Intellectually Entertaining. Socially Relevant.
Cris was born in McAllen, Texas to a Mexican mother and Salvadoran father. A well-rounded student and basketball player in high school, Cris attended the University of Texas at Austin. As an undergrad, Cris was highly involved with various student organizations in the Latino community, including Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity, Inc. He credits many of the people he met during this time with helping him realize his passion for equality and social justice.
After graduating with a B. A. in Mathematics, Cris was selected as a 2007 Teach for America Corps member in Atlanta, Georgia. He taught high school mathematics for three years in southwest Atlanta. In 2010, he enrolled at the University of Georgia to pursue a Master’s Degree in Educational administration and Policy. Although he has a passion for education, he’s just as passionate about writing, especially when it involves his community. He wishes he could spend less time watching basketball, fútbol, football, boxing and rooting for his beloved Arsenal, but some things can’t be helped.
We here at Being Latino have always done a great job of highlighting the importance of music to our culture, whether it’s an artist that we love or have recently lost, or just our general disdain for a particular genre. But, in all our talk about music, we’ve also neglected a very important genre. But… [Continue Reading]
If you’ve never given much thought to the time zone that you live in, you’ve probably never lived outside of the east coast (Eastern Standard Time, or EST, is the de facto U.S. time zone, almost half the population lives in this time zone). Prior to moving back to Texas (and my beloved Central Standard… [Continue Reading]
On Saturday (May 5) night, Miguel Cotto lost his WBA Junior Middleweight title (via a unanimous decision) to Floyd Mayweather Jr., the man many consider the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet. Though Mayweather was heavily favored to win (he was a 7-to-1 favorite), Cotto’s performance far exceeded many people’s expectations. Saturday night’s fight showed… [Continue Reading]
Tuesday, April 24, 2012: Barcelona – Chelsea If you had told a Chelsea fan that, after 43 minutes, they’d lose two of their starting defenders (Gary Cahill to injury and captain John Terry to an expulsion), be forced to play with 10 men for the remainder of the match (due to the Terry expulsion), and… [Continue Reading]
I live in the fattest part of the country. No really, a Gallup poll recently declared the Rio Grande Valley (Texas) as the most obese Metropolitan area in the United States of America, with nearly 40 percent of its residents classified as obese. You’ve probably heard and read plenty about the obesity epidemic in the… [Continue Reading]
“Oye, ¿vas a ir a la fiesta esta noche?” Normally such a phrase wouldn’t make me think twice (and no, it wasn’t directed at me). However, I had never heard this guy speak Spanish before. Besides the fact that his Spanish was noticeably better than mine, I couldn’t help but wonder how this Black guy learned to… [Continue Reading]
The 2012 Summer Olympics in London will feature established stars like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps, alongside many other soon-to-be household names, for what will undoubtedly be two weeks of sports at its finest. While it may be too early to tell what new athletes will make their mark in London, we already know of… [Continue Reading]
“Your community needs you,” said the stranger I’d just met at a party my freshman year. As a kid that had come to college from a part of the country where almost everyone was Latino, I was initially apprehensive about joining a culturally based organization. A part of me knew she was right, but another… [Continue Reading]
“You should stop hanging out with Roberto, he’s kinda ghetto.” I heard this exchange from Latina students in the hallway of the high school I was tutoring at as a college freshman. There was something about the girl’s choice of words that bothered me, especially since I knew the kid they were talking about. Roberto… [Continue Reading]
By now you’ve already heard plenty about the NBA’s Noche Latina initiative (by my count the fifth year they do it), an attempt to sell more NBA merchandise to Latinos celebrate the “growing support of NBA fans and players across Latin America and U.S. Hispanic communities.” The most obvious sign of this initiative, of course,… [Continue Reading]