All It Takes is One Person to Change A Community

Last week I got to visit Judy Patacsil and listen to her speak about a recent book she released. It was hosted in city college, the weather was rainy and bad, and the parking was terrible. Despite the effort of arriving to the location and finding the building, listening to Patacsil's words of wisdom was well worth the trouble.

Her book was a culmination of pictures of Filipino related people and events. However, each picture seemed to tell a whole story. Inside the book she put a short description about each picture, allowing you to dive deeper into the story of the image. She featured pictures ranging from a Filipino coffee shop, to Filipino families. The picture which I remember most clearly was the last picture she displayed. It was a picture bringing together a recent time Filipino family. It was consistent of not just Filipino's, but also Mexicans, and African Americans. This shows how Filipino's have acculturated into the American culture, as well as Mexican and African American, and a new diverse Filipino race has been born. For Filipino's this is a huge thing because Filipino's are normally known for only mixing amongst their own race. They were discriminated against and looked down upon, but now in this picture, they are the same as everyone else, and the walls between race have been brought down.

This is important because I am of a mixed Mexican and Ukrainian decent. Like the Filipino's, indigenous Mexican's were looked down upon by European cultures. But now that people of all race's are mixing, all race boundaries have been brought down. Though discrimination can never fully disappear, it has certainly improved. Patacsil's picture shows this. I am also an example of this because I have not faced, or at least been aware of discrimination for being of Mexican decent.

 Essentially, Patacsil's picture is a summary that we are all human. We are all people, and apart from skin color and hair color, we are all the same.