My role model would be my friend Monica Valderez, because she strives me to be better. ”
“So my role model is my mom. She is a single mom and she worked for 13 years as a nurse at Day & Night Clinic, and I will always look up to her, because even when she was sick throughout her pregnancy, she never had any excuse to not miss a day off of work. So for school, I’m just, like, ‘I’m sick.’ ‘OK, get up and stuff,’ my mom would [say and] get mad at me. I never look down on her, she always makes sure I am always thinking positively, never negatively, only thinking real.”
“Mi modelo a seguir es Michael Phelps porque en la escuela estaba en el equipo de natación y me gusta nadar”.
“I would say my role model is my mom, because of her strong work ethic, everything she has accomplished and, I think, overall her status in, like, her family.”
“Mi modelo a seguir es mi mamá. Bueno mi abuela, que fue como mi mamá. Ella siempre fue una persona muy consistente y disciplinada y una persona muy la cual es para mi un modelo a seguir, porque me inspira ser lo que soy ahorita y a seguir mis sueños y a seguir mi pasión. Y a pesar de que me caiga, me levanto otra vez, entonces, seguir avanzando. Entonces ella es mi modelo a seguir”.
–Compiled and photos by Silvana Villarreal, Teresita Dominguez and Daniela Martinez Salazar