adventure risk challenge a leadership and literacy program 2009 University of California Merced and Berkeley | Sierra Nevada Research Institute Instructors: Writings of the Bears on Fire Sarah Cupery Ottley Cha Caruthers Bebe San Colin Carpenter Eduardo Lopez-Hernandez Elena Martinez Ernie Rubio Eugenia Santiago-Garcia Jonathan Martinez Ricardo Amancio Sara Rivera Teresa Barriga www.arcprogram.org Valeria Mijares bebe san My Life I ask myself who I am We do not have food to eat In Asia for fifteen years Lost my friends, community Never knew my life Spread across the world Would evolve so drastically Motherland Ripped apart The first day in America I never give up IOM bags on my hands Like a river never stops The IRC took us to an apartment Like a blessing from God Five years to become US citizen God provides new community I am an immigrant in California I start my new life Arnold says California is My family hopes for me Emergency State To become a helper I live in Oakland I help immigrant students Tough city of gangsters Tutoring and translating I live on High Street Summer search is like water One day Plant my life near the river Four police were killed Now I can grow like a tree I heard it Always be green The gunshots Boom boom boom boom The water woke me up Still echoing through my ears Helped me to find the ARC We planted the trees Which allows me To remember the four police To learn Be a strong leader The same day Work in a diverse community My classmate’s father A Latino My voice represents my life Was killed Who knows We didn’t do anything One day When brown skinned people are killed I can be the one No one cares To change community Change my world Who we are We are Karen people I ask myself who am I Others know we are refugees Create goals We do not have jobs Breathe and learn We do not speak English Thank God for everything 2 ARC Summer 2009 the forest because when I was three the shadows and saw the trees and the A Big Change years old I had to run away from the wildflowers. They gave me new energy. war and climb a mountain in the forest. My mind had changed when I saw all Forty days ago, I was very busy with Before the course I did not like to go this nature is so wonderful and I felt school and work. There was not to the forest. Hiking with my tiny legs, like I fell in love with wilderness. These enough time for me to connect with my feet hurt and my waist felt like fire. forty days gave me strength because I other people. I had too many things to My hair was sweaty and my mouth and was able to complete the hiking. do and not enough time. I was the type my nose dry and this pain reminded me of person that always looked for help of my life that I had before. I felt like The community of ARC is very strong because I was not confident in myself. a homeless person without my family and colorful like a rainbow. We come Being in the United States from different places was a big change—like and we share our being born again. Life in different ideas while this country asks a lot and working together. We yet I still hold my cultural trust each other and values. However, this sum- encourage each other mer I started learning about every step of the way. myself and how to stand We have grown to be alone. In forty days I have like a family with a faced huge challenges that I beautiful friendship. I never thought I could meet. believe this ARC com- Being in the ARC program, munity is very helpful I have opened myself and for students and can faced all the challenges that change the world. I have been presented. have learned to be a strong leader from I am involved in a program living in this diverse called Summer Search. This community. Summer Search is like water. They woke me up and Now I am not the same planted my life by the river. person as before. I This summer my mentors am not afraid to face told me about the ARC pro- challenges. I found gram. This ARC program inside myself that I am combined academics and very positive to other the wilderness into one pro- people and willing to gram, and Summer Search try everything. I am a suggested I participate. I person who cares about was really excited to im- other people. I am a prove my English skills and person who started myself. I wanted to change a whole new life. My my life so I decided to at- goals after this summer tend the ARC program. I believed ARC and afraid of wild animals in the forest. are to go back home and tell my family, would make a huge different because it I straightened my legs, my steps push- my church members and youth in my included adventure, risk and challenge. ing me. My mind and my body wanted school about how I have been in the With ARC I have met many challenges to go to the top desperately. I kept ARC program. I will tell youth that they and felt more confident everyday. on hiking with a strong faith. People’s are important people for the future. I encouragement made me even stronger. will improve my English and continue This summer, one of the challenges The brutal sun mercilessly beat down making a better life. that I had to go through was backpack- on me. The backpack on my back was ing and hiking. I felt nervous to go to too heavy. I ignored it. I looked down to ARC Summer 2009 3 eduardo lopez-hernandez The Life of a Mountain I am an immense and towering mountain, Full of life, Full of sequoias, ponderosas, white pines, red firs, and Animals— Bears, deer, marmots, chipmunks, And so many more that make me complete Sturdy, Tough. I am never alone, Always full of organisms living beside me, Like my parents, Always supporting me, In school and what I want to be in my life. Taking care of my brothers makes me strong, By letting me know that I have to do the right thing, I have a lot of mysteries, So they can do the right thing too. Like who I am, I am a person full of determination and respect toward my My parents lead me, parents and everybody else, To be steady, But when I really want something By teaching me to never yield to drugs and gangs, I fight for it until I have it. Always finding the right way like a group of hikers, And the only way of revealing my mysteries, Finding their path to the peak. Is by reaching my peak, So you can see, But even strength, What I offer to the world, Can’t halt the disgraces. Like intelligence, Losing a friend, My involvement in school, like playing football, having excel- Feels like a great fire going on in the heart of the mountain, lent grades Being burned alive with immense and red pulsing flames And being a role model for my brothers and other younger moving frantically everywhere, people in my community. Sucking every piece of life it finds on its way, But even in those moments, Inside of me, there is a rich mine I return more powerful than ever before, That when you get to the heart of it, Ready to oppose and protest every betrayal or lie, You get to see all my precious gems Throughout life. They are my abilities and my core values. I am an immense and towering mountain, Nobody can say who I am, That leads creeks into rivers, Until you reach my peak, Rivers into lakes, And see my beauty like my valleys, And lakes into oceans, My rivers that flow like determination, service, and my admi- Like leading my brothers, rable example for my community. Through the same path of respect, determination, service, and self-esteem, I am an immense and towering mountain In school and outside of school. There is nothing that can destroy me. 4 ARC Summer 2009 What Forty Days Have Done how I can take the core values of ARC into my every day life. One thing I I was lying down on a rock, staring at I overcame many challenges in this understood in the course is that I always the blue, cloudless sky and the large forty day course. Being without my need compassion and need to help green trees. I was in a small spot, with family was a challenge for me because those around me. During ARC, I have a small green meadow in front of me, they support me everyday when I am always been the first to help with extra enormous boulders around me and with them. Before the forty day course chores, carrying extra weight in my snow as white as the clouds. I was there I was a kid at home that helped, but I pack, and helping my peers when they for a reason; ready to face somebody I always needed something in exchange need it. I will now help and serve peo- had never faced before: myself. I had or had an excuse to not do chores I ple in my community when they need it twenty-four hours, and the countdown was assigned.