MY PERSONAL CULTURE

By: Rubicela Chavez

 Who Am I?
❑ My full name is Rubicela Chavez-
Lazcano. My mom meant for my first
name to be Rubi and my middle
name Icela but she had trouble
communicating that to the hospital
staff when I was born.
❑ I am of Mexican American decent.
❑ I was born in 1991 in Los Angeles.
❑ I am 5’1’’ with brown hair and
brown eyes
❑ I am fluent in English and Spanish
and I’m OK in French.
❑ I love making art.
❑ Family and friendships are very
important to me.
At age 13 my parents moved our family from Los Angeles where I had been born to Las Vegas. It completely reshaped
my identity and added a new aspect to my personal culture. I was a girl from L.A. who spoke Spanglish and went to a
school with mostly other Hispanic kids like me. I thought I was going to be there forever. I loved living there and I was
so upset to be leaving my city and all the friends and family I had known forever to go somewhere else. I had to learn to
get used to the unbearably hot summers and cold winters. I had to adjust to the dessert landscape. The middle school I
was zoned for was a horrible fit for me and I had a hard time enjoying a city meant for adults when I was still a kid. But
with time I learned to love Las Vegas just as much. The next year I began going to LVA, a magnet art school, and it fit so
perfectly with who I was. I learned to make new friends with people completely different from me and learned to be
more open. I got used to the temperature and became old enough to experience the city but I’m not so drawn into the
gambling and crazy partying because I was raised here so it’s not as attractive. I love that if I’m leaving a concert at 2am
and I’m hungry I can still get food pretty much anywhere. I have met some of the best people here, including my
boyfriend of three years now. Las Vegas is part of who I am now and I’m just as proud of being from here as I am of
being from L.A.
 Religious Upbringing
• Growing up I was raised Catholic. I did my Baptism, First
Communion, and Quinceanera in the Church.
• After we moved to Vegas we stopped going to Church as regularly
and I started to move away from it.
• Today I still consider myself Catholic but I don’t go to Church
regularly. It is the religion that I associate with the most and it’s
hard to abandon the traditions but there are many things that I
question and disagree with. But I think that’s ok.
• A few years ago my parents converted to a different type of
Christian Church. It is a bit more fundamentalist than what I was
used to. However it wasn’t for me so I don’t go with them. Even
though I’m not super religious and can’t relate to it, they seem
happy and I think it’s help them so I am happy for them.
• I think it’s important to be open to other people’s ideas and beliefs
even if they are very different from your own.
I am a 100 percent Mexican and I am very proud of that. I was born to a very big Mexican family. My mom was one of ten and my
dad was I one of eight. My parents came here from Mexico when they were both teenagers and had to readjust to life in another
country. Family was the one thing from back home that they could hold on to so it was always very important to them. Staying
close to family was the best way they had of holding on to their culture. They instilled that idea in me as well. Growing up I was
always very close with my cousins. My first sister was not born until I was 11 so my cousins were the closest thing I had to that.
I’m still very close with them and I’m very protective of them. I’m the oldest grandchild born in the U.S. on my mom’s side of the
family and on my dad’s side I am the oldest in the second generation of grandchildren. Yeah there’s that many of us. This is just a
picture of the cousins on my Mom’s side of the family a couple Easters ago. I love my family and even though they’re a challenge
sometimes, I know that I owe a lot of who I am to them.
How my sisters shaped me:
My sister Tais was born on November 28th of 2001 when I was 11.
Before then I had been an only child, and already had a bit of an “only
child” mentality. My youngest sister Daisy was born on September
14th of 2006, just a few months after I had turned 15 and had my
Quinceanera. If my sisters hadn’t come along I would probably be a lot
more selfish and spoiled. I had wanted a sibling for years; I wanted
somebody to play with and talk to. Being more than a decade older
than them made that hard. I love my sisters but because of the age
difference we don’t have a typical sibling relationship. We didn’t get to
play together or hang out at school. They were too young to relate to
me and I was too old to still enjoy all the things they did. My parents
worked a lot and they needed help so I took care of my sisters. I taught
them to walk, potty trained them, and got them to stop using their
baby bottle. As we got older I would take them out to eat and to the
movies. I showed them the things I loved asnd though were important
for them to know (like Harry Potter). When I was a teenager I
sometimes resented that responsibility that came with being their
older sister. I was a good student and stayed out of trouble. I didn’t
even start dating untill I was 21. It felt unfair at the time, but now
looking back I realize it did something great for me. I learned to be
responsible and care for someone other than myself at a young age. It
also showed me first hand how difficult it is to raise children and I
realized it wasn’t something I wanted for myself anytime soon; I was
just an assistant and I’d already had enough. Also having someone look
up to you that much makes you very aware of your actions and I think
it’s helped me make better decisions. As my first students they also
gave me great teaching experience. Although, I have probably learned
as much from them as they have from me.
There are many little things that make up my culture. Who I
am has been shaped by the people in my life, the places I’ve
been, the experiences I’ve had, and the things I’ve learned.
Music, dancing, shows, movies and books have all had a big
role in shaping me. Whether real or fictional the things that I
like and interest me are part of the my world and the life that
I’ve created for myself.
 ART
• Art is one of the biggest influences in my life. I have loved art since I can remember. Creativity has always
been one of my biggest driving forces. I loved anything where I got to be creative. I always made my mom
spend way to much money on supplies for history and English projects because I always got way too into
them because I wanted them to look cool. And I was never more interested in school than when my
teachers started introducing us to artist like Monet, Frida Kahlo, and Van Gogh.
• In school my art classes were my outlet. I felt like I needed them. They were the place were I could relax
and release and express all the craziness going on in my head. I took some art classes and in high school
experimented with ceramics and photography. I loved photography so much that I changed my major to
that (At LVA every student had a major). We had an actual darkroom and so I got to do a lot of film
photography. We did digital stuff too, and although Photoshop was fun I enjoyed film prints most.
• When I started going to CSN I went in as an art major. I took a few photo classes but they were mostly
digital studio photography so even though it was still a good thing to learn I didn’t enjoy them as much.
Then I began to take other types of art classes. I took drawing, painting, sculpture, and printmaking.
• When I found printmaking I really fell in love. It incorporated all the things I loved about film photography
and my love of drawing and brought them together. It made me realize how much I really loved being in
that creative atmosphere and that it was something I wanted to continue doing. I just have to find a path
to lead me there.
• Whether it is as a career or a hobby I know that art is something that I will always need in my life. It’s like
air to me. Even when I take breaks from it and stop taking classes, I find new ways to lead me back to it.
And I know that it is part of the culture that I will pass on to others.
 Friends and new family:
• The people I have chosen to bring into my life have also
had a huge impact on who I am. They’ve added so much
to the person that I am and in order for someone to really
get to know me they would also have to understand them.
• The things that they love have bleed into my life as well. I
fell in love with zombie movies and EDM music because e
of my friends.
• My friends have taught me how important it is to have
people around you that support you, push you, and
encourage you to succeed. It’s these people that have
really allowed me to take chances and break out of the
box of who I’m expected to be in order to grow as a
person.
• My boyfriend is one of those people. Since I met him I’ve
become more independent and sure of myself. I’m more
willing to experience new things and I’ve learned to not
fall apart when things don’t go according to planned.
• I’ve also adopted his friends and family as my own and in
the process learned that as long as you’re open and
judgement free, it is possible to relate to all kinds of
different people.
• We recently and we’ve had all kinds of new experiences
together like traveling to Fiji, going to raves, and learning
how to live together.
• We also have a dog together that I love so much. I’d never
had a dog before and now I can’t imagine not having him.