Tanya Hernandez, a senior majoring in marketing at Oswego, discusses her campus involvement, the importance of her culture and upbringing and why Women's History Month is important to her.
Q: How are you involved on campus?
A: Right now I'm involved with the American Marketing Association (AMA). I'm kind of the secretary, kind of the director of professional communications. I [also] have an internship at Students Helping Oz Peers (SHOP) where I do marketing and public relations and also work inside of SHOP... A lot of men are afraid to say they need help, so we do have a large population of women that come and seek help... A majority of people that come [to SHOP] are women or women with their partner. It's very rare that we get just a man to come in, and I think seeing yourself as needing help shouldn't be associated with being a woman. The SHOP team is also mostly women... and we all really get along. I was [also involved] in State Singers... and I got to perform at President [Peter] Nwosu's inauguration, so that was really fun.
Q: Who are some women from history that inspire you?
A: I love pop culture, and I watch a lot of documentaries, and someone who is in documentaries a lot is Marilyn Monroe. I've watched a lot about her, and her life was crazy. The things that happened to her were horrible, but she's seen as an icon and a legend. Everybody knows her name. Same thing with Judy Garland, I've watched a lot of movies and documentaries about her and it's just these women who have had to go through so much but based on their movies or songs, you would never know. I just find it so interesting that there were these glamorous, super done-up women, and women from their era probably thought they were beautiful and wanted to be them, but behind the scenes, we now know that their husbands would abuse them, or they would be put on drugs to lose weight... That part of history and what they went through, I never really see those stories as much with men.
Q: Who are some mentors that have impacted you?
A: My mom and my grandma. My grandma and grandpa came here [as immigrants] from Mexico with their six children to have a better life. That helped shape how I act towards other people because you never know what someone is going through. My parents own a Mexican grocery store that I work at... and a lot of the [customers] are temporary workers that come to work [in agriculture] and all that stuff, so you learn to have a lot of compassion because a lot of times they don't know how to write, they don't know how to read... That also helped a lot with my internship at SHOP because you don't know what backgrounds people come from or what help they may need in their situation. I feel like they've really helped to inspire me and [remind me] to not judge people because you don't know what they're going through.
My mom is here on DACA status and came when she was very young. She owns the business, with my father, but she's really the face of it. A lot of the time people will come into [the store] and ask her "Where's your boss?" but she's the boss. Especially in the Latino community, it's a big thing that the men do the hard labor or whatever, that they're the bosses or the leaders of the household, but my family has never really had that kind of relationship. They've both had equal power, and I look up to them because they did so much with the little that they had.
Coming from that background, having my own culture outside of American culture is really special to me. There's something about meeting somebody who shares that same culture with you and you just connect with that person because you have that shared background. I think a lot of my peers who are the same generation as me, who have parents or grandparents that are immigrants, [I've noticed] some are losing touch with their culture. And because of how the media portrays Latinos and stuff, they don't want to be associated with [the culture]. A lot of the time it comes from their parents themselves and wanting to assimilate. But I want to keep passing down my culture to my children, no matter what percentage of Mexican they may be. I just think it's a beautiful culture and it's important to who I am as a person.
Q: Why is Women's History Month important to you?
A: I think a lot of people think women get their flowers, it's a thing of the past that women were [mistreated], but it's still an issue today. No matter how far women's rights and those advancements have come, there's always going to be men and some women who fight against those rights... I just hope someday that doesn't happen. Women shouldn't be overlooked... A lot of times when a woman wins something she's the first woman [to do so]. We're still reaching those milestones in a lot of categories, and so I think that just proves that this is not something that's in the past and we still need to keep moving forward.