Oral History Program Jessica Cairo Interviewed by Nute Rands 5 August 2019 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Jessica Cairo Interviewed by Nute Rands 5 August 2019 Copyright © 2022 by Weber State University, Stewart Library iii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. The working files, original recording, and archival copies are housed in the University Archives. Project Description The Beyond Suffrage Project was initiated to examine the impact women have had on northern Utah. Weber State University explored and documented women past and present who have influenced the history of the community, the development of education, and are bringing the area forward for the next generation. The project looked at how the 19th Amendment gave women a voice and representation, and was the catalyst for the way women became involved in the progress of the local area. The project examines the 50 years (1870-1920) before the amendment, the decades to follow and how women are making history today. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Cairo, Jessica, an oral history by Nute Rands, 5 August 2019, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. Jessica Cairo 5 August 2019 1 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Jessica Cairo, conducted on August 5, 2019, in the Stewart Library, by Nute Rands. In this interview, Jessica discusses her life, her memories, and the impact of the 19th Amendment. Raegan Baird, the video technician, and Brooklyn Knight, are also present during this interview. NR: Alright, today is August 5, 2019, 12:15 pm. This is Jessica Cairo, we are interviewing her today for the Women 2020 project. I am Nute Rands, on camera is Raegan, and witnessing is Brooklyn. Thank you so much for doing this. JC: Thanks for having me. NR: Alright, so we’re going to start with when and where were you born? JC: I was born March 27, 1992 in Panama City, Florida. NR: Okay. What brought you to Utah? JC: My dad is Air Force, retired, but when we got sent to Utah, it was basically a job assignment so he got deployed to Utah, as a new duty station. So I was born in Florida, lived in Germany for most of my life, and then he wanted to come back to the United States for his last duty station before he retired and Utah just happened to be the one that was open. From there it was like, “Well, now the kids are in high school. We don’t want to move them while they’re in the middle 2 of this important time in their life.” So, we ended up staying in Utah until college, so now here I am. NR: So, when you were a young girl who were some of the women you looked up to? JC: Well, I think probably a lot of women look up to family members, the same goes for me. I look up to my mom and my aunt, immensely. There’s always like those figures that you see in movies or in books. My favorite author was Maya Angelou. She’s a poet, a women’s rights speaker, and her poems still hit me really hard even today. But definitely the biggest one would have to be my mom. NR: Beyond the fact that she’s your mother, why was she so impactful for you? JC: So, my mom grew up in the Philippines and the United States because her family was military and her mom was in the Philippines, so she came back and forth between the United States and the Philippines growing up. She’s a really tiny lady, she’s not even five feet tall. She’s super cute, really fashionable, a little crazy. I mean, she has a military husband, they’ve been married for over thirty years, that is like a huge thing in my book. She also raised her kids kind of on her own. My dad was deployed during military life, you know, to be faithful and she was also a working woman too. So, she worked, raised kids, and was married to a military guy. She’s also really intelligent and smart and she’s kind of a really big softie too. She’s just all the things that a little girl wants to be when you grow up. NR: Were you pushed to pursue an education? 3 JC: I can’t even remember how far back, but my parents have always pushed me. Like, college was not an option, I had to at least get a Bachelor’s degree. NR: Okay. Do you think your choice in career and education would be different than the women from a previous generation? JC: I don’t know because I haven’t lived that life. But yeah, I think possibly. I’m not sure if I would either be more extreme now because I’m really stubborn and fighting-type personality and family, or if it would be because of the times back then, I don’t know if I would have the option to even pursue the dreams and careers that I am now. NR: What are your dreams and careers? JC: So, I’m a double major. I’m double majoring in Psychology with a minor in Neuroscience and an integrated study in languages Japanese, English, and Linguistics. I would like to join the military, hopefully, we’ll see if that happens, but if not, I’d like to work for the Department of State. I’m going to apply for some jobs as a therapist as a residential advisor, that’s what I do right now. But I think a lot of jobs and opportunities, especially when it has to do with Department of State, so the government or military, these were a lot of options that were not open up to me a hundred years ago. NR: I would understand. What challenges did you face in your