The Struggles of Growing Up in Latinx Communities

00:00 Hey, everyone. My name is Shayla Garcia, and it's April 13, 2022, and I will be interviewing my boyfriend, Brandon Chanax, with questions of his struggles growing up. So my first question for you is, where are you from?

00:21 I am from Los Angeles, California.

00:24 Where is your family from?

00:27 My family is from Guatemala.

00:30 Growing up, what struggles did you face?

00:34 The struggles I faced growing up were financial issues and discrimination in society.

00:41 In your environment, was it always safe?

00:47 My environment has always been safe, but I feel like it could be better. It wasn't in the best conditions of being well maintained, like cleaning wise and other conditions that involve good resources.

00:59 If you could change one thing about your community, what would it be?

01:04 Something I would change about my community is making our way to show the world of us being capable of creating change. Most of the times I feel like we are being ignored by higher class people and the system, and we definitely need to need better resources.

01:20 Can you tell me about your most difficult memories?

01:26 One of my. One of the most difficult memories was how in my community it wasn't safe. That's protection wise, because deportation cases were going up and how many empowered people weren't fighting for us. Also, outside my neighborhood, I got discriminated by society because they didn't want us here. So it just created violence within groups.

01:53 Has anyone outside your household ever insulted you?

02:00 Yeah, many people stared at me and my family saying that we did not belong here. Not only that, but when Trump was elected, my community felt scared for what was coming. The terms you would say made me feel very upset how society saw us also going out to other places, like shopping centers, there were times where people would call me ugly slurs like monkey or telling me to go back to my country.

02:34 When someone in South TD, did it affect you into the person you are today?

02:44 It kind of affected me because I didn't want society to see me and my community as non working or criminals. I want to see. I want people to see our potential.

02:58 And my last question is, have you ever made your way into creating a change in societies racist situations?

03:11 No, I haven't yet, but I wish to do someday because I want to show that my community is powerful and very hardworking.

03:24 Thank you for answering these questions and that going to be the ending of our interview, guys. Thank you and have a nice day.