Velasquez, Cristian

Excuse the old picture. (I'm not the picture type)

Hi! My name is Cristian Velasquez and I am a 20 year old, Mexican- American, incoming 3rd year transfer student, majoring in French and minoring in Cognitive Science from San Diego. To be more precise, I come from a small town in San Diego where there is nothing to see, but orange groves, and nowhere to go, except the casinos, so it is quite exciting to be here in LA, especially at one of the most well recognized universities in the country! I was born down south in San Diego to a Mexican family with roots in Zacatecas, Mexico,  as far as I know. Some of my favorite pastimes include cooking, eating, watching scary movies, sleeping, spending time with my nephew and niece, and can't forget, unhealthy amounts of Netflix.

I am quite the language enthusiast. I enjoy learning about language and how we as humans interpret it from a very young age. I feel like language opens up doors to meet new people and especially to the diverse cultures around the globe. I currently speak English, Spanish, French, and very little Italian. I feel like culture is important in human lives because it allows for traditions to be shared with others and passed along from one generation to the next. I became interested in this class simply because I felt it would broaden my knowledge of Chican@ culture (I learned that by including the "@" symbol in the word "Chicano" it is meant to be gender inclusive of both males and females).

As far back as I can remember, my family was not very religious. We considered ourselves Catholics, but did not practice it very much. My first encounter with La Virgen de Guadalupe was when I was very young, perhaps 6-7 years old when we visited my dad's family in Mexico. We arrived at my aunt's house in Zacatecas and there she was, La Virgen de Guadalupe pictured on the wall with a nice gold frame plastered very high on the wall. "Who is that?" I thought. It wasn't until we would occasionally go to church that I saw a similar painting and that is when I concluded that La Virgen de Guadalupe was a religious figure to many people.