Galeana, Alejandra

My name is Alejandra Galeana. I am a third year at UCLA, majoring in Political Science and double-minoring in Chicana and Chicano Studies and Labor and Workplace Studies. I am highly interested in this course because as a Chicana who is striving to be conscious, I have made it my job to be educated so that I may, in turn, educate my community. I have begun this intellectual journey by studying myself through my culture's history. As a young woman who has been under the patriarchal foot her entire life, I enjoy taking classes that not only educate me but empower me as a Chicana. 

I, much like Professor Lopez, grew up in a culturally Catholic family where we would maintain traditions like: performing baptisms and marriages and nos persignabamos as we passed a church, or as we begun driving, as a gesture to ask for God's protection and safety. I never understood the inequalities and restrictions given to me through my Chicana culture and even more limitations through the Catholic religion. It has not been until recently that I have made a connection with God by myself but will forever maintain my distance from structural religion. 

However, I grew up constantly aware of the idolization of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Although I maintained my distance from church, La Virgen was close to me at all times through pictures that hung on the walls of the homes of my family and neighbors, on necklaces, murals and more. I began to love seeing Her because She reminded me of my family, my culture, my home. Even though I knew the Christian religion discredited Her and didn't give Her the love my raza gave Her, she remains beautiful in my eyes.