Maria Carmen Sierra (September 25, 1973-until this day)

My mother is the one person whom I can’t live without. She is my baby, my love, my sweetie and the one person, I know, will give her life in exchange for mine, without thought. I am here, where I am, able to write about such a wonderful woman thanks to her. If it wasn’t for my mother always supporting me and providing me with the care and love only a mother can give, I will be simply lost doing who knows what. She inspires every day of my life. She has given me that strength to feel like I can move mountains and rivers if I set my mind to it. She is everything to me.


This amazing woman was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, a September afternoon. She lived in Cueramaro, a small town in Guanajuato, for three years. At the age of three she immigrated along with two of her older sisters (my aunts), to the United States. They settled down in East Los Angeles, California, where she still lives now, and where she was raised. My mother later, at the age of five enrolled into kinder garden. As many of us do. Everything was easy going for her until she started growing up. She grew up without having the heed and protection of a mother because my grandmother immigrated to the United States, a few years later. Not sure.


My grandmother came back into my mother’s life, when she was already in junior high. My mother was about twelve-years-old. My grandmother often questioned my mother about her future, goals, or career plans. My mother didn’t really care about all this “trash” like she would call it. This was something my grandmother was definitely concern about. At this age, who is concern about the future, goals, or career plans, really? Anyway, my mother always ended up in an argument with my grandmother. They were like water and salt-couldn’t be around each other at all.


My mother constantly went out, who knows where. This worried my grandmother a lot and oh boy it got my mother in immense trouble as well. The secret was that my dear mother had an older boyfriend, who unfortunately is my biological father. This man, who I consider a brute, got her pregnant at age fifteen. This pregnancy gives life to my older sister Daisy on December 5, 1988. But this also gives place to the day my mother’s miserable teenage years begin. He changed her life forever. He abused her in any possible way you can imagine, even while she was pregnant. That didn’t stop him. He would hit her with a hose, if she didn’t bring money home with her every single day. My mother lived under domestic violence for such a long time, until the month later I was born (December 1991), and she met what I call my real father. Forget about the animal, he is nothing to me. As my baby says “A father is one who raises you, not one who only donates a sperm.” That is so true.


After meeting my father Jorge, my mother’s life truly changed for the better. He showed her the true meaning of love. My father was the miracle that saved my mother and me from living a horrible life with the brute. And I say my mother and I because my sister Daisy doesn’t come in the picture anymore. Daisy is given up to my grandmother, by my mother, due to the fact that my mother was too young to take care of Daisy. Even if my mother wanted to keep Daisy, she couldn’t. The animal would have done I don’t know what with Daisy, since she was born a girl and he wanted a boy. So, my mother started a new life with my father, and me.


Later on, Jasmine, my sister, is born on April 27, 1994, and then comes Aileen, my little sister on January 12, 2000, and last but not least, Vladimir, my little brother, is born on September 22, 2001. My mother was always so devoted to all of us. I remember her gazing at us, her little babies, with so much love in her eyes. I love that gaze. Her eyes are dark brown but yet they are brilliant. They stand out in comparison. My mother has the eyes, that when they turn to look at me, they give me a sense of security; as if an army is behind me ready to attack anyone who dares mess with me. Her hair is dark black and wavy. Her wavy hair flows smoothly when it is touched. It is never tangled. So, my fingers travel through it with no trouble. My mother is just beautiful and gorgeous.


Yes, I have to admit she has made mistakes as any human being has. Nobody is perfect. I know she didn’t graduate from junior high and didn’t make it to high school but that has never stopped her from being a hard- working mother, who only works to give her children the best she can. My mother doesn’t like us desiring anything at all. Whatever we want, if she can, she’ll give it to us. My mother is great!


My mother and I have always been best friends. I tell her what goes on with me and she does too. She is my confident. The one I trust 100% without doubt. I know she will never ever do anything to hurt me. She has lived her whole life to please no one but her children. For her, no one else matters but us. We are her priority. I am so lucky having been born from such a marvelous human being. She is my inspiration for everything. The one I love with all of my heart. She is Maria Carmen Sierra, my MOTHER!

Hollywood's Eye

We are born into a world where, for females the concept of beauty is extremely important. It is deathly. As if that’s all that matters. Being beautiful means having it all for women. Unfortunately no one realizes that “all” only covers up what Hollywood‘s eye sees. What it admires, desires, envies or wants to have, to show us, women, what is wanted. What is beautiful or ugly. But Hollywood doesn’t see what’s inside. It only sees what’s visible. It doesn’t pay attention to the other side of women. It doesn’t care about their personality and emotional behavior. Being beautiful is the key to being accepted by Hollywood. If you are not beautiful, you simply get rejected. You are ugly. All you could get back is pity. Everyone makes sure you know it. It’s all thrown at you. There is no mercy. Being beautiful makes the difference between being happy or miserable. Hollywood only focuses on portraying what their concept of beauty is. As Frankie Lennon, the author of the novel The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman's Life, states in her narrative essay, “Woman Dreams”, that beautiful are Hollywood movie stars. That’s exactly the concept Hollywood trained her to learn and accept as true. And yes, Hollywood movie stars did teach her what the concept of “beauty” is.

In “Woman Dreams” the narrator explains how when she reaches the age of twelve, she becomes fascinated with “MGM musicals with dancers like sexy, red-haired Rita Hayworth, or dark haired, curvaceous Cyd Charisse” (Page 51). Also women “Like Susan Hayward, clever and untamable. Hedy Lamarr, mysterious and tantalizing. Ava Gardner, dangerous and unpredictable, or Jane Russell, wanton and voluptuous.” (Page 52) These women have one thing in common, they are all white. This comes to show what Hollywood wanted. These women were shown in Hollywood movies and so that’s what the narrator became to see and admire as beautiful. She also explains that she became to favor what Hollywood showed her. She began to learn what was desirable. This was “not the sweet, simple-minded blondes, but the dark haired femme fatales-the bad girls who were gutsy and headstrong” (Page 52) and every one of them were men’s dream women. They were women that would turn anyone crazy and to desire what they looked like. These women were temptation.

