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Erika is a senior at CU Boulder studying political science, social and environmental justice and peace and conflict studies. media type="file" key="erika.m4a" align="center" width="300" height="50"



It's a Small World During the summer before my junior year of college I spent four weeks in Tlaxcala, Mexico studying with the Mexico Solidarity Network and living with a local family. I was trying to wrap my mind around the poverty that has been plaguing Mexico for many years. I felt like I fell and hit my head and woke up in a world where being alive meant struggling to survive. I was living with a family who earned less than 30 dollars a month. Our house consisted of four cement walls, sheets of tin for a roof, a shower stall, and an outhouse. Water was sparse and the possibility of running out was a constant concern, and the electricity was never dependable.

All things considered, this place felt more like home than my typical home in suburbia. I felt home because for the first time in my life I wasn’t trying to convince myself that I should feel content and comforted by a big house with a garage and a small yard, rather home meant being with the ones that would fight for your safety, health and happiness.

The time I spent with my host parents and little sisters taught me a lot about the burdens felt by many people across the globe. I felt a strong bond to them, because I looked into their eyes and saw a human element that made us so similar. Yet there was a big difference between us; they were struggling to survive and I was living in excess. After spending weeks with them, and after an intensive study of poverty in Mexico, I became aware that the lifestyle choices in the US were affecting their lives in Mexico.

NAFTA has created a system in which Mexican farms produce at large scales and ship everything to the US, leaving no affordable local food for Mexican families to eat. In addition, as a college student I try to shop on the cheap, but my desire for cheap clothes means that Mexican workers have very little agency to receive a quality wage or good working conditions because the demand for cheap products is so high. Also, the US is one of the biggest consumers of cocaine; our addictions are plaguing Mexico with a war between drug lords fighting for the ports along the US and Mexico border. It’s these decisions that make the world seem so much smaller.

I believe that we are all interconnected; the decisions I make are felt across the globe. It’s for this reason I can no longer live as an individual; I recognize that I am a small part of a much larger community. We are a community that depends on one another. I am dedicated to restoring our broken idea of community by fighting for the safety, health and happiness of everyone in this large interconnected world.