academic career? JC: I think I was pretty lucky, military kids usually grow up in a melting pot community. No matter where they are in the world, there’s always the same 4 military bases that are set up the same way and there’s kids from everywhere in the world, so I learned how to adapt growing up really well. When you’re moving around a lot, meeting new people from a bunch of different cultures you tend to grow up and adapt to be open-minded. Utah was kind of a culture shock for my family, I lived in Europe for almost ten years and then moved to the United States. It was my first time being in the United States, so like yellow buses to me were like, “What? They’re really yellow.” So, adapting to “American culture” was actually a thing and also Utah’s a very particular culture, especially with the LDS community and there’s like there’s temples everywhere and I was like, “What are these buildings that are on every corner? What are those?” I’m also an ethnic minority, my dad is African American-Japanese, my mom is Filipino and a bunch of other things, but basically that makes me brown with really curly, crazy hair. when I was in elementary school, junior high, high school there weren’t as many of those, so it kind of makes you stick out. I guess academically, like those were things that kind of just, you know, made me different and so people kind of watched me more than they would anybody else. What I mean by ‘I was lucky’ was my parents kind of prepared me academically really well, so I’ve always been like a 4.0 student, I always listened really well to my teachers. I remember when you say like “boundaries,” “walls,” in junior high, I had a vice principal that came after school and looked for me, and I was kind of that student that was everywhere. I was always like helping with tutoring, I was in every club, so good luck finding me in a school after school. So, my dad came to look for me and he ran across the vice principal and he was like, 5 “Hi, I’m looking for my daughter,” and she was like, “Oh, is she in remediation?” And my dad’s like, “No. No, she’s not. Positive she’s not in remediation,” and she was like, “Oh, so is she being tutored?” And he’s like, “Not unless she’s the tutor,” you know and he’s got the red flags going off but he’s still like, “Oh wait, wait, wait. Let’s not jump on her.” And she’s like, “Well, those are really like the only two things going on today. So unless she’s in those two things, she wouldn’t be here.” So he’s thinking, “Okay, maybe she’s not here because those are the only two things happening after school,” so he goes off to look for me at the places I volunteer. There were other club things going on that day, theatre, National Honors Society, you know other things. So it was like she assume looking at him, because he’s very dark-skinned, kind of looked haggard, and he’s kind of a scary looking dude that I was in remediation or being tutored? You know, those are things like that you never notice until like your parents point them out to you or some big drastic event happens to like shock you, and it actually hit me pretty hard because he was like, “We need to have this talk,” after that, and that was like my first year of junior high. So after that, luckily I had the academic background that none of that really mattered to me, I still was going to get the 4.0, I was still going to get all of these things. And for me, it actually ended up being, “Well look, she’s this brown student, but she’s here every day after school and she works really hard,” so at the end of the year in junior high I swept like all of the academic awards. I guess teachers didn’t talk, so I took like all of them. They called me up like the ‘Top Math Student,’ the ‘Top Science Student,’ 6 whatever, swept all of it. So it was like, “Is it because I’m a minority that you guys are like, ‘Oh she did great and so did this student, but she’s also brown,” you know? I don’t know but it’s always kind of been in the back of my head, whereas if I weren’t the ethnicity that I am, I don’t know if I wouldn’t think about that. NR: Yeah, totally. JC: Maybe I got off topic, sorry. NR: No, no, it was awesome. Loved it. So how did your first job compare to your mother’s or grandmother’s first job? JC: Well, my first job was as a babysitter, if you count that as a first job. If you mean a paid job with a paycheck and the company gave it to you I guess, I was a high school math tutor. I got paid to stick after school and tutor people in math. My mom’s first job, I think it was fast-food, honestly. But if you go to my aunt, I have no idea, or my grandmother, she—one grandmother from my dad’s side was from Japan, so she grew up in a noodle shop basically and she just made noodles with her family. So I guess back then it was more “Help your family get by,” and then for my mom it was “Come up with ways to be independent on your own to pay for that.” So she was really kind of an entitled woman growing up, so she already was strong, independent, had that backing at least or that upraising that she could do kind of whatever she wanted. So I think I’m pretty privileged so I can say that I don’t think there was much of a difference. NR: Okay, awesome. 