Open-minded – Priscilla Hernandez

Cosplaying as a middle-aged white man

During the fall semester of 2021, I took a history course called War and Religion. In this class we learned about the history of war and religion between early white European settlers and the Indigenous peoples in North America and how both served to oppress the Indigenous population. At the end of the semester, we had a project called “Forest Diplomacy”. In this project, the class was divided into two groups: the white settlers and the Indigenous tribe of the land. Each person in the class was assigned a character to portray in each group and we were to hold a council meeting in order to settle a land ownership dispute.

My role was to portray Charles Tomson, a “middleman” who sympathized with the Indigenous people, however, because he required funding from a white settler to publish a pamphlet, he did not denounce the white settler group. Portraying this role was difficult for me because it involved having to put my own personal beliefs aside and pretend that I wasn’t absolutely disgusted with the treatment of the Indigenous peoples in the land dispute. All the texts that I had to read to prepare for the role clearly showed that the white settlers were making decisions that only benefitted them.

In order to become the Charles Tomson who needed to write an “unbiased” pamphlet I needed to quiet the part of my brain that was against the bias. The skill of balancing my own judgment and the judgment of a man who benefited from the expulsion of a marginalized group while sympathizing with them taught me that there are instances in my academic career where being “unbiased” is actually going to be more helpful than I think. While I hope that I never have to pretend to be neutral in a case of blatant oppression, this skill could help me with future academic assignments.

Old Toys but New Tools

For most of my life, I was forced to be responsible for my caregiver’s emotions. I did not realize this however until I was almost out of high school. This issue was like a domino effect because it caused me to become acutely aware of how other people were feeling even though I didn’t want to. I was always observing people and watching them without even realizing it. By developing this habit, it has caused me to be hyper-aware and hyper-sensitive of my own actions and surroundings.

In order to help myself get through this I started going to CAPS so that I could talk through this and other issues I’ve had to deal with along with school. Going to CAPS really helped me feel affirmed in my feelings and feel heard which is something that I hadn’t felt before. This feeling of affirmation and feeling heard was something that I wanted to continue feeling, so I looked for ways to affirm myself while continuing to work on my healing journey. One of the ways I did this was redirecting conversations away from topics that made me feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed and also started to tip toe over my boundary line.

For instance, there was a time where I had to have a serious conversation with a parent about them crossing a boundary. Their response was disappointing, but I understood that it came from their own trauma and was not in any way my fault. I thanked them for listening and moved on from the conversation. I could go on about this experience, but there’s no point. I know how to detach myself from things that aren’t healthy, and if that means not responding, then it is what it is. This skill has aided me so much because it has become one of the small ways that I am able to separate home from school by just being in the moment and not allowing myself to think about other people’s problems.

Presenting in College

This slideshow was the first one I created during my freshman fall semester. The process was a little intimidating because I had to do it in a language I had just started learning 3 months prior. I think it was evident that I didn’t have a lot of experience with creating slideshows.

The slides were so wordy and I sounded like a robot just reading the computer. I wasn’t able to engage as much with the class because I was literally just reading off of the screen. From this power point I knew for the future there needed to be more images, less words, and more engagement with the class. I needed to learn how to create power points where I could actually present new information rather than read words that mean nothing to the audience off of a screen.