Fashion & Interior Design teacher inspired by travels

Manteca High School teacher Angie Anaya has a discussion with her students. Anaya teaches fashion and interior design, and much of her curriculum has been inspired by her travels around the world. (MOISES RAMOS/The Tower)

By DANIEL GARCIA
The Tower

Angie Anaya is the fashion and interior design teacher at Manteca High School. She has a burning passion for fashion, interior design, and traveling.

Anaya is just this soul that’s so bright and bubbly that she can lift someone’s mood in a short conversation.

If you were to ever step into Anaya’s classroom, she would tell you about some of her recent travels, including her trip to Europe over the summer and how she met her mother and sister in Italy.

“When you travel, I really do think it adds to like your visual vocab almost in a way,” Anaya said. “… You see the life that surrounds it, and so definitely, every trip I think totally has impacted who I am.”

Anaya believes that no matter where you travel it can change you. Even traveling to another state or a neighboring country like Canada or Mexico. “It’s so different than what we see here in Manteca; here in the U.S.,” she said.

Anaya believes traveling will help build your visual vocab. Instead of learning new words, you see new buildings and new styles that may have a profound influence on you.

The Tower was catch up with the world-traveler Anaya to chat with her about seeing the world and how the many stops have impacted her.

The Tower: What buildings in other countries have influenced your views on interior design?

Angie Anaya: So many. One of the ones that pops up immediately for me is the city of Barcelona in Spain. There’s this incredible architecture, that’s Gaudi-inspired. He was the architect at that time. And so, a lot of that architecture is really just … it’s so unusual. It’s not just inspiring. It’s shocking. It makes you go, ‘Oh my gosh, someone created this.’ It’s so different than what we see here in Manteca. …

When you see these buildings that are whimsical and happy and fun and colorful and almost a little weird and a little scary. That sounds so strange. But it’s this mixture and it just makes you go, ‘Wow! How do you imagine this? And then create this?’ … There are places that I see, it always inspires me about how can I use that for myself in interior design, like in my own home. But also bringing it back to my students and saying: ‘Hey, let’s check this out’ or ‘Let’s add this.’

Manteca High School teacher Angie Anaya has a discussion with her students. Anaya teaches fashion and interior design, and much of her curriculum has been inspired by her travels around the world. (MOISES RAMOS/The Tower)

TT: Do you believe a trip can change you? If so, why? And do you mind sharing a trip that changed you?

AA: I totally believe that every single time that I travel it definitely changes me because it adds to my experience. I always teach my students that you got to add to your visual knowledge. You have to be adding to what you know. … Every trip I think totally has impacted who I am. … The trip that changed me the most was when I got to travel to Mexico for the first time. I had been to other (places in Mexico) like Cabo or Cancun, which are resorts and kind of like just there. But I was able to travel to Mexico and I went to Mexico City and that really impacted me. Just by going to the different museums and seeing more about my culture, because I’m Mexican American, and honestly, I didn’t know (and) I still don’t know everything about that. So, it’s neat to connect with my culture, my history, my family’s culture.

One of the most impactful places specifically in Mexico was Oaxaca. It’s vibrant. It’s colorful. And the people are so nice. The food is delicious. The architecture is colonial. And they have a lot of interior courtyards.

TT: Why do you think it’s important for people to travel?

AA: It gives you more knowledge but it’s beyond that. … For me, personally, traveling has me more aware of myself and I like the challenges that are involved with traveling. It can look super fun and glamorous or whatever, but there are challenges. It’s hard. It’s tiring sometimes. There’s a lot of planning. There’s a lot of newness, different cultures, and language barriers. But even with all of that, it is one of the best things to do because with challenging yourself and being challenged by the newness, it not only teaches me about who I am, but it also teaches me about other people. That’s my ultimate goal is to like to know more about other people, individually, but also their culture (and) who they are. If we all learned a little bit more about each other than I think it would be, as sappy and corny as it sounds, a better world. … Everyone has a story and traveling allows me to learn more about people’s stories.