A conversation between both speakers and attendees revolved around different aspects of growing up in a Filipino household, careers and more at a panel hosted in the T Building on Nov. 6.
Students were given a chance to ask questions or express their own experiences throughout the whole meeting.
The speakers Jonathan Tejada, who works for technical services in LBCC, and Romeo Garcia who used to work at LBCC but now works for Cypress College.
They both shared their experiences to the attendees while being asked intense questions about their own self-perception and the perceptions of others.
“When people see you they tend to think they have a feel about what kind of person you are based on your looks, but that’s why we do what we’re doing, to get into our positions that we have now to break that (assumption),” said Garcia
They were asked how their Filipino heritage has impacted them over their life experiences and career journeys, to share their experiences that will help relate to others.
“I think one thing I always associate with being Filipino is ‘hardworking.’ If you ever come across a Filipino person then oftentimes their work ethic (includes) a real persistent education and an emphasis on working hard,” said Tejada.
The discussion led to the topic of a lack of points of commonality or intersectionality in discussions in different spaces.
“Some barriers that I’ve seen for my students is that there is a lack of intersectionality, where they can talk about their ethnic identity but not their (LGBTQ) identity and vice versa for some spaces, so we are working on bringing in more of the intersectionality to bring both together,” Garcia said.
Many more questions and ideas were brought up during the meeting to help the staff understand what the campus needs to change, but to have a therapeutic moment where students could feel heard and understood.
The speakers and staff ended the panel emphasizing their support for students and urging them to reach out if they needed anything.
The next “Keeping it 100” panel will happen on Nov. 20 with a focus in Native American heritage.