Watermelon Sushi World: Meet Mexipina Mentor, Christina Torres

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Meet Mexipina Mentor, Christina Torres

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez!

As always, Your Hip Hapa thanks you for your loving support. Since Facebook deleted all inactive accounts, the numbers for our Watermelon Sushi fans has plunged. Please “like” our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/watermelonsushi and help build us up again.

Christina Torres

Your Hip Hapa is so grateful for your continued views of our links at the bottom of this post. And, please tell your family, friends and multicultural community organizations to join us here every other month to read about our featured Hip Hapa Homee.

This bi-month, we’d like to introduce you to educator Christina Torres. Here’s her story:

Q: Who are you parents and how did they meet?

A: My Mexican father and Filipina mother met at the University of Southern California.

mother, father, daughter

Q: What was it like growing up?

A: Growing up was tough.

I’ve written about it here: http://www.tolerance.org/blog/why-teaching-about-social-justice-matters

and here: https://teachrunwrite.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/the-paradox-of-high-expectations/.

I was at a mostly white school, so that was hard.

in Hawai'i

Q: Now that you live in Hawai’i, how different is it from your former residence in Southern California?

A: I'm way more accepted here than in SoCal. In L.A., there was also lot of racial profiling that affected me. Here in Hawai'i, everyone is mixed and in interracial relationships, which helps a lot. Still it's hard.

Q: What inspired you to become an educator?

A: I wrote about that here:

http://rance.org/blog/why-teaching-about-social-justice-matters

But some of it was also the realization that kids who shared my racial background, but grew up a half an hour away, had received an education that lacked a number of opportunities that mine had. I realized I had to do something about it.

Q: How do you guide your students when it comes to developing multicultural awareness?

A: I make it a point to consistently bring up conversations around race with my students. I've actually already written a paper on facing stereotypes and biases with my students to discuss race issues.

Q: As an educator, how do you see things changing for multiracial people? Or, do you?

A: I think that as interracial relationships become more common and race issues become more prevalent, we'll move towards a world where these issues are discussed more, and multiracial people will have more representation. I think we have a LONG way to go, however.