Let's start from the very beginning. I was born on February 11th, 1993 in the weirdest city in Texas: Austin. This would mean that I love the winter season, heart shaped chocolates, and tie-dye. My parents are Pedro and Teresa Pelaez, both originally from Cali, Colombia and belonging to a large family tree of pure-blood Colombians. My dad received a full grant to study at St. Edward's University in Austin and when he met my mom in Colombia she decided to move to Texas with my dad and they got married. They both have had to work very hard especially coming from low-income families and plunging into a new country so drastically. They have given me a wonderful life and education, full of love and wealth (spiritual kind). Now I am studying at Trinity University and my childhood chapter seems to have ended and the cycle continues.
Like the patriotic Colombians they are, my parents raised me as a culturally bilingual child. My first language is Spanish...Barney the dinosaur took care of teaching me English. Almost every other summer we would go to Colombia and visit all the family, travel around all the major tourist sites, and just soaking everything in. So from a very early age I developed a deep sense of patriotism and love for my country. To me Colombia was home, it's where my heart was, and I absolutely loved visiting. I decided to go study my Junior year in high school at an American high school, the same one my dad graduated from. I loved it so much that I decided to stay for my Senior year and graduate there.
Coming to Trinity has taught me the many things Latin American countries have in common. It is not just Colombia but also the rest of Central and South America and the Caribbean. Unfortunately, there are many stereotypes and misconceptions of Latin Americans, our cultures, our traditions, our beliefs, our society, everything in general. I am here to hopefully clear the water.
Colombian Flag by Deptfordjon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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