 I knew that my parents were from Mexico, but I didn't quite understand how I was a Mexican-American and what it meant in terms of traditions and language and resiliency until I went to college. And I soon saw that most of my classmates did not reflect my own identity, whether it was language, the color of my hair, the color of my skin. And I kept going to college classes, right? And then I kept seeing these inequities. So I thought, wow, we don't have as many people in the school system that are necessary to tell Mexican-Americans, to tell African-Americans, to tell Asian-Americans, Native Americans, that you belong in college. So in that moment, I said, you know what? I want to tell kids that they belong in this institution. They should demand this opportunity. At that point, I saw it as my civil rights activist cause. I saw it as my form of bettering my community, my form of protest. And I just wanted to teach. I wanted to uplift youth and I wanted them to take up spaces in college classrooms. Adriana celebrates diversity with everything that she does. She wants kids to understand just how important it is to understand their cultures, to celebrate them and to have others recognize them as well. I want kids to see that it's more than just our ethnic makeup, but every bit of our culture that makes us who we are is something that we should be proud of and something that we shouldn't hide. And having this class this year, it really made me feel like more proud to be of that heritage of Mexican-American. Now I feel more confident knowing my background. It feels like, you know, these people really fought hard to give me what I have, you know, why waste it. It just empowered me a lot by telling me that no matter what, that my voice should be heard. Even if someone does put me down to always make sure that I'm heard. I never knew about my people until I came into this class. Having teachers like that make me want to come to school. That's what it is, it's so you get proud of your culture, that belief that you belong at the table. Not only do you belong, you must be at the table because we're not as strong as we could be when we all come together. She gets them to embrace who they are, where they are, and that they're capable of getting to where they need to be. And all this makes the students feel successful, they feel important, they feel like they have no choice but to rise to the next level of their academic lives. She wants to be able to give those students, you know, the academic foundation of those tools to fight any battle that they may face as they're going through life. She's going to continue doing that even till her last heartbeat. Honestly, I'm just so happy. I feel like I'm living my dream. I have so much love for my students. I see their passion in life, and when I say passion, I mean their anger, I mean their emotion, right? So when they show it to me, I see, I see me, you know, I see someone that's just trying to be honest, and someone who's just trying to move forward. When I see that, it just drives me to want to give my 100 million percent to them.