My name is Debbie and I am a twenty year old vegan latinx. As a child I spent countless hours watching national geographic documentaries about different animals as well as spending an immense amount of time watching animal planet where I would watch shows about animal rescue etc. So, for as long as I can remember I have had a love of and for animals, but was too young to make any connections between the animals I had at home, the lions and tigers I adored and the cows, pigs and chickens that were on my plate. As I grew older I spent a lot of time online where I found documentaries that exposed the cruelty in the food industry. I became vegetarian at age 13 and then committed myself to veganism at 16/17. Veganism allowed me to see the hypocrisy in my love for animals, but simultaneous participation in their harm and cruelty. As a woman of color, I also encountered the misconceptions surrounding veganism, that only wealthy white people were and could be vegans. I knew this was not true because of the history of plant based eating as well as the participation in veganism by all of the beautiful, young people of color I met as I grew older. Veganism means the world to me, because it allows me to live a life that really tries to remain as compassionate as I possibly can to the animals I fell in love with at an early age as well as those I felt deserved the same respect and care. Veganism also allowed me to challenge stereotypes that said people of color who became vegan somehow abandoned their culture. I see myself and the beautiful vegans I’ve met constantly try and preserve years of different cultures in a way that is more compassionate and considerate to the planet we live on as well as the sentient beings that fill it and remember why I made the decision to be vegan in the first place.