7 BK: You got this. NR: Okay, so like you did about your mother, did your grandmother have an experience that helped her strive to raise more independent children? JC: Okay, so both of my grandmothers are—well, my mother’s side, she’s Filipino she’s from the Philippines, she had a heart condition, she wasn’t supposed to have kids and she had a daughter. She was very wealthy in the Philippines and married an army guy. So, she already was, even back then, still rather lucky. My mom was like very spoiled basically was born with like a silver spoon in her mouth, so she was really lucky. My grandmother on my dad’s side, this is the one from Japan, married a marine guy and then came to the United States. She learned English, she raised five kids with a marine husband who passed away pretty early, so she raised five kids on her own, and she worked her butt off. I just think both of them, both my grandmothers, were very strong, stubborn, determined, intelligent, bright women that they just didn’t let anything keep them down. You know? So that was like their life, but not only that, their characteristics, their traits, kind of made them “Whatever life throws at me, welp. I’ve got kids, I’ve got to do this,” that’s just how they were. Both sides kind of had that, so I don’t know if there was any specific experience, but kind of, I guess, just their life and how they were, their personalities. NR: Basically, this stubborn, independent concept has been in your family for generations? JC: Yeah. [laughs] I guess it runs in the military part too. 8 NR: Yeah, I can understand that. What are some of your motivations for your education and/or career? JC: So, I think part of the difference between like my grandmothers with their time and my time is instead of having to get these degrees to prove that I can or do these things to prove that I can so I can be successful in life. Instead, it’s what makes me happy. I have that privilege to be like, “What makes me happy in life?” Well, I enjoy helping people, I enjoy talking to people, I enjoy learning about others’ cultures. That’s something like, a statement that I don’t think a lot of women back then could say, you know like, “I enjoy this so I’m going to pursue this, and I know I can because nothing’s going to be in my way.” Like we have a system set up now where I can do that, but back then you needed those traits to accomplish those goals. You needed to be strong, independent, kind of go against the flow, not be afraid to express your mind, not afraid to get that backlash, whereas my grandmothers were. But nowadays, it helps to be strong and independent, but there’s not often something going to pop up in your way that says, “No, you can’t do that because you’re a woman. You can’t do that because your grandparents were immigrants,” those statements don’t pop up as much. There’s a system in place that helps with that, whereas back then there weren’t as many. Wait what was the original question? NR: What are some of your motivations for your education and career? JC: Okay, so yeah those—instead now, rather than having to prove myself to someone or out there to like set the groundwork for someone else, now it’s more 9 I can just do what I enjoy, do what I love. You know, so I guess that’s the back— also I don’t want to let my family down at all, when you have those kind of strong women in your life, you don’t want to be the one that’s like...ehhh not so much, so you kind of want to keep that going and be that example for maybe my kids one day. I want to be like my mom, my grandmother, my great-grandma were all these awesome women. I don’t want to be the one that’s not that. I just want to do what I like, I want to do what I love and enjoy. NR: Did you notice any pushback while you were trying to pursue what you wanted? JC: Yeah. Kind of, I guess, like from family as well as like outside. So when I first started going to school, like again I was really bright, so my mom was like, “She’s going to go to medical school. She’s going to be a lawyer. She’s going to be one of those really big careers.” Then I was like, “You know, I think I’m going to major in psychology.” My mom was like, “What? That’s it? That’s all? They don’t get paid much,” and I was like, “Yeah, I get it like you know, money is important. But if you’re good at what you do, really good at what you do, you’re eventually going to make money.” And regardless of money, you’re going to enjoy it and life is going to be great because you love what you do. I don’t want to make a lot of money and not enjoy it. So I got pushback from my mom actually on you know, “What do you want to do? What do you want to be?” And eventually she’s like, “My daughter wants to be happy and she is bright and intelligent, so I believe she’s going to be happy no matter what she does.” So there was pushback from parents that want you to be successful and happy in life and you’re like, “I want to 10 go this way,” and they’re “No, no. Don’t go that way.” But also community-wise pushback on what I want to do? I had an advisor in high school and it literally seemed like they were trying to change my mind about what I wanted to do, so back then I was “I want to go to medical school, I want to go do this. I want to maybe be an architect. I don’t know what I want to do yet, but I want to do all these things. What do you