Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hi, My name is Christine Polley, and today you'll learn
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a little bit more about me.
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I'm going to tell you about my upbringing, my religious
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journey and my life goals.
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No, I had some humble beginnings.
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I grew up here in Miami Beach, which might sound
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glamorous, but it actually wasn't the South Beach that we
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know today.
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When I grew up here, I was born Thio 18
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year old parents, um, in a poor household.
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But I was full of love, and I never felt
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like I was missing anything.
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Here. You can see a picture of my aunt and
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my brother and me on Lincoln Road.
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I was lucky enough to have an amazing public school
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education went to the Skin Elementary, and I went to
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Miami Beach Senior High School, where I learned sound engineering,
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which was awesome.
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I also was a speech and debate champion and was
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heavily involved in Latin X empowerment groups.
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My Latino was a huge part of my identity growing
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up, and I was mixed race, so that was a
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little bit difficult.
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Thio deal with because it's difficult to be mixed race,
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it's difficult to not belong somewhere specific and I appreciate
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it. Everything I learned growing up, my grandmother was my
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rock star.
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She taught me how to do everything.
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I know how to dio, but But I felt like
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there was something missing.
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E ended up finding the Torah Wedding grew up with
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any religion, and I spent time in the Orthodox community
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and fell in love with the Jewish people and Jewish
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culture. So I found a rabbi and decided to convert
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to Judaism.
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During that process, my rabbit rabbi and I found out
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that my family actually came from Jewish roots in Spain,
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and that's something called crypto Judaism.
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When you don't know that you are Jewish on dhe,
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you're living somewhere else in Mexico, in Latin America.
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So that was a really exciting piece of information I
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found out on.
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I got to go on Birthright, which was awesome.
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I went to Israel in 2019, and I hope to
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go back as fast as possible.
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Now I get to bring back that culture to my
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family that's been gone for literally hundreds of years, and
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it's really rewarding to teach my cousins and even my
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grandmother things that they didn't know about their own bloodline.
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I'm in college now because in 2000 and nine I
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dropped out of school or in 2010 because I simply
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couldn't afford to stay in school.
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Excuse, which is fine, because I learned so much during
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my time.
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Outside of my education, I became a trained sex educator
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in New York, where I taught workshop for adults and
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college students when it came to consent.
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Gender anatomy.
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And I think that I changed a lot of lives
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in the last 10 years, so I have no complaints
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about my college journey starting now.
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Today, I privately tutor kids, and I hope that through
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getting my education, I can work towards setting reforms for
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sex education, for Children in Florida and beyond, especially Puerto
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Rico. That's my next step.
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So I'm I'm very lucky to be here at Miami
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Dade College, where I can affordably get my college education
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so I can help future become a little bit more
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accepting and a little bit smarter when it comes to
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their body to consent to their gender, to their sexuality.
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Okay, my family is so supportive, and I would not
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be able to do anything that I'm doing today without
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them. So I'm very lucky.
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Especially my partner, Darren, who I live with, who's pictured
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here on the right.
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I'll leave you with this.
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Um uh, something.
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I learned my Jewish journey, which means repairing the world.
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And I think that if all of us worked a
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little bit harder towards our passions weaken start repairing the
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world that maybe our ancestors messed up.
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Thanks. Have a great day.