My Why

 I never expected to be a part of the nonprofit world. Growing up in an immigrant family my mind was always fixated on trying to find a job that will get me the most profit in order for my parents to have their American dream fulfilled. According to Merriam- Webster the definition of this phrase can be defined as “a happy way of living that is thought of by many Americans as something that can be achieved by anyone in the U.S. especially by working hard and becoming successful”, but what does that really mean. Everyone has their own version of what happiness and success means to them. To me, it means making my family proud, but it also means taking the opportunities and life experiences I have and using them to help others. I understand that although I come from an immigrant family, I have the privilege of being born as a citizen of the United States. I understand I have privileges, but I also had to navigate school, college, and the workforce on my own. My mother was the one of the eldest daughters of 12 children. She was expected to cook, clean, and help raise her younger siblings. This meant she was only able to get an elementary education. By the time I had passed my mothers level of education I could no longer rely on her to help explain schoolwork, use technology, or understand the evolving world around us. Growing up in a city where the population was composed of majority Hispanic and or immigrant families, I noticed that there were many families that struggled in similar ways. I saw a need but did not understand what to do. 

This began to bother me as I entered college undecided in my major. How is it that I could accomplish my goal of being the first in my family to attend college but not know what to do once I got there. During college, I was given the opportunity to work alongside one of these after school programs for middle schoolers. The program provided the positive approach to learning, team building and mentorship. Although I was the adult, the students had control over ice breakers and discussions, their voice was the one that mattered. I learned so much from watching these students grow and learn.

 I stated to gain connections within the school and managed to start my own program teaching Japanese. This was essential to me because I was starting this program at my old middle school, the same school where my interest in Japanese started. However, I made sure to do this in an untraditional way. With the students’ ideas and prior skills, we came up with a method of learning filled with games and activities that both helped the students engage in the lesson but also allow them to learn. Although time has passed, those middle schoolers are now college bound students that still remember some of the things we learned together all those years ago. I continued to do this work into my second year of college when I began a job working with a nonprofit youth organization, that’s goal was to help students in underserved communities work on their writing skills.

I noticed a trend, although I was undecided and running out of time to decide where my future would take me, I saw that my job history was leading me in a direction I did not know existed.

I loved what I did with the students but knew that teaching required state testing and mandates that would make me regret being a schoolteacher. I wanted the best of both worlds, to teach and learn from students while giving the students a voice and allow their words to have power. To allow youth the choice to learn what they see as important and talk about things that the average classroom might not. 

I sat on my college’s website reading every major and making a pro and con list of anything that seemed to resonate with me. I wanted to make my family proud and chose a job that will give me profit for the future. To make their sacrifice of coming to this country worth it, but I also wanted to be passionate about what I did. The thought of a desk job in a for profit companies did not bring me joy. I wanted to have a career doing what I did at the middle school. I wanted to help inspire students, to not only teach them but learn from them. I wanted to be an adult that understood what it was like to be a student, to be a success story, a role model that looked like them and understood what it was like to have family from somewhere else. I was passionate about that work but as I read the list of majors, I could not find anything similar and right as I was losing hope, until I read the final major on the list, Youth Development. 

“If you would like to lead with youth to make a better world, we invite you to join the YDEV Program at RIC”. The description was as if it was taken from my mind. 

My family has always been a driving force for me, I always wanted to make them proud. It seems like a selfless goal, but this goal always brought immense pressure. I needed to be the ones to make my parents proud and I worried that my choice of major would be a disappointment. To please my family, I made it a point to always do what was asked of me. My family wanted a doctor or lawyer, but I could never see myself as such. When I chose Youth Development as my major, I went against my family and finally did something for myself, something I could see myself enjoying. I worried about my future and making the wrong choice but something about youth development spoke to me. 

Now, I am a proud youth worker, working for a nonprofit organization that provides support to first generation students and families. My path here has not been linear; however, it was the path I had to create. As the famous lines written by Robert Frost goes; “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”.