think?” And my advisor in high school looked at me and was like, “Well, you’re really bright so let’s focus on your grades. And if you want to go to school, let’s look at these places. There are a lot of opportunities for you,” and then they seemed to ask if I was sure what I wanted to do, like am I sure? And they asked me that a bunch, “Are you positive that’s what you want to do? Have you thought about this?” And those options, I think one of them was like do I want to go into a field where I could represent my culture? Or do I want to maybe be a teacher and show that you can have all kinds of teachers? They were focusing on what I looked like rather than, you know, my actual capabilities and abilities. And it didn’t stand out to me too much then, and it wasn’t “No, you can’t do that,” it was more of a, “Are you sure you want to do that? Why don’t you look at these options instead?” And it felt weird, you know you can feel it? You’re like, “Oh, no. No, no. I want to do this, but thanks. Thanks for the options, but no, this is kind of what I want to do. I’m looking at these options instead,” and I wasn’t sure why, so when I went back home and I was “Yeah, so my advisor today at school told me that you know, maybe they aren’t the best options for me, I should look at this.” 11 Ticked my parents off! My parents went to go complain to the school board, they went and talked to the principal, they were “How dare this person tell my daughter she can’t be whatever she wants to be?!” And that was kind of like, I was lucky that I had parents that whenever I got pushback, they were not afraid to be like, “Oh, heck no!” and go take care of it, and then tell me later, “No, you can do whatever you want to do. Don’t let anyone tell you that, ‘Maybe you should do this instead.’ Take those as healthy options, side options to keep in mind, but you do what you want to do.” So I had really great parents that kept any kind of pushback that was coming my way at a minimum. They were really protective and really good at feeling those things out before I got really hurt. NR: Sweet, those are the best to have. JC: I know, I was really lucky. NR: As a woman, how do you define courage? JC: I was like, “You know, regardless of whether you’re male or female, actually.” Courage is having fears, being afraid, knowing that some things might go wrong and still having the strength to pursue it, still do it, to still go for it. So you know, I’m terrified of heights but I’m still going to go to that top of that mountain and it’s going to be terrifying, but I’m still going to do it. That’s like a small version of that. Courage is getting married in a foreign country and coming over to another country that you can’t speak even their language, because you love someone, that’s my grandmother from Japan. She had never been to the United States before, she lived in Japan all her life, fell in love, and came to the United States. 12 My parents, I don’t know if it’s rebellion or courage, but they had everyone around them saying, “Oh he’s not good enough for you,” or, “She’s too wealthy and there’s so much drama associated with her, why are you going to do this?” And still not listening to anyone else, following their hearts and still going for it. They still got married. I wouldn’t be here if they didn’t do that. Woohoo, go parents. But they eloped. So I think, yeah, courage is basically just having the strength to go for your dreams, or protect people, or do what’s right, regardless of what other people think or even if you’re afraid. NR: That is epic. JC: Okay, I was just “Anything else? Should I keep going?” NR: No, that was awesome. What does the term ‘women’s work’ mean to you? JC: ‘Women’s work?’ If you can’t notice the look on my face it’s like, “Women’s work?” So I don’t think there’s such a thing as ‘women’s work.’ I think there are some jobs that are better suited for people who have physical builds. That like, you know, scientifically, men have more muscles, maybe they’re better for construction work. But I don’t think there is any specific ‘women’s work.’ I think that label we should just get rid of because I think that every person is different, regardless if they’re a male or female, you’re going to find males and females that are better at some things than others. Not just a woman can be a cook, not just a woman can be a nurse, not just a man can be a doctor or a pilot. I think we’re starting to reach an age where we realizing that so I think that topic should just go into the trash bin. 13 NR: Fair. The reason we brought that one up is a lot of the other women we’re interviewing are of an older generation and that word, that term has dictated a lot of what they’ve done, and so that’s why we wanted to see what our generation thought of that. JC: It’s really funny you mention that because it brought up a flashback for me from my mom because growing up she was like, “Do you really have to act like such a man?” And in that way, it was that I was really outspoken. I was kind of a “tomboy,” I didn’t like wearing dresses, I didn’t like dressing up. I was really active, I played football, was always “one of the guys.” But I was kind of messy, I was not good at like domestic house chores. My mom was “Why are you such a man? Come on, be