Hey everybody! Welcome to the Caminos al Futuro blog! As we begin our first weekend in DC, I’d like to tell you about our first experiences in the capital of our country. I began my journey at LAX where I met three other Camino Scholars (it took us the entire flight to find the fifth member of the California cohort). We flew from Los Angeles from Houston, Texas, and took second flight to Reagan National Airport. A total of eight hours, the five Cali scholars arrived at the George Washington campus. Unfortunately, we arrived at 7pm (we later realized that we had missed orientation and the first part of the welcoming barbecue). Nonetheless, we carried our luggage up the hill and had dinner.
We met the rest of the Caminos al Futuro participants during our floor meeting that Sunday. We met our resident assistant (RA), Jayson, and got to know each other through a series of icebreakers and games.
My most memorable experience was on Wednesday, June 5th. After a lecture on the Latino Population by Dra. Vaquera, we met up with Mario and Jayson to being our 6 mile walk. We began at the Lincoln Memorial. We actually stepped on the same spot where Martin Luther King delivered his iconic “I have a Dream” speech! We had such a great time, but we did not know that the walk would get so much worse… (The temperature rose and we did not realize that we had to walk so much around Tidal Basin).
We continued walking and visited the Korean War, World War II, Jefferson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt memorials. Throughout the way, Mario had his handy phone to give us History 101 lessons. We were able to have a first-person perspective on the impact that our nation’s history continues to have on today's generation. Being in Washington for the Fourth of July not only made us more patriotic, but actually helped us reflect on our country's greatness.
For this reason, we work everyday to find new solutions to empower the Latino community. We form a large portion of our nation’s population; in fact, there are currently 56 million Latinos in the United States, and we are continuing to increase in numbers. (Shout out to Dra. Vaquera for her lecture!) We have discussed heavily on the importance of the Latino vote and representation in our government. We truly are the future, and programs like Caminos al Future enable us to explore the power we have in order to someday exercise the power we hold.
These were some of my favorite highlights so four 3 hour walk. The Jefferson Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and Korean War Memorial. Seeing these historic monuments was so cool. The high school Junior is American History. To be able to see the textbook come to life was eye-opening for me and all the other Caminos scholars. The hands-on trip has been so helpful in further understanding the lessons from our high schools history classes. Thank you so much.
By the way, this has been an amazing opportunity to sing all my favorite Hamilton songs! Woooork!
