Tag: first gen
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Mexico City, mi amor
The first time I visited la Ciudad de México, I was nervous. It was July 2017 and all the news reports and state department advisories stressed extreme caution when traveling to México – of course I worried. It’s a poorly kept secret that drug cartels run big chunks of the country and political corruption has…
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Peru: The spiritual journey and gastronomic experience
Lima, Cusco, Mexico City, and Oaxaca, in that order. I wish I could tell you I made these travel decisions practically. That I followed a set of rules and did some kind of process of elimination to land on the right thing. But the truth is I didn’t. I made every decision based on instinct…
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Setting the stage for an Intentional Sabbatical
A Sabbatical is something you do with intention. After making the decision to take time off from work, there were a lot of choices I needed to make about what that would look like, but before I could structure it logistically, I had to get clear on a few things. First, why was this the right…
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That One Time a First Gen Latina Took a Sabbatical
In 2025, I went on Sabbatical. This isn’t a traditional “Sabbatical”. I don’t have a job to go back to and my employer is not funding any portion of this because… I’m not going back to work for them. In many white-collar professions, particularly academic ones, there are provisions built into your contract that permit…
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The Power of the Specific Story: Benito’s Super Bowl Moment
As soon as Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio walked onto the field last night with the name Ocasio splattered across the back of his jersey, I knew this was going to be deep and demanded my full focus. Ocasio is a choice. In most Latino traditions, the second last name refers to the maternal parent and…
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Traveling con Contexto
Traveling con Contexto Traveling as a First Gen, Mexican American in today’s political climate. I landed in Bocas del Toro, Panama on the day the US government kidnapped a sitting president of a sovereign country. Waking up to those headlines that morning at Albrook Inn in Panama City was a shock to my system. The…
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