Q: How did your family and culture influence who you are today?
Living in Mexico for part of my childhood allowed me to be close to family and grow up learning and understanding our Mexican culture. Some parts of our culture bring us close together as a family like the love and appreciation for food and cooking. I remember helping my grandma crack open peanuts to make Mole sauce or picking eggs from her chicken coop to make for breakfast. While life was much simpler and slower those days, as an adult I try to be intentional and find ways to use food and cooking to keep me close to my family here in the Unites States.
My mother and I spend one Saturday a month cooking together. She teaches me a new recipe (recipes are rarely written down in the Mexican culture) and I try to cherish it and capture it as best as I can so that one day I can pass it on to my children.
Q: Why is ACEE important to you?
While living in Mexico as a child I learned the importance of sustainability and self-sufficiency. Whether it was helping my mom raise and sell chickens in our small town, or pack lunch for my dad who would go out and work in the fields and care for his crops- my parents always found a way to provide for our family using their individual skills and natures resources.
While their hard work allowed us to have food on our table and a roof over our heads, financial planning didn’t go beyond a week-to-week basis, and I saw and experienced that impact had on our lives. This is why the work that ACEE does is so important to me- helping students and families in the Arizona community become economically literate and financially responsible. I serve as a volunteer because I want to help parents who like mine, may be doing everything in their power to provide for their families, but could use a support system and education on the importance of financial literacy to help them plan for the future.
