Cohort Stories: Meet Patricia
vol. 5, no. 72 — guest post by Patricia Antlitz
I’ve faced many challenges throughout my life as a first-generation immigrant. I am from Brazil and moved to the U.S. when I was 15 years old. My family faced many difficulties. My parents had low paying jobs, and we received little support since we were, at the time, uninformed undocumented immigrants. Both of my sisters worked part-time after school to help pay for the bills, and I was in charge of taking care of the house, cleaning, doing laundry, and cooking for everybody else. There was not much time in our schedules for any academic activities. Doing homework, studying, attending school events, being part of an after-school club was not a thing. As my parents used to say, we were in high school exclusively to learn English. Their idea was that we would eventually help my mother clean houses, because as they used to say, “this is how an immigrant makes money in America”. They knew very well what was waiting for us in the future, but they never told us. Speaking English was crucial, to be able to communicate with the house owners because both of my parents do not speak English until this day. But we had our own dreams. I least I did.
Things started to get worse when my father’s health condition started to deteriorate. He was soon disabled and stopped working. My mother became the breadwinner, but her income was not enough to sustain a family of five. Our struggle became visible when rent and electricity were all we could afford. At some point, the school’s breakfast and lunch were my only meals in the day. I was down to 90lbs. We didn’t have heat at home. We had to boil water on the stove to take baths. Our house was frigid, and I remember always having a cold. My best friend gave me one of her jackets on my first winter here because I didn’t have one, and I would often stop by her house after school to have lunch because I knew there was nothing in my house to eat.
Shortly after, my mother fell ill in bed. She had several tumors and had to have both her ovaries and uterus, which caused her a deep depression, which delayed her recovery. We could no longer afford to pay rent or cover the most basic needs with both of our parents unemployed and no savings. We were so close to becoming homeless. One day, my father sat me down and told me they could no longer pay for the bills. It was time for me to become an adult and forget about my “unreachable” dreams. He called me a “dreaming girl”. So, I decided to drop high school and work to help support my family. I had a dream of going to college, so dropping high school was an extremely difficult decision to make. I remember telling my school counselor of my decision, and as I walked out of her office, hearing her mumbling that “my kind won’t go anywhere in life anyway”. At 17, all the money I made went towards bills. I was not allowed to have a cell phone, buy clothes, or anything for myself. It all went towards the bills. When I was 19, I was lucky to find a job at a dental office. The office manager felt bad about my situation and gave me an opportunity, and I am very thankful. Thanks to this opportunity, I was able to help my family. Since then, I have been legalized and earned my GED. I have worked really hard in the dental field for ten years, which allowed me to received raises, and promotions, growing professionally. I am proud of coming from nothing, having nothing, and making my way up with God’s help.
Now, let’s talk about technology! I have been interested in it from an early age. One of my cousins in Brazil (who is way older than me) is a computer engineer. Growing up, I remember visiting him and playing around with his computers. I remember watching him fix the hardware, build it, work on the software, and thinking to myself he was some type of a genius. When I was 13, my parents purchased our first computer for my sister’s sweet 15 (instead of throwing a party, that’s how expensive they were). I remember it ran Windows 98, and I spent the whole day in front of it, learning everything about it. I broke and infected the computer many times, on purpose, just so we could have the IT technician come to fix it, and I could watch him. It was my favorite thing to do (until my father found out I was infecting the computer on purpose and gave me an ultimate call). Since I was no longer allowed to have the IT “guy” over, I became more interested in the software instead of hardware. It was then when blogs became a thing. I learned how to use image editors, such as Photoshop, to create the best images for my Blog. My ultimate goal was to create my own templates since I wanted them to be unique. I would create the main background image in Photoshop and add HTML for the content and functionality. I had to close all my blogs, and my venture with coding ended for a while when I moved to the U.S. because we did not have a computer here. I never became uninterested in technology. I continued following the latest technologies on the market. I just didn’t own them. I took as many computer classes in high school as I was possibly allowed to, including Photoshop. I did some graphic design gigs while in high school, which made me realize that my passion is really coding with designing aspects, and not graphic design itself.
Technology has been part of my life since I can remember, thanks to my cousin, who was so patient in showing me his work and teaching me about computers.
As mentioned before, my dream was to attend college for computer science. I knew what I wanted to be since I was a child. Unfortunately, the degree hasn’t happened for me yet, but I haven’t given up. I enrolled in college in 2019, and I am working towards my A.S. in computer science and plan to transfer my credits to earn my B.S., slowly but surely. I am a very dedicated individual, and I will get there. In the spring semester of 2020, I decided to pause my degree and not take any classes that semester to join General Assembly, a coding Bootcamp. I intended to gain practical experience and knowledge sooner rather than later and find a job in the field that would help me support my degree. I can say I learned way more than I expected, but not all I needed to. I am still proud of my work at General Assembly. I was one of the people with the least experience in my cohort. I came from working with Photoshop and basic HTML to working with JavaScript’s libraries and frameworks and mastering CSS. I managed to learn and pass my assignments. I know COVID-19 has not helped the situation. However, I also know I check all the boxes for what is considered a minority in the field. I am a woman, of color, Latina, who has Epilepsy (a disability that does not affect me physically or intellectually in any way, but it still seems as if it does), and I do not have a college degree, yet. Since then, I have continued to take classes towards my degree and have learned even more.
What I am hoping I will gain from Hack.Diversity is an opportunity to prove myself, learn, and be mentored. Learn how to pass interviews and land an internship by summer. I know my time at Hack.Diversity will be critical for my career since it will open the door I have been waiting to open for so long.
