“No matter where you are from your dreams are valid.” – Lupita Nyong’o
The Oscar winner, Lupita Nyong’o, warmed the hearts of people all around the globe when accepting her win for Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave at the 86th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony.
Today, on International Women’s Day, I want to explain what being a women means to me and all the influential women in my life who have shaped me into who I am, and how Lupita’s quote hit close to home.
As a young girl I was always told to be pretty, to look pretty, to act pretty. My older brother and cousins could play with cars and play outside but as for me, who was always in a dress, I had to be a “good little girl.” Rebellious from the day I arrived on this planet, I took off into the mud dirtying my dress. To my surprise, my mother wasn’t mad. (Well, maybe about the mud-covered dress).
My mother graduated from high school at 16 years old where she then attended Stockton College to become a Social Worker. She has always worked hard and provided a comfortable life for my sister, brother and myself. I may have had a working mother, but I was never neglected. I still had a mom who cooked me dinner, helped me with my homework and was my shoulder to cry on when I needed one. My mother, as much as we may bicker like all mothers and daughters do, will always be my best friend. She is the perfect example that a woman can wear pants, have a career and be just as feminine as the next woman. She also gave me my second role-model, my older sister, who showed me another side to womanhood.
My older sister Amy, mother to five, beautiful boys, has showed me that being a stay-at-home is a very important job . 9 years older than me, we didn’t have the typical sibling relationship growing up. She lived with my grandmother while I lived with my parents. I didn’t have the opportunity to steal her clothes, ask for advice on boys or ask her to cover for me if I snuck out. I always felt jilted by not having an older sister as a teenager, but as I entered my twenties I got the chance to live my sister again, and finally experience a sisterhood I never thought I could have. Living with my sister and her five kids has not always been easy, but I could not picture any other way of living. She taught me how to feed a baby, how to care for a baby and has prepared me for when I have children of my own someday. She may longer be out in the working field, but that is because she has found happiness in staying home with her children.
Both my mother and sister have raised their children without a man to help them. They have suffered and fought, but their battles were not in vain. My mother has built a strong foundation for us as my sister will do for her own children. Strong women run in my family. All of my cousins have raised their children alone, while working, and still being seen as a woman. Unfortunately, they do not receive the respect that they deserve, which is why I am proud to say that I am a feminist, and while some may believe that means that I don’t shower or shave my legs, it actually means that I fight for gender equality. From the day I played in the mud I have never been the type of woman that has become the stereotype (not that those women are wrong either). I want a career over children, a position as CEO over a husband, and long nights at the office over a mortgage. It is not to say that I will never have or want these things someday, but today as a woman, those are not the things I am currently interested in. I want to be the voice for women who may be like me, career-driven, or for women who may be like my sister and cousins, the young mothers. Being a Latina and a woman is no easy battle. I am marked to be a drop-out, an ill-fit mother, and an uneducated person in this world. No one in my family fits this stereotype. We are all intelligent, hard-working, beautiful women who have paved the paths for those who cannot find it.
As I watched the Academy Awards and saw Lupita give her speech I felt a rush of excitement. A woman of color has made her dreams come true, a woman from another country has made her dreams come a true…a woman has made her dreams come true. There is so much to be proud of as a woman and there are so many different types of women in this world. We are no longer just a poodle-skirt wearing gal, and we can be more than the pantsuit some may see us in. Women are mysterious beings, and I am proud to wake up each day and say, “I am a woman.”