Jordana

"I've grown up wanting to leave a person or place better than I found it."

By Students of NYC

February 29^th, 2024

"I was my mother's rainbow baby. It was like I was this gift from God. I was her first, and they had such high aspirations. It was like, Jordana's going to do this, and Jordana's going to go there and she's going to make this change here. And as a kid, I think I just immediately tapped into that. I kind of rolled with it wherever I went and I carried myself as maturely as I could. I didn't want to veer off and then disappoint anyone. I watched the way the females in my family carried themselves, whether it's immediate family or extended family. They were women of power, no matter what field they were in, no matter where they were — they carried that energy with them. Like, I can be your mother, but I can also be your boss. My school now is 85% male, but I carry that energy with me too.

My mom always had so much to do. She had to cook, she had to clean, she had to do laundry, she had to help this one with their homework, had to do this one's hair for an event tomorrow, had to make sure my father had his work clothes out before he came back home. He was always working multiple shifts. At night, my mom would gave me the baby to put to sleep after she fed him. She would hand him over and be like, you got this. It was like having a cat who just came over and sat on you. You had to be calm. You had to stabilize everything in you because the baby can pick up on that. The baby knows how fast your heart is beating, how fast you're breathing, how much you're sweating. You have to calm yourself down, and sitting there on the couch, having the baby on me and patting his back softly, it always felt so right. That's why I want to major in medicine. When I look at the job description of an anesthesiologist, I'm that person. I want to be the last person you see before you go out and the first person you see when you come back in. That mother bear that cradles the cub and it's just rocking him to sleep. It calms me down being able to calm someone else down. It makes me feel like no matter how unstable life is outside of where I am, I can still stabilize someone else, and I can still stabilize the situation. I think I learned that from watching my mom, too. No matter if the world was on fire around her, she was still going to smile. She was still going to laugh about something. She was still going to find some way to keep us engaged with each other, keep us active and educated. She was still going to find a way to keep us happy.

I was so talkative as a kid. I realized that no matter where I was, there would always be someone who would try and silence me. Being raised by mainly black females and in an environment with a lot of people of culture and people of color, I was always told, don't let anyone stop you. Don't let anyone hinder your success. Don't let a boy take you out of your education. Things like that. Being in a school that is 85% male, I've seen that there's always going to be someone that wants to drag you down. There's always going to be someone that wants to leech off of you or benefit from you but will leave you worse than you were before.

But I've grown up always wanting to leave a place or leave a person better than I found it. With my friend group, I try my best to be the big sister or the “mom.” I try my best to keep everyone calm and keep everyone safe. Whenever there's a problem, they come to me. So I keep my mom’s lessons in mind. I tell those repetitive phrases to my friends: If you don't know why you're doing it, don't do it. If you don't want it to happen to you, don't make it happen to someone else. We don't fight fire with fire, we kill them with kindness. Do unto others as you want done to you."