For: Manuel Ocaño / Special for La Opinión Updated 07 Jan 2023, 17:47 pm EST
Celeste was born in Los Angeles, but until she was 15 years old, she did not know her Zapotec ancestry from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and when she discovered it, she was so fascinated that she did not rest until she started, with the support of her mother, an organization that would help thousands of girls. like her, descendants of indigenous Latin Americans, to find their identity.
Mónica García, the mother of Celeste Rojas, remembers the remarkable change her daughter underwent when she learned where her roots came from.
“I identified a lot with my daughter,” Mónica García told La Opinión, “because, as a single mother, I had to work all day and, when I returned home, I found my teenager who told me ‘ma, I I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.’”
Mónica’s mother and Celeste’s grandmother is a Zapotec from the town of Solaga. Mónica, who was born in Mexico City, would listen to her speak Zapotec on the phone or with her aunts, but the lady faced strong discrimination in the Mexican capital due to her origin and did not want her daughter to suffer as much. same.
“As my daughter, I felt like I didn’t belong, I didn’t know my roots even though we live in the Korean Quarter in Los Angeles,” a neighborhood with a significant Zapotec population.
Mónica García made an effort to go back to school and enrolled in Los Angeles Community College.
“It was as if I opened my eyes for the first time and saw for myself,” she said when talking about the classes in which she proudly learned about the great contributions to the world of Latin American indigenous cultures and leaders.
“I would return home and talk to Celeste about those classes”, and the young girl would open her eyes wide and repeat “yes, ma, yes; That’s what I needed to know.”
From then on they understood more about Mónica’s mother and Celeste’s grandmother, who took care of them in Los Angeles “without almost ever having to see a doctor, because she knows how to heal with herbs and her typical Oxacan food is very healthy.”
Sunflowers on the Move is Born
Around that time, Celeste proposed to her mother to launch an initiative, “because it is not possible that so many girls like me have to wait until they or their mothers go to school to understand that they do fit in, that they do have an identity.”
“You probably know,” said Mónica García, “with identity comes self-esteem,” and at Celeste’s initiative they formed and registered the organization Girasoles en Marcha.
It was going to be an organization for Zapotec girls, but minors from Latin American countries began to arrive. Even the first logo was designed by a Honduran volunteer; the second was from a Peruvian.
The organization survived on funds provided by Monica and her current husband, but during the pandemic they suffered unemployment and deprivation from which they are just beginning to recover.
Celeste is now a Global Studies graduate from the University of California at Berkeley and works in advocacy for social justice organizations; Monica is a Mental Health therapist intern and will soon finish her master’s degree.
Meanwhile, Celeste is an advisor to Girasoles en Marcha and Mónica has included in the organization’s workshops some workshops that help girls respond to discrimination and gain self-esteem by feeling proud to identify themselves as indigenous.
Although they have the support of volunteers who donate conferences and materials, the organization continues to be unable to recover as a result of the pandemic.
Mónica and Maité Montalvo, a Bolivian Quechua indigenous woman, are the only two people in charge of Girasoles en Marcha and only have their own resources to keep the organization going.
Mónica and her husband twice paid for the procedures for Los Angeles notaries to register the organization in the 501 (c) (3) classification, which would allow them to have funds from foundations and exceptions imposed on companies for donations, but on both occasions they were charged $600 each time and never got any response.
The two leaders started a GoFundMe campaign with the goal of obtaining “only what is necessary for operating expenses,” explained Mónica García, “we have materials stored and although we have good conferences and presentations that do not charge us, we have to pay for the warehouse, not we have a place, and some speakers do charge us,” he said.
Monica is sure that the girls and their mothers who know about the project would want to support it. Those who wish to find out more can contact or visit the Girasoles en Marcha Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/girasolesenmarcha/?hl=en
They ask for donations
Girasoles en Marcha seeks the support of the community to continue operating. If you want to donate, visit the GoFundMe campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-girasoles-en-marcha