Meet Our Scholars
Natalia Hernandez
Southwestern College
Fashion
They/She
Community College
JCPenney Scholarship
In Mexicali, there’s a little neighborhood called Villanova. At the end of the street was a little orange house, where there lived a little curly haired girl, Natalia. She wore dresses and bows in her hair, talked like a girl, walked like a girl and was a “girl”. She knew that girls liked boys and boys liked girls. Next to her lived her aunt and next to them lived her grandma. Across from her lived her best friend, Isa. She loved Isa. She knew you had to go to church, say sorry to god for things you did, had to do what mama and papa said. Then she immigrated, al otro lado, “to the other side.” She no longer lived in a little orange house in Villanova, but she still wore bows, she still performed how a girl needs to perform. She grew up. She stopped wearing bows, performing like a girl needed too, stopped doing what mama and papa said. She discovered art, she met a girl, she liked her, kind of a lot. She hated herself for it. All she had known was what was constructed for her, gainst them. They decided hate was only hurting, and it was time for some healing and helping. The way to do so was through the deconstruction of constructs themselves.Nat ceconstructed these walls around themself and works to continue to become herself, a proud lesbian, nonbinary, Mexican immigrant artist speaking out and creating to represent all their intersectionalities.