there is a very strong feeling that's attached to saying my name the way that it's meant to be said. You know, like, I feel embodied. I feel, like, d… - Jean Guerrero

I felt like exploring Mexico was a way of exploring my father, myself, and my roots.

when I was a kid. I grew up in San Diego, on the border with Tijuana, with a Mexican dad and a Puerto Rican mom. Spanish was my first language. But I went to a private Episcopalian elementary school, where it was against the rules to speak Spanish. You know, the teachers referred to me as Jean Guerrero. And if we were caught speaking Spanish, we had to stay in detention and we had to write, I will not speak Spanish, I will not speak Spanish a hundred times. This was during a period of intense anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant hate in California. And, you know, I wanted to please the teachers. I knew how much my mom was sacrificing for me to go to that school. She - at that point, my parents had split up. And she was a single mom. There was a struggle for her. And I just - I wanted to do well in school. And so I internalized, you know, the teacher's disdain for Spanish. I internalized this idea of my language, my parents' language as being delinquent. And I mostly renounced Spanish. And I adopted that identity as Jean Guerrero.

I think that what needs to change is just this idea that we have of someone, you know, when somebody teaches us how to say their name, we shouldn't see it as a burden. And I think we often do see it as a burden, but we should see it as a gift. I think it's a beautiful gift to learn how to say somebody's name.