clean. You’re a lady, you’re a woman. Clean up, make yourself look nice.” And I was “I don’t care about that.” And actually, later in life, it became almost a compliment you know, men can do all this crap and it doesn’t matter to them. But if a woman does it, all of a sudden like we suck. So, I was like, “Uhhh,” it didn’t actually end up bothering me later when she was like, “You’re such a man,” and I was like, “Meh, it is what it is. Thanks Mom. If you mean, yeah, I’m not the best at doing dishes and laundry and I’m probably not going to end up as the back in the olden days’ wife that takes care of her kids and has to cook and clean and have a job. Yeah, you’re right, not me.” So, it was interesting even though I had that strong, driven mom, she still had those old-fashioned things in her head, where like a wife has to cook the meals, a wife has to clean the house, and that’s the woman’s “job.” But, yeah, it’s interesting. NR: How do you think women’s rights are going to change going forward? 14 JC: Well, still a long way to go. I mean, you have, the first one that pops to my head is that if you go look in the World Cup for soccer, you’ve got the men’s team, that is not that successful, and you’ve got the women’s team, who’s won like four championships in a row and for some reason they don’t even get paid half as much as the men. That’s a little weird, don’t you think? They were saying it’s because of the coverage and media and how much money the men make versus the women, now I’m like, “Now because you have these women that get so much coverage, so is that going to be raised according to your excuse or your reasoning for why they weren’t getting as much before?” I think with the times that we are facing now where one they’re saying, “Oh, we have to have a certain number of women in this job,” I think that’s not right either. I want to say equality but it’s actually almost not even equality, it’s just opening the doors for opportunity. So if a woman wants to be a nurse, wants to be a doctor, they have the same opportunities as anyone else, even a man, as anybody else. It should just be based off their skills and abilities to accomplish the job, versus like, “Oh, she’s a woman and we really need the “diversity” in our company right now, so let’s hire this lady.” Even though I’m totally taking advantage of that, I’m like, “Oh yes, I’m a woman, give me those scholarships. Because yeah, there aren’t as many women in this field so give that to me.” I almost think that’s the opposite extreme. What we’re working for is eventually to have like a time where you don’t need to think about that. Thinking about it is almost wrong, pointing out that somebody is thinking about that and telling them, “If you’re worried about that, you’re still thinking about it and that’s what’s wrong.” We shouldn’t be looking at 15 someone based on their gender or anything else, it should just be based off their skills and abilities, right? So, I think putting it that simply is how I feel about that. NR: Alright, how could you change women’s rights for the coming generations? JC: I’m going to be honest, I’m not a political person. ‘I’m not political’ meaning I don’t have that much of a passion to like go out there and be like you know, “Women’s Rights! That is wrong, don’t do that! We shouldn’t do this! Open your eyes to this!” But at the same time, I think you start with who’s around you and how you’re going to pass down those values. So I was lucky that my parents were never the overbearing type that were like, “No, you need to learn how to wash dishes and clean clothes, because you’re going to be a wife one day,” that was not important to them. On the opposite, they were like, “You don’t need to get married. You’re a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man,” like those were my parents. And I kind of want to pass down to my children, or the people that I am in contact with or have the chance to mentor, “You know, you can do whatever you want to do, regardless of your gender or your orientation. If someone tells you you can’t, do what you can to prove them wrong.” Like, that’s what I can see myself capable of doing. I think that if the opportunity did arise, like you know, voting. Voting with knowledge, so voting with background information, being an informed voter. Being an informed voter is super important, making sure you have representation. ‘Cause although, yeah, you want to believe that men can be like, “Yeah, women’s rights! Woohoo,” sometimes it helps to just have someone 16 that is that to say, “Uh, that’s not how it works. As a woman who’s experienced it, let me say how this is.” And then that way you have that representation in bodies of power. For me, it’s doing what I love, being around people, and trying to educate those around me. I guess in a college setting, last year I served as the Vice President of Diversity and Unity, we had events to talk about those things. You know like, “Equal Pay?” that’s like the title of the event. Or you have events that are like, “How Far We’ve Come,” or we have—like we table for LGBTQ, all of those different events you know you want to bring up the conversation, create a safe space where people can talk about that and express their opinions. And in an environment like that