Each year we ask our classmates a straightforward, simple question taken from the lines of a poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Mary Oliver. We share with you intimate and candid responses to this question, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Concept and photography: Tony Deifell, MBA 2002.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
“Paso a paso,” my Mom happily said as we stared at my first Kindergarten report card, the first step towards our theory that education would be the way up and out of poverty.
“Paso a paso,” my Dad quietly reminded us, as we stepped into a Los Angeles courthouse to defend ourselves against the landlord intent on evicting tenants amidst a wave of neighborhood gentrification.
“Pasito a pasito,” my Mom and I gently murmured to my Dad, as he drifted in and out of consciousness, fighting for his life for a month in the Cardiac ICU after a major heart attack.
One step at a time has always been my family’s mantra, a daily reminder that each action influences the next choice available to you. Growing up in a hard-working, predominantly immigrant community in east LA, that mantra seeps through my community’s bones, through generations of migrant farmworkers, first-generation college graduates, and families pushing through the barriers of financial and information poverty.
As I move back to my hometown after years of pushing past those barriers, I am struck at how every step has led me back to the starting point. The same path, but with options that were never there before. I pledge to help others break their own internal and external barriers, so that they can have the kinds of choices that our ancestors could only dream of.
