This past weekend I attended a NOH8 photo shoot in San Diego.<\/p>\n
Being in a hot, crowded conference room with people I don\u2019t know would usually be far outside my comfort zone, and something I\u2019d avoid. I\u2019d be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t nervous, or that I suddenly became the world\u2019s most outgoing person and formed lifelong friendships in the hour I waited for my photo. But I did meet individuals, couples, and families whose smiles made my day a little brighter. And even with those I didn\u2019t really meet, just the simple exchange of eye contact with that depth behind it\u2014we support this\u2014<\/i>meant something special.<\/p>\n
I moved to California seven years ago from a\u2026more conservative state. I hadn\u2019t come to expect a lot from my state in the years I\u2019d lived there (I am a member of a minority group or two). But California, now, California was the birthplace of cool. Surely a state such as this would be on the cutting edge of civil liberties, equal rights, and the freedom to marry. Right?<\/p>\n
Guess you could say I was young and na\u00efve. When Prop 8 was introduced, there was not a doubt in my mind that it would be defeated. I\u2019d been living in LA for a couple of years, but I was still star-struck by how different life was in the city than in a rural southern town. So on November 4th<\/sup>, 2008, I\u2014along with many Californians, and Americans\u2014was shocked and deeply disappointed.<\/p>\n Then came a guilt phase, where I realized my assumption that all Californians thought like me had led me to take a passive role. So these days I am a little less na\u00efve, and I try to be more involved. Participating in the NOH8 event was just another small way to take a stand, for my friends, for my future kids, for my students, and for a better California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This past weekend I attended a NOH8 photo shoot in San Diego. Being in a hot, crowded conference room with people I don\u2019t know would usually be far outside my comfort zone, and something I\u2019d avoid. I\u2019d be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t nervous, or that I suddenly became the world\u2019s most outgoing person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saraalva.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}