Alexis Silva, Saul Sanchez

The first person that wants to vote in my family is my cousin. Her name is Rachel Muniz. She is from the side of my mother. She was born in Mexico in San Luis Potosi. She was born on December 25, of 1988.

She was born in poverty. They barely had enough money to eat at their house. She struggled for the reason that she couldn’t really study over there. But when she turned six years old her family decided to migrate to the United States. When she moved over here she didn’t know any English at all so people would make fun of her. She came here and she went to Buenos Aires, which is now Don Jose Gallegos. She started to put more effort into her education when she knew that she could be someone big in life. After that, she went to Memorial Middle School. By that time she knew more English because she would actually study. Then she went to Nixon and after that she decided that she would go to college.

She met a guy that she started dating called Juan Rodriguez. He wanted to help her out and he did. They started to live together but after that he wanted to fix her by giving her papers. But my cousin didn’t like that because her goal was to fix them by herself and she wanted to vote too. Later on in her life she left him because she wanted to accomplish more in her life. She graduated from A&M International University as one of the top 10 people and she was number one.



After that, her mom died so she had to start taking care of her siblings but she didn’t let that stop her. After that she moved around the states. She first move to Pennsylvania and after she was done there, she moved with her siblings to Boston and she finished her career as a person that study law and has a PHD, and she graduated from Penn State Law. She is still fighting to be better after where she came from and she was still able to do all of that while she was taking care of her siblings. Now she is helping her siblings by putting more attention into them and putting them in schools that will help them out in the long run. But she is also trying to fix herself to be able to vote because she has been a great citizen.

The suffragettes fought really hard to be able to vote like the men just like the heroic Harriet Tubman who was an American abolitionist and political activist that was born into the time of slavery and was one too. She was the most famous conductor of the underground railroad working really hard to guide slaves to freedom and have a life.

Her birth is unknown because on her death certificate it says 1820, but on her gravestone it says 1815 which just add mystery to what her actual date of birth is. The place of her birth is Dorchester County in Maryland, her real name is Araminta Ross, and her mother is Harriet Green. In her early life and time, her mother was a cook at a big house, which was owned by her owners named Joseph and Mary Pattison Brodess. Her father Ben Ross was owned by Anthony Thompson who also owned a plantation. Later on both masters Mary and Anthony got married and basically combined what they had including the slaves.

In 1822, after the death of Mary, the son Edward took over Bucktown and took some of the slaves from there. Unfortunately Tubman’s family got separated from their father and the others got carried to the Brodess plantation, which was a downgrade from where they were. In 1825, Edward’s plantation started to fail financially so he decided to sell slaves. Sadly the first people to be sold were Harriet’s three older sisters: Miriah, Linah, Soph. Harriet Tubman’s childhood wasn’t the best nor that long because at the age of five she started working as a babysitter, which was way too young to start even thinking about work, and most likely to barely be able to take care of herself. She would have some type of nightshift of the baby and when the baby would let out a cry her mistress would whip her leaving scars around her neck. At some point, she got sick with the measles and because of that she became very weak. During those ages she had a tough life and was mistreated.

When she was twelve she was able to work in the plantations and therefore, was hired by a man named Barrett. She preferred the tough physical labor to taking care of children and during her teenage years her faith was finally being restored. Because of her rough childhood she would later become a strong independent woman and in fact she was stronger than some men which really showed how she is built. In 1844, Harriet married john Tubman, a free African American who was born in Dorchester County. The problem was that they weren’t officially together legally because it was a marriage between a slave and a free man. Instead they were in an informal arrangement.

Afterwards, her belief that everyone is equal no matter what they are made her join into the women’s rights movement. She traveled to places to give out speeches on how she was a slave and freed so many too and while doing that she would support the women’s suffrage rights. She has left a big lasting legacy with all her accomplishments freeing the slaves and trying to make everyone to do good in the country as she did. All of this was most likely from her own motivation, dedication, and hard work. Overall, Harriet Tubman was a strong monumental figure for every person that was trying to change the world especially women. She had a harsh life but later became strong and confident to help free over 300 slaves in the underground railroad.
 

My reflection on Rachel Muniz is that this was hard for the reason that it was not easy to find out what her origin was. I had to ask my mom if there has been anyone in our family that wanted to vote or tried to vote and she told me about my other cousin. So I had to asked my cousin questions and she said that her sister was trying to vote at the moment. So I asked her name and she told me that it was Rachel. And it was hard to ask her questions because when I was asking her questions she was busy taking care of her new baby and she had to take care of her siblings too. Plus she was also busy with her job. So it was hard because she would answer me like two or three days after I had asked her the questions. And it was not easy asking her why she was taking care of her siblings because every time I would ask her she would remember about her mom. About how her mom had died so she would have mental break downs. That made it harder for me to get the things that I need for the essay that I had to do. Plus when she was so busy at one point that I had to ask my other family members where she was from and when she was born.