While developing positive self-image is essential, it\u2019s also important to think about the world outside one\u00adself. As Scripps students, we owe much of our great opportunity to learn and become beautiful, empowered women to the endless work of the staff at Scripps. Whether it\u2019s the housekeeper who cleans the blackboards three times a day or the dining hall worker who cooks our food, these people, whom many of us don\u2019t even think about, enable us to live amazing lives.<\/p>\n
Raina Ramirez, member of the Malott Dining Hall staff, always seems to be smiling and cheerful as she swipes student meal cards each week. Just like a Scripps student, she loves art and foreign film, dances her ass off, and even has a Scripps-like fondness for squirrels. Despite this, her position as a worker sometimes keeps us from getting to know her as our equal. [in]Visible <\/em>interviewed Raina so that the Scripps community could better get to know a valuable member of its community. Raina\u2014who is just as much a part of the Scripps community as we are\u2014is more than just a woman who swipes our meal cards.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your name?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n Raina Ramirez<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n How old are you?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n 24.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Where are you from?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n Upland. I still live there.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n How did you come to work at Malott Dining Hall?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n I started working as a temp here\u2014in the of\u00adfices. Before that, I temped at Pomona and CMC in secretary and office jobs. I wanted to go back to school, but I wanted to take classes during the week, so that\u2019s when I found out about this job. I go to Junior College right now. I plan to get my GEs out of the way and then transfer. I don\u2019t know where yet.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n When you transfer, what are you thinking of making your focus?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n For a lot of years I was thinking of Women\u2019s Studies, but I\u2019m not sure what I will do with that. So, now I\u2019m thinking either that [Women\u2019s Stud\u00adies] or Cultural Anthropology. I just love learning about other people\u2019s cultures, their languages, their religions. If you have a better understand\u00ading of people\u2019s cultures, you can get along with them better and not judge them as much.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n What do you do for fun?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n I love independent films; I love foreign lan\u00adguage movies. (I don\u2019t speak any other languag\u00ades.) My dad is hard of hearing, so I grew up with captions. I make post cards with these watercol\u00ador pencils. You color just like [usual] and brush water over them. I send them to friends and fam\u00adily. I also love to crochet. I\u2019ll start making a lot of hats and scarves soon, and you can buy one if you like\u2014I sell them for about 5 dollars. I love fairies! I have a pixie tattoo\u2014it\u2019s me, with wings attached. My friend drew it. It didn\u2019t hurt, but I laughed a whole lot. I also model for artists. But you don\u2019t get health insurance, so that\u2019s why I work here. I\u2019m not allowed to model for Scripps, but I model for a 5C group, CMC, Pomona, Mount Sac, Cal Poly Pomona, APU, the Daw Center, and another artist during the week. I like it a lot. I\u2019m not a good artist but I love being surrounded by art.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n What\u2019s your family like?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n Some of them can be a little crazy\u2014big, loud, lots of fun. I went to Mexico once for a fam\u00adily member\u2019s quincea\u00f1era. I found people on Facebook I didn\u2019t even know I was related to. My family\u2019s big. I have a sister. I\u2019ll take pictures of squirrels when eating and send [them] to my sister. Once I was eating on a break from model\u00ading, [and a] squirrel came close and closer, and I threw my sandwich and ran. My sister and I love Eddie Izzard. He does this bit about squirrels. I\u2019ve seen him live. He\u2019s really funny live. He wasn\u2019t dressed up [in drag] as he usually is.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Do you see celebrities often?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve met several people in LA. I had a friend who worked for some type of zine\u2014he was able to get us into parties, and we\u2019d get introduced to people. I ran into Flava Flav, and he smelled really bad. I couldn\u2019t help bumping into him be\u00adcause he was intoxicated and hugging everybody. Once I went to a concert, and after the main event, Sir-Mix-A-Lot came on stage and started singing \u201cBaby Got Back,\u201d and I went up on stage to dance with a bunch of other girls and got a picture with him. If you go out to a lot of places you\u2019re bound to run into somebody.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Do you go into Los Angeles often?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t go in as often as I used to. I go in every couple of months. I love going to Chinatown\u2014I\u2019m big on tea. I buy it [from] a store in China\u00adtown. It\u2019s like a Chinese version of Costco and they always have tea samples and looseleaf teas in bulk. My favorites are the ones that are flow\u00aders that open out. I also love going to LA to get tacos. I love eating tacos. And the Fairfax mar\u00adket, that\u2019s always fun. And Saturday movies on the lawn in Hollywood where you bring your own picnic basket.\u2026<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n If you could be any superhero or have any superpower who\/what would it be?<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019d be Batman. I liked Batman when I was lit\u00adtle. That\u2019d be fun. I love comics. I loved reading Calvin and Hobbes <\/em>when I was little and Family Circle<\/em>, Charlie Brown<\/em>, and Pearls Before Swine<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n If you could fill a swimming pool with any\u00adthing, what would you fill it with?<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Not Jell-O! I don\u2019t like Jell-O. Probably a bunch of miniature sized everything. I always get stuck in Target in the travel section. \u201cI want this. I know I don\u2019t need it, but look how little it is!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While developing positive self-image is essential, it\u2019s also important to think about the world outside one\u00adself. As Scripps students, we owe much of our great opportunity to learn and become beautiful, empowered women to the endless work of the staff at Scripps. Whether it\u2019s the housekeeper who cleans the blackboards three times a day or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,233],"tags":[139,138,137],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","category-vol-2-issue-1","tag-melody-strmel","tag-raina-ramirez","tag-spotlight-on-scripps-staff"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}