Chance
They say its either your identity is shaped by the decisions you made or your decisions are shaped by your identity. I believe it’ both, but also how you were socialized. My name is Robert Dylan Loquinario, I was born March 27th on the year 1998. Yes, the same birthday as Mariah Carey as some of you were probably not wondering. I am fortunate to have both my biological parents in my life and two siblings. Both my parents immigrated from the Philippines, making me first generation. My dad is a registered nurse who works in dialysis, which is basically cleaning of the blood. My mother used to work with my dad till they got married and had kids and now she just takes care of my siblings and me. When I was little my main struggle was making friends, ironically now my struggle is my friends distracting me. Born in Fullerton, California and raised in Garden Grove, I’d say I lived a normal life. When I was young I used to care what people thought, but now I care more. I was pretty outgoing, I didn’t really have doubts before doing anything. I feel over the years I learned to be more aware of my actions and conscious of people’ expectations so that I started to crawl into a shell. Both my parents and raised me as their parents raised them in the Philippines. So my childhood was different compared to other kids. It also didn’t help when I moved schools when I was younger, forcing me to make new friends. I felt insecure. It was this insecurity that made me quit a lot of things in my life. I quit basketball, taekwondo, piano, guitar, swimming, violin, track, and waterpolo all because I didn’t believe in myself. Like most kids I was scared and just went through life. And because of this I felt that I was living a monotonous life. I was learning to live in routine, secure and safe. But Jean-Paul Satre said, “We are our choices”, and I didn’t want to be always refusing to do something because I was afraid. I was not about to let my fear decide my fate. Freshman year, I joined the basketball team. I made it on as an alternate player, but made it nonetheless. I was still insecure as it haunted me that I didn’t make it on as a first choice, but I didn’t let that stop me as basketball that became my catalyst into social life. Starting the summer of my sophomore year from 6 am to 3 pm every weekday I was doing water polo, then helping with the frosh basketball team, then going to practice for Junior Varsity basketball. I also took up poetry. My life became busy and changed. It was a year of Nike’ well advertised phrase. Later in the year I did track and field, running varsity 300 and 100 hurdles. I always went into practice with a positive joking attitude but hard working mindset. I always talked, maybe sometimes too much. At some point my positive attitude got me a date for the Sadies Hawkins dance. It was a rollercoaster of a year of making great decisions and bad ones. One of my better decisions was when Sarah, my friend since my freshman year, asked me to join Encore, our school’ show choir. I thought about joining for a while and decided why not? I pulled a Troy Bolton, quit basketball and joined choir. I was living to feel emotion. It was a new experience for me to say the least. I had prejudice thoughts of the people in choir, I thought the kids were weird and reserved. One of the very first days in class there was a socratic seminar, in which the choir go into a circle talking about their life. It got emotional and I got caught off guard. All the stereotypes and premonitions I was socialized to believe melted away. The choir kids were very understanding and caring, similar but very different to my basketball team. Despite this some of my friends that joined with me quit, one by one. I stayed, maybe it was because I loved to sing, maybe it was I felt bad at this point there were only 9 guys left, or maybe because I needed the fine arts credit. I told them it was the latter. Practice was a laugh compared to practice for sports. It was late at night, three hours, and dancing. Three things I didn’t like together. This would be one of the things I miss the most. We practiced hard for competition season, in class and after school for 3 months. When it was time for our first competition, we got last. Dead last. We weren’t ready and I hate losing. I thought about quitting right there. But I couldn’t, it was so easy for my to quit, just like the other things in my life, but I couldn’t. These weirdos were my family now, and you really can’t quit family. The seniors that were in choir all four years gave a speech about how much this meant to them. Talking about how they went all four years without getting first in anything. It was this surreal feeling, and anyone could tell that from that point on we practiced for perfection. Better facials, sharper movements, perfect intonation. Our next competition, I would be treating like game day. We got there in costume, out theme was Pirates of the Caribbean. We looked pretty badass and ready to kick some ass. When we were done performing we got the usual “you guys looked great” from the other choirs which I took as sarcastic. In retrospect probably wasn’t but I was in gameday mode. The award ceremony the lights were off, leaving only the stage and little ones on the walls on, giving the impression that there were stars. The host listed from fourth to first place, leaving 5th and under with no placement. This would be the first year our Show Choir got 1st Place in seven years. Seniors started crying. I, as a junior in gameday expected this and started cheering but it really hit me here that this was important to them. Joining and getting to know the community, I found out I was the only weird one. The end of the year when all the seniors left, I ended up crying. I didn’t even cry when Bubba died in Forrest Gump, but I did there, in that small emotional choir room. I joined again my senior year to try to get the same feelings and memories as my junior year. But the thing is, you can never repeat the past. My life from then on became a game of always trying to say yes. Making it really easy for me to get persuaded. Not to say I’m gullible, but I do want to let opportunities get away leaving me with regrets. It was the same impulse that made me join choir. I think I really got into this thinking after watching Yes Man, the 46% rotten tomatoes movie starring Jim Carrey from 2008 and the more recent, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, starring Ben Stiller from 2013. What