Of gender? Oh my gosh I think I-I-I was lucky. I had these amazing women who were apart of  my life. People in my life that have been really important like mi abuela, and my mother, and mis tias, and they’re like I still like I talk to my mom every day, well except for Saturdays and Sundays we take a break there but on my commute into work I call my mother and if you are in the office, in my office,  waiting for me at nine am you will probably hear me talking to her on the phone as I, I’m like  “Mommy I’m here! Yeah, I gotta go, yeah, yeah, I love you too yes kisses, besos, okay ciao.” But every day we check in uhm cause I don’t live close by, but she’s very important to me. Uhm I have a sister who right now is in Colombia, she’s very also very important   me as I said my grandmother she was, got some of the memories of like when you’re  a child. She’s, she’s in all of them and, and so when I was trying to figure out who I was as a woman, they’re the ones that shaped me like we just had international women’s day, right and, and you know I still, I get messages from all of my tias and all of my mom and it’s like, “Feliz dia, Feliz dia, Feliz dia, happy day, happy day” and it’s whether it’s because, you know, being a mother, or passing on who you are, or figuring out um what, what does it mean to be a woman.

Being a woman, for me has been key in the work that I do. I always wondered, when I was at home, I was one of those people that questioned a lot like, why are relationships the way that they are? Why do we get treated or not treated the way that we get treated? Why do I get questioned when I want to do something, but my cousins don’t? My male cousins don’t. Why does my grandmother expect me to clean up after my uncles? That was a conversation that I always wanted to have but I never had the language to. When I got to Penn State, and I once started going to all my woman’s study classes I was like, “Oh my goodness! There is a word called patriarchy, let me, let’s, we got to have this conversation.” And learning to claim that conversation without hurting my culture and reconciling it like yes, my culture has a lot of negative gender roles and pieces, but we also have some amazing, amazing stuff.

Gender is a big thing; we keep talking about it.