An Empowering Week

Hey y’all, I am Annie Marroquin, a sophomore Politics major and Urban & Environmental Policy minor. I am a part of Sigma Lambda Gamma National Sorority, Inc., an Overnight Coordinator for the Office of Admission, and next year’s Co-Director for More MOSTE.

Last Tuesday, I had the amazing opportunity to be in the presence of my role model, Dolores Huerta. I listened to hear speak about the importance of community organizing, the power of the people and the empowerment of women. She mentioned how the United States is #70 in the world in women representation within legislation and that women need to pull themselves out of the mindset (that society has created) that we are weak or that someone else is going to take care of us. She also discussed campaign reform and to use public money (as well as limits on spending) to use for elections, this is one step to pull the tremendous amount of money that flows into politics. Huerta stated that close to 60% of people in Congress are millionaires, which is not completely representative of the population. Her final thoughts surrounded the theme of organizing with love, sharing power when you have it and that a leader empowers others to be a leader too. Afterwards, I was able to meet her and we briefly discussed my community organizing experience in my hometown. She is a humble and powerful woman of color and I was honored to have the opportunity to meet her.

Thursday, I went to the beach with Bio 110 class (Organisms on Earth) and collected data for our tidepool lab. Even though I am a politics major, Oxy gives me the opportunity to explore other fields, expanding my education. After a successful morning of data collection and exploring, our class had lunch on the beach and soon headed back to campus.

I am part of the E-board for More MOSTE at Oxy, and our job is to create and facilitate workshops on campus  for high school women in the LA area. This past Saturday workshop, we discussed one of my favorite topics, healthy eating and active living! We got a yoga instructor, did some zumba and to end the day I did a presentation about nutritious foods as well as an introduction to the US food system. I recommended them towards healthy snack alternatives, to start paying attention to nutrition labels and to have moderation in the delicious sweets we all enjoy. I believe that the topic of food is one often overlooked and what makes this issue worse is how deceiving our food system can be. Afterwards, the women told me that they were appreciative of finally having a discussion about this topic and overall becoming more aware about the issue and their health.

It was a busy week, but a good one. I was empowered by my favorite feminist,  I was able to empower and educate other young women, and I personally learned a lot along the way. The cycle of knowledge always keeps on giving.