do these movies have in common? They both tell the life of a guy living a square life when suddenly they do things they wouldn’t normally do, they go against the grain and the beautiful thing is, things changed for the better. However, both movies do end up having some complication to make the plot interesting which does contradict what I’m saying, but my point stays. I felt I was living the same day every day and I was tired. Inspired by those movies, for a whole year I tried to say yes to every opportunity that came up to me. As this 2016 election was coming while I was a senior in high school, I knew I had a responsibility to vote and be more aware of the state of this country. As a firm supporter of Bernie Sanders, I did not like Trump as a person for his politics and his beliefs. America was founded by immigrants, so why does the word have a bad taste in the mouth of people. It’ as if the American people forgot about the history of the nation. It is immigration’ double standards, as Chacon and Davis put it in No one is illegal: Fighting racism and state violence on the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump fed of people’ fears and insecurities making people overlook his bad qualities. However, I know to look at two sides of the story so when I found out he was having a rally in Costa Mesa I figured I should go to see how he really is, no edits or media reframing his words. When I arrived I saw the sea of supporters and curious minds like myself. I tried to see a pattern and stereotype of Trump supporters. They seem to be middle class white people. Not all, but most. It hurt my stomach seeing little kids wearing the ‘Make America Great Again’ hats. I got the same feeling I got from anti-Trump supporters who were angry but instead of explaining their side were really just bashing everyone supporting Trump. Fortunately I never made it inside the actual rally. I say that because outside was where the real sight to see. One side of the sidewalk were Trump supporters and on the street parking lot were the anti-Trump supporters, most of them were Hispanic carrying the Mexican flag. Both sides flinging insults, but the Trump supporters retorted with more racist remarks. As an outsider watching both sides it was interesting and I grew to wonder why these people were so angry, were they angry that people didn’t like Trump or because they were actually racists. The protester’ side was less aggressive but just more mad and hurt. I looked at them and they were scared, it wasn’t hatred. This of course was contrasted by the amused, hostile tones from the supporters’ side. I was and still am a little naive in just really wanting everyone to just understand each other. Later the police began to move the protesters and supporters off the fairgrounds to the street which was not a better idea as the protesters began to cause traffic. More police officers came on horseback and riot shields, I felt the adrenaline kick in when I heard someone yell pepper spray and as mob mentality works, I was swayed and ran with the bulls. I marched with the protesters down the street matching their tone with my support. It was an interesting time, a time where I honestly and truly believed that a person with such disrespect for human beings could become President. Trump gained support through his appealing to the silent majority and causing fear to those who cannot fight for themselves. It’ that fear and scared emotions that inspire me to be a better person and to help. I feel like people just need to understand everyone’ perspective before judging and acting on what they think they know. However there are some decisions in life that can’t be chosen so easily. I may have been saying yes to a lot of choices of to do or not to do, but there are times where it wasn’t so simple as that. Times were saying yes would have more negative repercussions than positive memories and times where I had to make sacrifices. In high school I was known as a clown to most, even nominated for class clown, but less people know I was one of the more smarter kids, especially in math. It catches people off guard when I tell them I’m in AP Calculus, and even more when I tell them my hectic senior schedule. However, I digress, one day we had a partner test for Calculus, this was a blessing for me since my girlfriend, Jessica, was in the class and she is as smart as me if not smarter. However, as I was basking in my good fortune, I saw Rosario and Yisana couldn’t find a partner, mostly because they were the runts of the class. I know they could’ve partnered up together but they both knew it was a grade killer for them to do so. It was at this point where I had a choice, secure an A and partner up with my girlfriend or take a risk to help them both out. As my ethos beat out my logos, I told Jessica my plan and we split up to partner up with them. That test we got an 88%, not my best but certainly did help Rosario. Sometimes we have to risk things in life to make some change. I didn’t regret my choice, mostly because I know if I didn’t make the choice it would haunt me. However, my most impact decision would be the hardest to make. When people talk about college it carries a certain tone and weight. For some it hold pressure, and for some a future to look forward to, and for me it was both. College is a new chapter in life for most people so my decision to go to UCSC was not as simple as earlier choices in life. You have to look at the distance from home, prestige, rank, and overall scene. I could’ve gone to UCI, UCR, or UCSB but something in me told me to go to UCSC. Maybe it was the beauty or the distance, or the beauty of the distance but I felt I needed to go here. I choose to go to UC Santa Cruz because it was different. People ask me sometimes why I chose UCSC. They say “It’ so far” or “it’ not that good” and I tell them the same thing. I wanted to get away. What I don’t tell them is I also wanted to find myself, what I didn’t expect was to find myself in a forest. Of course there were other factors in my choice but simply put I needed a new scene to focus on myself. I didn’t want to be a commuter from home going to school and back home, seeing the same old friends and thinking about what-if. This decision has made all the difference. College is a time to make decisions and truly find and define yourself. This is my chance to make the decisions that will decide what the future will bring. And my future is in my hands, I just need to take a risk.