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Birth
I was born in November twelve nineteen ninety-five to a biracial family consisting of my Mexican Mother and my Iraqi Father. From then on I would have to face my multicultural heritage and any discrimination I would be subject to based on events within the country I was born in. -
Separation
Not even a year old and I was dealt a bad hand. My father was not a U.S citizen and because of this I was faced with having to have him stripped away from me. So from then on my mother and I would have to live without a father and husband. Even only being a few months old and having no clear understanding about the political nature of this country the impact this had on my life was unexplainable. -
Confusion
I remember being in first grade and seeing kids being pulled out of class by their parents. I had no idea what was going on and I had no idea that an action caused by a group of extremists would alter my treatment in school. From then on politicians would constantly spread negative stereotypes on Middle Easterners and with the subsequent war on Iraq I was question just how my family would be impacted. -
My Introduction to the Internet
I distinctively remember my last day of first grade. I passed with all A's and perfect attendance so my mother and the family we were living with decided to congratulate me with a present, my first ever computer. I wasn't literate when it pertained to computers but little did I know that my first passion would develop from this. -
Finally Together Again
I distinctively remember the Friday before my fourth grade Spring Break. As I crossed the street to get into my mother's car I remember seeing a silhouette on the passenger side and when I entered the car there was my dad. After eight years I finally saw my dad and it could come at a better time than Spring Break as I was able to ask him questions and become multiculturally literate on my family. -
Learning about my heritage
By this time I wouldn't say I was an expert when it came to computers but I was lucky enough to have a neighbor that was nice enough to take time out of his day to teach me. Seeing how I was finally able to talk to my dad I decided that I would look up as much information on my Middle Eastern heritage and culture. The negative of doing that was the amount of hate Iraqis would recieve after the 9/11 attacks. I was slowly becoming literate on computers as I spent hours trying to find information. -
A New Name
As I started my second year of Middle School I had the unfortunate pleasure of facing a flurry of racist comments. I realized that as the students were older they were able to understand many of the grievences amongst the American population and seeing how I was Middle Eastern and Hispanic I faced the obvious issues. I had to deal with being called a terrorist or any reference to 9/11 and the obvious illegal immigration issues. As I was politically literate I knew it spawned from fear mongering. -
My Family
While I was biracial and I did meet my Mexican family at a young age I was never able to meet my father's family. It wasn't until my Sixteenth birthday that my family decided to visit me and the amount of information I learned from them was unimaginable. It easily helped me respect my heritage that much more. -
My Passion
I didn't realize until I became older just how much of an impact technology, specifically computers, would have on my life. I became literate in computers and through hard work and experience was able to build computers and code. I realized just how much of an impact the internet had on the world and how it was capable of helping the world. With that I became extremely literate on computers and I found myself completely focusing my attention on them.
