Alicia Dorado: From Leftist Political Staffer To Conservative Activist | Stories of Us

There were multiple instances where I just saw blatant hypocrisy and it was hard for me to maintain my own integrity while still working as a political staffer. My name is Alessia Dorado and this is my story. I grew up all over the place. I'm a military dependent, so I lived in California, San Antonio, I lived in Germany for four years, so at a young age I think my worldview really got influenced by moving so often. My dad is actually from Compton, California, and my mom is from a very small town called Navasota, Texas. We were traveling the world because of my dad, who was in the Air Force, and I credited a lot of that beauty and that ability to explore the world to America and to the military, so I had a really positive view of America as a kid. We would move every four years, so I went to two elementary schools, two middle schools, two high schools. A lot wasn't consistent, but the main thing that was consistent was my family. Growing up with such a strong family bond, I think that really helped me a lot. Both of my parents actually had me when they were teenagers. I'm sure that came with a lot of hardship, and I think they've done a really good job at protecting us kids from those hardships. They're young teenage parents. They had two other kids pretty soon after they had me, and that's on top of moving around in the military, so I definitely credit their strength to a lot of my personal strength as well. We were largely an apolitical family until, I would say, Obama ran, and as minorities, a lot of us kind of default gravitated toward that. Just seeing someone of color on TV, it was very alluring, and so I think that I, as well as my father, really got involved in politics because of that. I came back to the United States when I was a junior in high school. We got orders back to Texas, and at that time, obviously, I was thinking about college, and I ended up going to Texas State University. It was an entirely different experience, and there were a lot of people who were very eager for me to join their clubs, and that's really when I kind of got sucked into, I guess, what a progressive campus is like. And as someone who didn't really have consistent friendships growing up in the military, for one of the first times, I felt part of a community, so I think that really encouraged me to keep being part of those progressive clubs. I quickly became a political staffer. I worked at the Texas Capitol. When I was a junior, I worked for two congressional Democrats. I was canvassing for Texas gubernatorial candidates. I started canvassing for Bernie. Being on the other side of the door, you see who the politicians are. Maybe the intentions aren't as pure as they may seem on Twitter, or they may seem when they're talking at a rally, so that was the biggest eye-opener for me. Hearing private conversations behind closed doors, and having one perception of a situation, and then politicians going on Twitter and saying the exact opposite. The reason why I stayed on the left for as long as I did was because of peer pressure. If you start to have your own thoughts on anything, it's going to get questioned, and you can be in a room with people who you think are your friends, but at the end of the day, if you say the wrong thing, you could walk out with no friends. So you kind of censor yourself because you want to make sure you don't offend anyone, and of course, the things that you can offend people on change every single day. I think a lot of people are always walking on eggshells. There gradually became just a domino effect of red flags for me as a staffer. It was very hard for me to look constituents in the eye and tell them one thing that I knew wasn't true, but they believed it because it was coming from us. And it just became harder and harder for me to convince myself that I was doing something for the greater good when I knew it wasn't as impactful as our offices were pretending that it was. I realized how easily people can just be herded into an ideology, or herded onto a side, and just totally disregarding their own individual opinions on things. As a kid, I was raised to always use my own mind. That was something that my mom always told me, was to just always think for yourself. So I kept that, and I couldn't remain on that side and not think for myself. I would have to think like them. There were multiple instances where I just saw blatant hypocrisy, and it was hard for me to maintain my own integrity while still working as a political staffer. When I was going through all of this, I felt very secluded. I started to just look into philosophical thought on individualism, and that's when I found Ayn Rand. I started reading her books, and I felt very connected to it. And from there, it was a trickle effect. So it started from there, and then it went to Jordan Peterson, and then it went to Thomas Sowell. I initially heard about PragerU in the most negative context possible. I heard about it back when I was a political staffer. It was one of those things where we would share PragerU videos with each other as staff, saying, look at these people, look at what they're saying. But what's interesting is, as I started to grow, every time I would see a PragerU video, I would agree with it a little bit more and a little bit more. A video in particular that really spoke to me was Gina Bontempo's video on feminism. At the time, as a Latina, I was constantly getting people telling me that I shouldn't be succeeding and everything is working against me, and I didn't believe that because I've always been a hard worker, and everything I set my mind to, I achieved. So it was hard for me to hear that while also working extremely hard to get what I want. So her video really spoke to me at a good time. It was kind of a slow burn of me kind of disassociating with a lot of people on the left. Ultimately, I lost a lot of friends, and I got a lot of pushback. But it's important for me to speak the truth, no matter what. So if that means losing friends, I'm okay with that. I've always been the same Alicia. I've always been very vocal about issues. So at the core, I'm still the same person to a lot of them, maybe just with different viewpoints. The people who really know me know that I'm coming from a good place, and they know that I'm really just wanting to help people along the way. I think a lot of Hispanics are, by default, culturally conservative. When you look at the values that you're taught as a child, a lot of it makes sense. So when I started to kind of grow out of the progressive left, I was going back to my roots in a way. So now I just view myself as going back to the core values that my family taught me, and that my grandparents taught their kids. I think my ancestors would love for me to be proud of being American. They did a lot to come here, so to say that I'm not proud to be American really would be a disservice to everything that they went through. America truly does embrace cultural diversity as much as people don't like to think that it does. You know, I feel safe here. So many people feel safe here to the point where they're willing to truck here and go through extreme circumstances to call themselves Americans. If you feel like you're hiding and you're not saying your ideas because you're afraid of getting canceled, or, you know, maybe your friends won't like the things that you say, know that there's a community of people out there just like you who probably went through similar experiences of feeling isolated and, you know, maybe afraid to speak up. But I promise that you won't regret speaking up because you're going to find a lot of people who love and support you for who you are.