{"id":124,"date":"2019-01-29T01:16:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-29T01:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/?p=124"},"modified":"2019-03-11T04:12:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T04:12:48","slug":"natalia-perez-complex-identity-in-a-complex-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/natalia-perez-complex-identity-in-a-complex-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Natalia Perez \u2013 Complex Identity in a Complex Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-158 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Natalia-Photo-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\"><\/p>\n<p>Hello! My name is Natalia Perez. I grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ventured down to the adorable little city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, to pursue a writing degree.<\/p>\n<p>Growing up amid Puerto Rican and Dominican cultures, my parents have fueled my rich background. Since I was raised in a bubble of Latinos for the greater part of my years at home, I didn\u2019t really become culturally aware until I moved down South, where people, including my own people, question my ethnicity often and seem surprised when I speak Spanish fluently.<\/p>\n<p>This forced me into cultural self-discovery, a switch between not only identifying as a Latina, but an Afro-Latina, a Latin American woman with prominent Afrocentric features.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from my complex racial identity, I\u2019m a passionate journalist and a second-generation Adventist who\u2019s still discovering tons about race, gender, ethnic\/people groups and how we all come together to make one church.<\/p>\n<p>Understanding a diverse community is wonderful and necessary for our growth as a church. With our blog, we hope to intentionally raise awareness about the diversity within our people groups, our cultural backgrounds, and our stories.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s navigate together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello! My name is Natalia Perez. I grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ventured down to the adorable little city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, to pursue a writing degree. Growing up amid Puerto Rican and Dominican cultures, my parents have fueled my rich background. Since I was raised in a bubble of Latinos for the greater &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/natalia-perez-complex-identity-in-a-complex-church\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Natalia Perez \u2013 Complex Identity in a Complex Church&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161,"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investigating-diversity.jour342.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}