Marc

 I thought the book American Like Me by America Ferrera was powerful. It's not easy to share such personal experience and struggles let alone share how those experiences impacted your own identity. A good handful of these storytellers are widely known celebrities, so it's nice to see the platform that comes with their name being used to spread positive information about embracing your own and different cultures.  A lot of times there are conceived barriers in cultural differences. For example, an immigrant from India may not feel relatable to an immigrant from a different country, but this book is a great example of the opposite. Yes, there'll naturally be cultural differences, but the struggles and the effects of those struggles are both very alike. In the book, Reshma shared her struggles with her name and how her name itself gave her a second identity in America. Similarly, America Ferrera faced issues with the constant teasing of her name to the point where she started

The Sleep Paralysis Mystery The dreadful phenomenon of paralysis and the demons that lay over you. I want you to imagine flopping into bed and immediately falling asleep. When you wake up, you realize your mind is conscious but your body weighs heavily, unable to move. Does this sound terrifying? Now, try to scream for help and you’ll notice that you’re temporarily mute.  From a very young age, many of my own peaceful nights were disturbed by this occurrence. On some nights, I opened my eyes to see a black shadow in the shape of a man vulturing over my sleeping body. The more I panicked, the darker the experience. As I calmed myself down, the paralysis would begin to fade away. This is referred to as sleep paralysis. The technical definition of sleep paralysis is a transitional state that occurs when a person experiences a temporary inability to react, move, or speak while asleep, falling asleep, or on awakening from sleep. But even then the words fail to do the experience justice. Th

I enjoy when people share stories on their upbringing, so when Professor Hansen gave a quick run down on the books we would be selecting from I chose American Like Me. On top of the intrigue that comes from story telling, I felt pulled by this book because I share similarities with the writers in the sense that I was also raised in between cultures. Aside from being raised in American, one side of my family is from Mexico, and the other side is from Ecuador. Ultimately, the strong connection I felt with the book was my reason for picking it up, and I was not let down. America Ferrera combines so many different cultures into one book and allows for a diverse group to share their voice. Although I really enjoyed reading about all of the different stories on the experiences of living life between cultures, I resonated with Al Madrigal's story the most. Al Madrigal shared stories on his family's strategies to save every dime possible. The four lessons his dad shared were the follow

Barista When you tell people that you worked at Starbucks as a barista expect the question of “what’s your guys’ best drink?” I never ordered Starbucks up until the point of working there, but on the rare occasion I go back as a customer I will order a brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso. Now that we have that out of the way, for all of you non-coffee addicts, the job of a barista includes making coffee based drinks, but at Starbucks add refreshers and blended drinks to that list. For the arm and leg that customers give up buying a drink, I tried my best to make sure they leave out the door happy. Each morning I clocked into my shift, I served three different roles: Opener Barista Greeter Opener My opening shift usually lasted from 4:30 am till about 9:30 am. I woke up at 3:30 am to get myself ready for work and the school day. On the bright side, a coffee shop and a tired worker are a match made in heaven.  My opening shift started with prepping for the doors to open at 5:00 am. I tu