Julie T.

I come from immigrant parents, from Mexico. Both my parents were born in Monterrey. They immigrated here before they had my sister with the hopes of getting a better life for themselves and for the kids that they wanted to have. They immigrated to San Antonio and had my sister and me and my brother. We grew up on the south side of San Antonio, where it is mostly Latino.

Our parents always spoke to us in Spanish. So we learned Spanish first, and then we learned English in school. I was a first generation college student in my family, along with my sister. Since going to college isn’t really a common thing for students where I come from, it was a big deal for me and for my family. I majored in government because I want to go to law school eventually. I learned French just because I wanted to try something new and then I realized how important it is to learn about different cultures. In college, you meet all kinds of people, from all over the world, and back home, I didn’t see that. I only saw one culture. So I decided to learn Portuguese, too, and I was able to study abroad in Brazil, which was wonderful. I also went to Ghana, to help out an impoverished community there, building latrines. And I was very involved with the college Democrats.

During one of my summers in college, I was able to get an internship with Mayor Julian Castro’s office in San Antonio, before he decided to take the position at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. During that time, he was working on the Pre-K 4 SA initiative, so I was able to learn about the importance of early education.

My sister got me involved with doing community service. She got involved in high school and would take me to these events that she would do. I wasn’t even in high school yet. She took me to help at a Thanksgiving dinner for impoverished people in San Antonio, and homeless people, and older people who don’t have anyone to celebrate with. And that really opened my eyes to the fact that there were things I could do to help people. Even though we didn’t have a lot of money, she taught me that there are still things you can do to help people who are struggling. Maybe it’s not through money. Maybe it’s through lending them your time, or helping them get opportunities you have that they don’t. Maybe they have a problem that you can help with.

My sister and I, we connect with a lot of people, especially in the Latino community, because we all share a lot of similarities with the challenges our parents have been through — like financial struggles. Of course you’re going to experience some discrimination and run into some prejudices because of the language you speak and where your roots are from. So I felt that connection with a lot of people when I started becoming civically engaged in my community.

One of the big issues for me is the economy. I see how a lot of people in my community and in my family are struggling. They work tirelessly in jobs that pay very little and they struggle with being able to cover all of the expenses that they need.

Another issue is immigration. I’ve seen firsthand families being separated because of immigration issues. And it’s a very important issue because these are people’s lives. For so long this issue has not been seen for what it is.

I really hope Hillary Clinton wins. I’ve always admired her because of everything she’s accomplished. She has done a lot to help people in need and the people who most need a voice. She is a true public servant. In my eyes, there are not a lot of true public servants in this country. Other congressmen and senators, they’re there for power or some other self-serving reason. Hillary is there for the right reasons. She actually cares about people and she’s educated about the struggles working-class people are going through and middle-class people are going through. A lot of politicians’ conversations are so detached, but she is not like that. She is very aware of what’s going on in this country, and she is very committed to doing something to help the people who are struggling the most.

I think Bernie Sanders is a good person, but he doesn’t seem to have realistic goals. I would encourage people to look a little bit more into what Hillary Clinton has done and what Bernie Sanders has done for the community, and really think about who is more realistic. He wants to start from the bottom, start from zero, and that’s not really possible. Hillary understands that and that we have to work with what we have and make it better. That’s what I think is the biggest and most significant difference between them.

We’ve struggled for so long to get to where we’re at right now. As Hillary has said, we can’t just pretend that we need to get rid of that and start from zero. All of that progress took a lot of work, a lot of struggle. A lot of people fought for the progress that has been made under Obama’s administration, and you can’t just throw all of that away because you think that the system doesn’t work and you need to start a new system. Taking Bernie’s approach of starting from zero is devaluing all of the progress and all of the hard work that my community has done to get to where we are right now, and it’s not right and it’s very unfair.

#ImWithHer

-As told to #ShesWithUs