you realize how much people really aren’t educated or aren’t informed about how things really are. When you’re privileged and lucky like you don’t realize how hard some people have to work to even get their foot in the door, to get what you have, and that can be like an education, a job, even just passing an interview. You don’t realize that just being a woman can affect that, some of us are lucky now where it’s, “Oh, I’m a woman so I get extra points to that because they don’t have as many women here. Or I’m a STEM major so I get more money.” We’re lucky in those situations, but there still are those other situations where it’s not. You can only take those situations as they come and if that situation pops up where someone is trying to block you or there is a policy or something in place that’s not right and you know it’s not, not being afraid to say, “This isn’t right, and that might get me fired, but oh well.” Just standing by what’s right, holding to your guns and not being afraid to voice that. I think we’re lucky we live in a time now where it 17 should be okay to do that and there should be things in place to let you do that. I’m not like, “I’m going to go into the government and I’m going to change things and make policies.” But at least as a citizen of the country I live in, or just in my life, I can educate others, not be afraid when you see something that’s wrong to point it out, or be willing to speak your mind for someone who might be too afraid to. NR: That’s amazing. JC: I was like, “Okay. That’s it.” NR: And lastly, how do you think women receiving the right to vote shaped or influenced history, your community, and you personally? JC: Wow, that was like the biggest thing right now because our nation is based off of voting. We vote for policies to pass to make changes. We vote. Our nation’s founded on voting basically, so voting is almost like it is a basic human right. We have the right to vote, we are just as much human as anybody else. So I think that was a huge, huge step forward, because how can you vote for something to make things equal for women if you have no women capable to voice it, or vote it, or vote on that. You have to have that representation to make change, so I think having the right to say what you want to say, voice what you want, I think that was a huge step forward. We would not be where we are, we would not be able to do a lot of things that we can do now because we wouldn’t be able to vote. Like, I think voting was huge, which is why I was saying being an informed 18 voter is important. We fought hard for that right to vote, you should probably take advantage of it. NR: Is there any other stories or events that you want to share for the project? JC: The problem we face nowadays isn’t so much “Oh, you’re a woman so you can’t do this,” you very rarely get someone with the gall to say that now, because we recognize that statement as, “Oh, so you’re gender-biased. Is that what this place is? Or is that what you are?” Nowadays it’s more like, “Wow, that’s awesome for you that you’re a woman and you’re going to be a pilot. That’s awesome that you can do that,” or, “You’re a woman but you still are going for like an engineering field. Good for you.” And it’s those micro-aggressions of like you know, “Good on ya,” it’s like a backhanded compliment, “Good for you for being a woman and doing that.” Well, why can’t it just be good for me period? Which I think is like the tiny things that we let slide that we shouldn’t because that’s still framing that state of mind. Like where you’re teaching them, “You’re right. Thank you, I appreciate that.” I was like, “Thanks, I appreciate that you saying ‘good for you,’ I’m awesome,” like that’s a compliment, “but take off ‘because I’m a woman,’ ‘for a girl.’” It’s just being aware of it even. I don’t think people realize it, it’s like those micro-aggressions can be kind of destructive if you aren’t educated about what they are, and people say them all the time without even meaning to. So it’s like that tiny thing of, “Oh, policeman,” or those jobs positions like we used to have gender connotation for, now they don’t so much, you can be a police woman or man, you can just be a police 19 officer. A nurse doesn’t have to be a woman, you have males and females as nurses now. You have doctors that can be a man or a woman, like a soldier can be a man or a woman, and that’s kind of the frame of mind that we are trying to educate our future to have. So I think that’s really important, just kind of being educated of what those small tiny things are that end up having a ripple effect to change how people think in the future. RB: What made you decide to come to Weber? JC: Okay, yeah. So I transferred from the University of Utah. I was on a full-ride ROTC scholarship to join the Air Force, and I was unfortunate to have been sexually-assaulted my first year during finals. Failed all my classes, it messed me up really bad, and I had to get away from where it happened ‘cause mentally I was not okay. So I ended up coming back home, that was one of the reasons, was I ended up coming back home to be closer to family so they could support me while I was not mentally as strong as I normally am. Like you have a 3.98 high school graduate going to college and