I chose social work as a major because I have always had a great desire to work with people of different cultures and backgrounds. In the social work program I have been given the opportunity to learn a great deal about diversity and cultural awareness. Coming from a biracial background myself has helped me to see the importance, difference, significance, and variety that culture and diversity brings with it from personal experience. All of my life I have lived with the influence and bringing up of two cultures at home and another culture at school and work since my family and I migrated to the U.S. when I was five years old. It has not always been easy to juggle the three but it has thought me the treasure that culture holds within it and the effect that it has on a person’s life.

Being in the social work program and getting field experience with all types of ethnicities including the Latino community, has put a greater desire inside of me to be able to lend out a helping hand to those who are in need. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be able to work with the Latino community and many others along with it in my internship at the UC Davis Medical Center in the Clinical Social Services Department.

My goals for the future are to work in a hospital setting as a medical social worker. In this setting I will be exposed to a variety of populations, people, cultures, and problem areas that I will be able to help patients and their families with. As a hospital social worker I will have the opportunity to work with individual patients of all ages from children, teens, young adults, to the elderly. Not only will I be able to work with individuals one-on-one but with their families and group settings as well. In this setting I will be working with the Latino community due to the remarkable growth of this community in the Sacramento area.

As a medical social worker I would like to be able to bring educational knowledge, a support system, encouragement, resources, and empowerment to each patient because they deserve it and need it in order to make it through for the better. As a social worker I would also like to bring about the importance of cultural awareness into the lives of each patient and each family member that I come into contact with. This will not be an easy task but I feel that it is a critical one because being culturally aware of the people around you is a very important aspect with the growth of expanding diversity in California. Being culturally aware of other ethnicities will help each individual to understand and be able to get along better with people of different ethnical background from themselves. In the medical setting I will be able to have the hands on opportunity to make a change in the lives of many people from various ethnic backgrounds, one patient and his/her family at a time. As a social worker I would like to be able to make a change no matter how little or big it is because every little change adds up one by one and turns into a great difference.

Before gaining an education, I was lost within the struggles that I had found myself in and was discouraged given the lack of resources in my community. I felt challenged to find optimism amidst the physical environment in which this hopelessness seem to take residence. I began to enact my hopes and dreams once I decided to enter a community college. The outpouring of support from students, professors and college counselors who had faced similar issues gave me this hope. In that moment in time a realization surfaced for me that changed my own self-perception. My passion began in helping others who were also disenfranchised; others who did not know they had the potential to dream. Throughout my college years I maintain a high GPA, and was awarded two Outstanding Women’s Awards from faculty at Sacramento City College for academic excellence and student achievement. I volunteered at the Women’s Wisdom Project, a therapeutic art program helping abused women cope with trauma. The experience of having a child who was diagnosed with a developmental disability exercised my skills in advocacy and opens my awareness into the disabled population in the community. My leadership skills were strengthened by being an active member of the Parent Advisory Committee at the Sacramento City College’s child development center which helps low income parents receive child care services while enrolled in school. There I volunteer to organize fundraisers, plan social events for the center, be an advocate for parents regarding child care issues and obtain community resources for families in need. While in school, I chose to become employed to work with college students that have disabilities because of my value in empowering others.

Presently as a student at CSUS in the social work program as an intern, I have been given the experience of working at the Healthy Start program at Sacramento City Unified School District. My internship at Will C. Wood’s Healthy Start Program will allow me to bring more awareness to the disadvantages and hardships that Latino youth face such as language barriers, immigration issues poverty, gangs, drugs, truancy and other matters related to their school home and community. Yet the opportunity to obtain a quality education and be active in their communities is attainable with a sufficient amount of resources. The main goals that I have working with Latino youth will be beneficial to the Latino population as a whole because opportunities for Latinos in the U.S. depend on them acquiring, more political, social, and economic power to strengthen their representation nationally.

With my accomplishments and life experiences, I transcend many challenges. The values that I hold exceed gaining a higher education to only benefit me and my family. College has allowed me to envision my potential as a future leader, and has positioned me to see that others, who were also underprivileged, deserved what many had never been exposed to, an education. I accept responsibility to not only be an example for my own children, but also for the Latino youth. Because being connected to my community can create optimal conditions for success, for that reason I chose to become a social worker. I select a degree in social work for the fact that it is a helping profession. My future goals include obtaining a Master’s degree in Social Work with a concentration on community organizing, policy analysis, and advocacy. As a social worker, I will put effort towards expanding social services, social programs, and social policies that affect underrepresented people.

I have two Bachelor of Arts degrees from Sonoma State University, Spanish and Chicano/Latino Studios and a minor in Sociology. I identify myself as Mexican, French, German and Irish, but most identify as being Chicana. I started learning Spanish in elementary school. My mother was taking Spanish classes at the local community college and would came into my classroom once a week to teach Spanish to my class in first, second and third grade.

I first traveled to Mexico in the summer of 1998. I went with my mom and we traveled to Colima, Colima, Mexico, where we were immersed into the culture by staying with a host family and taking classes. After that summer, I continued to return to Mexico on a yearly basis. My longest stay was in the summer of 2004 when I studied in Guadalajara, Mexico, for two months. When I returned in the fall 2004, I was offered a job through the Migrant Education Advisor Program. I held this job for three years at two middle schools in Sonoma Valley, Ca. I was the advisor to migrant children and helped them with academics, social and personal issues, problems at home and most importantly, I became their liaison so that they would not fall through the cracks of the school and be left behind. I stayed with Migrant Education until I graduate from Sonoma State in the spring 2007.

Through my education and my travel, I have gained much admiration for the Latino community. I believe that Latinos are the underdogs of society, and I take great pride in pushing for the acceptance of Latinos by educating others and by squashing false stereotypes.

By being in the Master’s program, I have come to realize that in my profession, I want to work side by side with clients and be out in the field, rather than sitting behind a desk as an administrator. While administrators end up making policies and enforcing rules, social workers who work side by side with their clients end up making the differences of everyday life, even small differences. Being able to tell a Latino family that they can still receive services, even without citizenship papers, gives the family a great feeling of relief. It’s those differences that really matter.

I hope to continue to work for Child Protective Services once I graduate; there are so few Spanish-speaking social workers that it is essential that the Spanish-speaking community receives equal representation and be understood linguistically and culturally. Clients tend to be surprised when the first words that come out of my mouth are in Spanish. While my accent is not perfect, I am able to connect with clients on the linguistic level and, through conversation on the cultural level. I do not try to be anything that I am not.

To describe myself, I would say that I am a very caring, loyal, hard working, funny, perceptive, optimistic, good spirited woman. I pride myself on being a good listener and always encourage others to share what they are feeling or what is going on in their lives. I believe that discrimination and racism continue to exist, but I do not believe in participating in such behaviors.

I believe myself to an advocate for those without voices. While Latinos have the ability to organize rallies and marches, their voices deserve to be heard without prejudice, without bias, and without slanderous news coverage.