My Mother Fuels My Passion for Equity

By: Anacelia Rodriguez

Having passion for someone or something is a very powerful thing. Personally, I am passionate about everyone getting equal rights and succeeding in this world. By doing so we need to speak up for what we are passionate about. Everyone deserves a fair chance. Since equity is a constant struggle, young people like me need support early and my mother is the reason I believe this.

My mother is a single mom of two and I see how hard it has been for her being a Black business owner. She works so much and so hard and I can’t help thinking her blackness plays into it. I know my mother gets paid less for doing similar jobs and it is not ok. It is not ok for my mother and it isn’t ok for all the other single Black moms out there.

I am passionate about equity, not just for me but for the benefit of my community. There are lots of new people moving into the Bay Area that are predominately white and jack up the market. That makes it hard for lower-income families native to Oakland to stay here. So many are driven out of a place they’ve lived all their life. During my time as an Energy Convertor Fellow, I want to explore different ways we can instill equity into our education system and our schools to ensure that students like me with families like mine can stay in Oakland and be part of its renaissance and not a casualty of it.