People

My son is a six-year-old CEO. We started a brand because he likes art and I found it easier to teach him if we centered our energies around a shared project. It is going amazing, www.buffalokidceo.com if you want to learn about his bilingual socio-emotional coloring books and his mission to tell the world that “KIDS CAN BE CEOS too!  Since things are going well, but the world around us is changing and he is a very LATINO child, with a Latino name, he is taller, shyer, and a little bit bigger, it is time to have the “talk” with him. It is time to explain different parts of his privilege and some of his vulnerabilities to him. I want him to be able to explain his privilege like Cassy. Cassandra talks about her privilege in her interview (An excerpt): “I am a first-generation Mexican American, a Tejana/Chicana, and the eldest daughter in my family. I was born in McAllen Texas about 20 minutes from the Laredo border crossing. Growing up, I was always a headstrong and stubborn child to the point that if I genuinely wanted something nothing would stop me.” Cassandra is the Manager of Organizing and Strategy Finger Lakes at the New York Immigration Coalition, I met her on Zoom and instantly started pursuing a feature. We talked on the phone, and I felt braver after, I felt freer, and I was like ok this is perfect because I write with my heart, I need features that inspire me personally (kind of selfish right)? Cassy talks about her privilege:  “Since I was born in Texas and had the privilege of being documented I was taught to appreciate that privilege and use it to speak up when I saw injustices in my community. My parents are both undocumented immigrants, so there are certain things that I can do that my parents and others in my community could not. My parents fostered a home and environment where we helped each other and others when we could. “ As an American, my mother, white as snow, as she is, taught me the right thing is to love liberty and to love people who were willing to fight for it. I will not ever change that and teaching lessons and showing parts of the world I advocate for but am not a part of is easier with art. Organizations like New York Immigrant Coalition are supporting an entire universe of artists who are willing to spend their careers making art about people AMERICAN enough to love the red, White, and blue through the other side of the fence of oppression.  Enter films like “After I Pick the Fruit” made about the lives of my sister Latinas in 2011. Enter films like “From Here” debuting on the World Channel – America Reframed Strand of PBS on June 1st at 8 pm ET. Director Christina Antonakos Wallace and Taina Mattos are people to watch just like Cassandra. How do we teach our children and the adults around them empathy? How do we teach our children to lead? We will be talking about it all month, with Cassy, who is not a mom yet but is a PROUD BIG SISTER, shout out to the big sisters/mothers out there. I have two but one specifically showed out for me. She must tell me “What God has for you – is for you.” What God’s got for me is a good old AMERICAN desire to fight for what I think is right. It is not just for me,  I have ancestors to honor, William Cary, my 2nd great-uncle (son of ORANGE county New York) left his body on …the battlefield at the Battle of Dallas, at 30 years old and it broke his mother’s heart, an immigrant from Scotland. He believed in liberty, so do I, and there is enough LIBERTY here for all of us and I am going to keep writing about it until I am blue in the face, just as blue as my uncle’s union uniform.  Read the rest of Cassy’s interview at www.makinglatinaherstory.us and learn the story of all American show me, do not tell me kinda later. Who are you and what values were taught in your home? My name is Cassandra Bocanegra, I am a first-generation Mexican American, a Tejana/Chicana, and the eldest daughter in my family. I was born in McAllen Texas about 20 minutes from the Laredo border crossing. Growing up, I was always a headstrong and stubborn child to the point that if I genuinely wanted something nothing would stop me. Although I am sure that it terrified them to have such a headstrong child, my parents never discouraged that trait. Since I was born in Texas and had the privilege of being documented I was taught to appreciate that privilege and use it to speak up when I saw injustices in my community. My parents are both undocumented immigrants, so there are certain things that I can do that my parents and others in my community could not. My parents fostered a home and environment where we helped each other and others when we could.  What was your experience as a student and your favorite learning moment growing up? When we arrived in the NYS in 1999 we lived in the inner city of Rochester. I did not know any English and spent 6 months in a bilingual school before we were able to move to a suburb of Rochester where I went to elementary and middle school. The suburb of Greece did not have much diversity so there were not many students at my schools that looked like me or that had parents that did not speak English. Often, I was the interpreter for my family at many school functions. When I was in Middle School, I decided that I was not being challenged enough and sought out a scholarship to a private all-girls high school. The diversity did not get better. I ended