Giselle Arechiga, Writer
Giselle Arechiga is a 15-year-old sophomore at East high school. This will be their first year attending a
public school since 6th grade, before this year they have been jumping between charter and virtual
schools. They are very glad to be in a school that's truly accepting of everyone, whether its race, ethnicity,
religion, gender or sexual orientation. Giselle was born December 5th of 2006 in Tijuana, Mexico and
was raised in California. Giselle loves taking up many hobbies. They love reading, music, crocheting,
dancing and making art. When they were little, they hated reading books but now they basically spend all
their money on books. Some of their favorite genres to listen to are indie, pop, romantic, Banda, and
reggaeton. They took up crocheting during quarantine and love crocheting little gifts for others. Although
they might not look like someone who loves to dance but they will spend most of their day dancing in
their room.
Being raised in a state that was close to the border allowed them to celebrate and embrace their culture.
Giselle grew up in a household that shelter them from the racism and xenophobia of the world. When
Giselle was in elementary school they had their first encounter racism, on the very first day of
kindergarten they overheard some kids talking about Mexicans “they're all brown monkeys that cross
over the border to work in farms'' when giselle tried to step in and say something the kids just came back
harder on them. Ever since that day Giselle realized how hateful the world can be. In 2016 Giselle's
family couldn't go out of their house without getting stared at or screamed at. When Giselle was in 6th
grade a classmate next to them pulled their hair and whispered in their ear to go back to their country.
Giselle even had their first encounter with how hateful the school system could be, since the 1st grade
giselle had to be put into a special class to learn English just because they spoke Spanish at home. But
what hurt Giselle the most is that they never saw any of this coming.
One of main reasons why Giselle wanted to join journalism was to have their voice heard, they also
wanted to expand and boost other BIPOC, LGBTQIA voices. In this time and age when it comes to
having bipoc issues and voices heard people could care less. Giselle knows what it feels like to not have
you voice heard, you can't be too loud because people will turn you into a stereotype, but you can't be too
polite because people will turn that politeness to weakness, but you still can't be neutral because people
won't think the problem is that serious, so what can you do. Every BIPOC has gone through this situation
when trying to raise awareness of problems in our community. Giselle wants to use their time in
journalism to spread awareness on different problems in different communities.
