Week 9

I'm passionate about a lot of things.  When people read my CV, I feel as though the first thing they think is that I'm not very focused in the things I do:  I have a job as an RA at an apartment complex for paraplegics, I do research on salamanders, I founded and am now president of the first Hispanic sorority on Ohio State's campus, I have played piano since first grade, and I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, building houses.  I think that it's only natural to be passionate about a wide array of different topics.

I don't think that social change can come out of every passion one has.  However, I do think that social change arises from passion.  Social change is a tough topic because it requires change from not an individual, but from a community.  Only a huge motivational force would be able to make such a huge change in society, and I think that passion is that huge motivational force.  Our passions get us emotional about certain topics.  For example, if I'm an advocate for Women's Rights and I constantly hear about rape cases on the news, this might stir up some anger.  This anger would then drive me to make some change in my community.

One thing that I'm passionate about is the Latino community in the US.  I'm an advocate for that underrepresented community and I do all that I can to make changes within it.  The Latinos are not really voices on our campus.  I tried to change that by establishing the first Hispanic-based sorority on campus.  My sorority now supports other Latino groups on campus, such as LSA.  Slowly, we are trying to create a network of Latino and Latino advocates in our community so that this underrepresented group will have more of a voice on our campus.

For me, it's not hard to stay committed to this particular project because that passion is still inside of me and I'm still very driven to reach my goals.  However, it is tough when perhaps I want to collaborate with another Hispanic organization, but my group as a whole wants to collaborate with someone else.  It is upsetting when individual and group ideas do not perfectly overlap, and that can pose challenges.  However, I think that overall, my group as a whole and myself are still very committed to this project that we took on.  I think we're just as committed now as we were when we first started.