But f*** that, I’ma bust back ’til they kill me
On Thursday I was marching for the ‘Day without Immigrants’ protest. At first, (I’m ashamed to say) I was hesitant to participate because I’m running a startup — startups are a lot of work and require complete attention and hustle. But I thought back for a minute and realized that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my parents and all those around me that have immigrant roots. The march was important and it reminded me that I need to participate and get more involved.
The only thing that matters to me more than business is familia and mi gente are my brothers and sisters. We are on this journey together and I will fight for my peoples’ rights any day. I admit that up until this years election, I never paid attention (or cared) about politics — but after this election — I had no choice but to get involved. I’ve come to realize that chasing my dream can’t be possible if our basic human rights are in jeopardy and I will make sure that everyone (regardless of gender, race, religion, etc.) can have equal rights and opportunities. Immigrants make up more than half of the founders of the worlds billion dollar startups (and it’s growing).
Participating in this march, made me realize how strong our community is, the beauty of our culture, how Latino/a culture is part of American culture and that no challenge is to large for us to overcome.
It is my obligation to make sure I can leave the world better than how it was when I got here. I wouldn’t be able to pursue my dreams if it wasn’t for all the work that my familia has done for me. I’m privileged to be able to chase whatever I want in this world and for that reason alone, I won’t ever quit.
La Lucha Sigue!
-Arod
Thank you to, Dionne for reading drafts of this post.
“Societies and cultures are really complicated … This is not mathematics; this is biology and chemistry. These are living organisms, and it’s messy. And your job as a citizen and as a decent human being is to constantly affirm and lift up and fight for treating people with kindness and respect and understanding. And you should anticipate that at any given moment there’s going to be flare-ups of bigotry that you may have to confront, or may be inside you and you have to vanquish. And it doesn’t stop … You don’t get into a fetal position about it. You don’t start worrying about apocalypse. You say, O.K., where are the places where I can push to keep it moving forward.” — Barack Obama