Characteristics like the ones mentioned above were all emphasized by Hollywood movie stars. These characteristics of women were the narrator’s definition of beauty. It became so easy for her to believe in them since that’s all she ever saw until the day Carmen Jones, a musical, was being shown. Dorothy Dandridge, a movie star was being featured and she had set the narrator on fire. This was due to the fact that as the narrator mentions, “She was bad. She was beautiful. And she was black.” (Page 54) “Dandridge was knock-down-drag-out beautiful…Dandridge’s eyes were those of a woman who knew all about temptation and seduction” (Page 55). The concept of beauty the narrator has still doesn’t change. Dandridge is pretty much like the other white actresses mentioned in “Woman Dreams”. All these women have several things in common. They are all movie stars, an example of what is desirable, they are bad, and most impacting they are sexual temptation to men.

These movie stars had an impact on the narrator’s view of beauty. She would even imagine herself “all aglitter in magnificent gowns, shoes, furs, and jewels, cozily ensconced in a Manhattan penthouse apartment…” (Page 53). Notice how all these are thriving, expensive, and luxurious things. The gowns, furs, and jewels would make them give the impression of a higher class. The shoes were no regular shoes of course. They were high heels. Wearing them made them sexy and bad, not innocent but naughty. Not leaving behind the Manhattan penthouse apartment which would give any women the pleasure of having a good time. “Going against the grain”, like the narrator says. All these things are things no one can afford unless working a great amount of time. These are things movie stars would wear to tease those who could be teased. And it all comes down to Hollywood enforcing these ideas into women’s heads.

Hollywood has impacted the narrator’s life and many other lives as well. Hollywood just has a great way of showing what the “perfect beautiful women” looks like. No one escapes from Hollywood’s stereotypes. These stereotypes grab you without you wanting to be held. There is no exception. Even the narrator believed in Hollywood’s concept of beauty. Hollywood taught her that beauty is found in movie stars.

Is it really a "call to action"?

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize; he called this a "call to action." What I question now is if it's really a "call to action"? Or he will just blow up the whole thing? He remarks that he wants to restore peace in “the Middle East, the threat from nuclear weapons, global warming, and the battles against poverty, disease, and injustice.” It all sounds amazing. But will that really happen? In the past years I’ve heard the same thing over and over again from past presidents. Nothing really changed. I still hear about the war in Iraq, injustice, diseases and mainly about poverty. The war keeps going on. Injustice is everywhere. Diseases keep spreading, and the economy is awful. Prices are going up like the gas on a shaken soda. Poor people are still at the bottom trying to survive. Where is the change Obama promised? I personally think it’s all a cover up. All presidents say the same thing, and maybe Obama is right about thinking he doesn’t “deserve to be in the company" of previous winners, like civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and two previous sitting presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. They really made a change widely. I will believe Obama deserves to receive the Nobel Peace Prize until I see a real change!

Being Bullied

Being in high school means being surrounded by a diversity of adolescents-either big in size, rude, nice, short, intelligent, dumb, or simply someone like me trying to escape from Yesenia Silva. Yesenia was my friend in my junior year. Yesenia, Vanessa, Sandra, and I used to hang out at the bottom of a tree near the football field, next to the cute football players. Yesenia loved bullying others. She especially bullied me because I was not tall enough. I weighted ninety-five pounds, and the size of my foot was and still is size two. I guess she found it easy to bully me since I never told her how being bullied really made me feel. I felt as if everyone was normal but me, or as if I was a fly and she was a lizard ready to attack me. I was bullied by Yesenia Silva all along my junior year, but I knew one day the bullying had to stop.

Yesenia always made comments like: “Damn Goldie you’re all short, stand on your feet not knees please”, “Goldie you’re too skinny”, or “Goldie grow some feet.” After these comments everyone cracked themselves up with laughter as if the funniest things had been said about me. My back pack had to always disappear from our spot every time I left to get lunch or to the girls’ restroom. Yesenia couldn’t help but hide it under a bench, inside a trash can, or tell the students next to us to hide it. I bet she had fun tripping me too, snatching my food away, or contradicting me even if I was right. She enjoyed arguing with me. All I ever said was “Yesenia you’re mean”. She obviously took my words to be dismissive. She never realized that deep inside of me I was being put down until the day I walked away from the spot, under the three next to the cute football players.

We were all at lunch. It was sunny and a usual day of September. Vanessa was telling us how great her weekend had been with her boyfriend Carlos, when Yesenia interrupted her to tell me “Goldie you look so stupid today”; she laughed and laughed. I did not get what was so funny about that. Vanessa and Sandra stood quiet and amazed; they were in shock at what Yesenia had just said. I didn’t know what to do. I found myself being humiliated once again, and again she had bullied me. The difference was that this time I walked away. I ran and ran until I got to the library. But as I was running I could hear my friends calling me back. I could see through the corner of my eye that everyone around Garfield High School was staring at me. I didn’t care. I just wanted to disappear. I could not stand seeing Yesenia laughing at my face anymore. I had to put a stop to her.

After some minutes she saw that I wouldn’t go back to the spot, so she called and apologized. I as a good friend accepted her apology but told her how awful she made me feel by bullying me. She still had the nerve to deny it and tell me she was just messing around. I was pretty serious and told her she knew better than to treat me that way. We talked for some time before the bell rang and settled things well. I was proud that I had stood up for myself. I knew after this that she would never bully me again. I was right. From then on she showed me respect.