had to do virtual work the first month with a bunch of distractions at home (seven distractions to be exact). The first semester passes too quickly, but I manage to apply to some universities and colleges at the last moment. My parents behind me, and my family as well. I still hadn’t applied to scholarships, since I barely had time to do all my school work, apply, sleep, eat, and take a break every now and then. I also needed to hone my artistic skills. I needed to create at least 10 pieces for a portfolio to apply to art schools, which proved impossible and expensive. Even with all the scholarships those schools were too expensive, so I decided to give them up. And so I ended up with three options. I began to apply to more scholarships, and… Oh look at this, we’ve arrived to the present! I still need to be the best big sister for my sibling, I need to go through this nightmare so when I wake up I can help my sibling into making it less stressful. I’ll be able to help them, hopefully. Then I’ll prove to my family that no, I won’t become a starving artist, and I’ll make the biggest mistakes—if I haven’t made those before—so my sibling can avoid those paths. If life was a minefield, I’d have gone through a lot of mines, but now my sibling can see where they were, and go through less mines than me. It’s hard to be the person taking all of this stress and weight, but if it’ll help my sibling in the future, then it would not have been in vain.

As I first moved to the U.S. I didn’t know what I was about to encounter. I had been told how the “gringos” didn’t like us Mexicans, but I didn’t quite think about it. It was just grown-up talk. Until I met my fourth-grade teacher, who was pretty racist. She not only expected me to understand the whole language in the two months that I had lived in, but she stressed me out and made me cry out of frustration about my incompetence for not being able to understand the language. I was never a bad student, in Mexico I did all the school work, volunteered to help the teachers hand out papers, helped my classmates with work and questions and was a top student. But here, I was apparently the worst student, for she never ceased to call on me for every little thing. The students didn’t make it better, they never spoke Spanish and if they did, it was broken and mixed with English, so I couldn’t quite understand them. They would talk behind my backs, drama would occur around me. Mostly by the girls in my classroom or by their friends in other classrooms. Another year passed, and during fifth grade, major changes occurred. My past teacher was—thankfully—fired from the school, because my parents found out what had been happening and told the principal about it. And after they complained about her, some other parents began to say that their children had also experienced racism from her, but hadn’t spoken because of the fear of getting deported, as most didn’t have legal papers. That year, my English began to slowly improve thanks to the nicest teacher ever in my fifth grade class. I was able to write and read fairly quickly, but speaking it and listening was hard. So, I dedicated myself to that, to master writing and reading in English. I read two to three books per week during summer break from the library, and I paid extreme attention to my English classes about writing essays to compensate for my lack of speaking ability. I consumed more English content, tv series, online videos, webcomics, etc. But as I began to improve and to attend AP English classes, I’ve realized that I’m losing my Spanish fluency. I couldn’t write as well as I used to, and most of the media I consume is in English now. I used to read so many Spanish books, and big ones. I’ve always loved reading, but now, I feel as if I’m forgetting an essential part of myself. So I have begun to seek more Spanish media, and one of the films that have recently inspired me to look more into my country was Coco. Disney movies are one of the few movies I saw in Spanish, and because of nostalgia I have always watched Disney movies in Spanish. Besides they are one of the few animation companies that actually try to dub into different languages without using the same 10 voice actors most Spanish dubbed movies have. (If you have watched Spanish dubs you know what I’m talking about, you’ve heard those same voices in almost every movie.) I want to share part of my heritage through my art, I want to become an animator, and maybe create my own series or movie that connects with my roots. I want to show the world how rich our culture is, and I want other young Latinx artists to become inspired, like I did, so they can share their own cultures, and feel represented in the media. My dream is to create a publishing company and a free art school in Mexico so everyone can achieve a career in the arts, by being able to publish their artwork, or writing, or by being able to learn the skills to become professional artists. I often find that there are more obstacles here in the U.S. for Latin American immigrants seeking the “American Dream” than they would actually encounter in their country. In Mexico there is discrimination, and a lot of sexism, but at least they wouldn’t get discriminated because they are Mexicans. My art teacher in elementary school was really racist as well, and would always ignore my art, even though she would talk about all the other kids’ art, I would always get excluded. This made me feel very insecure about my art, and I don’t want anyone to feel like that. That’s why I want to bring opportunities to my country, so future generations don’t have to deal with the fear of being discriminated against. I don’t want them to feel like they have to give up a part of themselves to become well accustomed to the U.S. as if being Mexican or Latino isn’t good enough. I don’t want them to risk their lives trying to cross a desert and a dangerous river just because getting a visa is stupidly difficult and expensive. I want to change my country’s economy, so the north doesn’t have to rely on drugs, or the government on oil, since it’s very damaging to our environment and it gives us a bad reputation. I want to better my country, and share our culture with the world.