just failing everything, just ‘cause I didn’t go to school, I didn’t go to classes, I was depressed, I didn’t go to my finals, like none of that mattered after being shocked like that. And then when you’re there, you just kind of remember it all. It’s kind of hard to heal when you’re still surrounded by everything that reminds you of what happened, so I was advised to come back home to recoup, you know, heal. So I came back to this area and I still was like, “You know, I still want to go to college, still want to accomplish those dreams,” and applied for Weber State, got accepted, still had some financial aid. 20 So I started to go to school here and I actually realized I don’t like big college cities with four hundred student classes, probably not four hundred, like three hundred, but still I’m like, “I want to be a person in the classroom. I don’t want to be ‘one of the hundreds of students that I have.’ I want to actually have a presence.” At Weber State, you realize that people will notice when you’re missing from class. Whereas at the U, they don’t really, depending on your major, but in my biology classes, I’m sure no one noticed I was missing unless they were like a really good friend of mine. My professor will reach out to me sometimes and go, “Hey, are you alright? How are you doing? I’ve noticed you haven’t been in class.” No Utah University professor in a three-hundred-person class is going to do that, like there’s just that extra bit more of compassion and human-ness, humanity, to it when you have smaller class sizes. That wasn’t one of the reasons I transferred to Weber but it is one of the reasons I stayed. So you know, originally, it was because I wanted to be closer to home. I had a younger brother who was going crazy, and was not going to graduate from high school. And he’s very stubborn, but we have a really good relationship so my parents were like, “Please come home so you can talk to him and guide him, because right now he’s not going to graduate.” And so that was another reason, was so I could help with my brother. My parents were really busy and weren’t always around, my little brother got extremely attached to me. So he kind of looks up to me, listens to me, and that is one of my motivations for going to college and being a good example is I have a younger sibling that looks up to me and I want him to see if I fall you’re going to be able to get back up and keep 21 going. Knowing that someone is still kind of watching me is kind of one of those giant motivators. So I moved back home for him, my family, I also moved back for myself, I needed to heal. I stayed at Weber because I love the instructors, I love the campus, I made a lot of relationships, and it was the college that brought me back up from like my lowest part of my life. So Weber, for me, I met my sorority sisters, I got into student positions. Eventually, you know, I lost all my financial aid from going to the University of Utah and failing all those classes, but like I didn’t actually get to petition those grades until something later popped up for Weber. They were like, “Hey by the way, you have to transfer your transcripts from other colleges,” so like my 3.9 GPA here went down to like a 1.5, if you take in all those classes. We had the Women’s Center that I could go to and they were like, “Okay, tell us what happened,” and they informed me and educated me about these things that like I could have gone through a Title IX process, which I didn’t even know existed. So I went through the Title IX system to get those grades removed and I had an advocate next to me, we talked to the University of Utah. Eventually, through that process, I got those grades expunged from my history, so those don’t affect me anymore, even though for me, they were like a really giant reminder of dark cloud going, “Remember when this happened?” So that’s something that Weber also did for me, it has the faculty to make your dream come true, to give you opportunities to make things happen. You know it’s like, “Dreams happen here, woohoo!” But for me, that’s actually what it was. It helps me overcome my darkest times and provided me the opportunities to still go to school. I no longer 22 can get financial aid, but because of student positions, student involvement, WSUSA, I got tuition waivers that helped pay for college. The last two years I was serving in the executive cabinet for WSUSA and college was paid for, like that’s kind of a huge thing. And if I would’ve gone to the University of Utah, I’m not sure I would’ve had that motivation or courage as one person in this humongous campus to be heard, to feel like I mattered. But I think Weber State is a college that can totally give you that, and I think it’s sad that when people are like, “Oh, you just go to Weber.” I’m just like, “Yeah, I just freaking go to Weber. It’s awesome! You don’t even know!” When I first came to Weber that wasn’t why, it was kind of just like these tiny reasons, but it ended up being the best decision of my life, honestly. I can honestly say that I would not be where I am if I hadn’t made those decisions to come here. NR: That was an awesome story. Thank you so much for doing this for us. JC: Yeah, thanks for letting me babble. NR: Oh, yeah totally. We appreciate it.