Problems arise.
Perhaps that's what 21-year-old U.S. boxer Jennifer Lozano will think when she steps into the ring at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
After all, her nickname is “Traviesa,” which means “troublemaker.”
The title was bestowed upon Razzano when he was still a spirited child by his late grandmother, who would later play a key role as Razzano's biggest supporter and inspiration in his boxing career.
“Growing up, my mom used to call me 'La Traviesa,' because I was everywhere,” Lozano said on NBC's “My New Favorite Olympian” podcast. “I was causing mayhem and mayhem.”
But even when Lozano wasn't looking for trouble, it found her, and as she overcame adversity, loss and grief, it shaped her into who she is today.
“Growing up, a lot of people told me I was crazy, told me I'd never be successful, told me I'd be better off working in the kitchen or helping my mom or doing something other than boxing, told me I'd never be successful,” Lozano said. “I want to change that.”
As a child, Lozano was cared for by her grandmother while her parents were at work, and her mother drove from the border town of Laredo, Texas, to her grandmother's house in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, crossing the border and the Juarez Lincoln International Bridge almost every day.
While her grandmother's house was a safe haven, Lozano said the surrounding area was filled with violence at the time, especially after dark.
“We had to leave well before sundown. When I was growing up, as a kid, the drug cartels were very strong. Very, very strong,” she said. “There were shootings every night, a lot of people getting killed, a lot of rebellious stuff happening at night.”
But during the day, Lozano developed a strong bond with his grandmother and a love for her cooking, which led to him gaining weight and being bullied, with people calling him a “puerca” (pig).
“My daughter confided in me what was going on,” Lozano's mother, Yadira, said. “I told her, 'I'm going to talk to the teacher, I'm going to talk to the principal, I'm going to have a meeting.' And she said, 'Mom, let me figure this out.' That's not a good thing for a 10-year-old to say, but she said, 'Give me some time, I'll figure it out.'”
Lozano said the bullying escalated into physical violence and she didn't know how to best protect herself.
“They started tripping me and kicking me, so I started fighting back,” she said. “I didn't know how to fight. I never believed in violence. I didn't like it, and I didn't like hitting people.”
She turned to her grandmother for advice that would lead her to the boxing ring: “Girl,” her grandmother said, “if someone hits you, hit them back. Don't let it happen!”
Lozano told her mother she wanted to join a boxing gym, and there she discovered her passion.
“Even with shadow boxing, even if I wasn't actually hitting anyone, I still knew the basics and just knew this was the right way to do it, and that gave me a lot of confidence as a kid that I knew how to fight, which was great.”
The bullying stopped.
Team USA boxers love to eat flautas, Mexican fried tacos.
Lozano was soon asked to join the gym's competitive team and began boxing on local and national stages. She won the National Junior Olympic Games in 2015 and 2016, and the National Golden Gloves Championship in 2018 and 2019.
The woman whose words inspired her to step into the ring was occasionally there to cheer on her granddaughter.
“My mom believed in me ever since I was a kid, more than anybody. She believed in me more than anybody growing up,” Lozano said. “Whenever she would come to watch my games, she only came for a few minutes, but she would always cheer like crazy.”
Two weeks before he was scheduled to face his first opponent in his hometown of Laredo in 2019, Lozano and his family were unable to contact his grandmother amid ongoing violence in the area, including a shootout between drug cartels and federal police that left multiple people dead.
“She stopped answering her phones. No calls, no emails, no response, no activity on social media,” Lozano said.
When Lozano and her mother went to the house, they found the door locked. Lozano forced her way in and found her grandmother collapsed on the floor. An autopsy revealed that she had died of a heart attack.
“That's when I started screaming,” she said.
Yadira said the family believes his mother's death was the result of a local shooting.
“She got scared and didn't want to tell us,” she said. “Unfortunately, we lost an angel and a best friend that day, and Jenny suffered the most.”
But Lozano still refused to postpone the bout.
“I promised my grandma I would fight,” she said. “And she said she'd go with me.”
Her grandmother's presence was felt throughout the match, and Lozano let out screams of joy when she won.
“I screamed at the top of my lungs and people were saying, 'Calm down, calm down,'” Razzano said. “I just screamed because I vaguely felt her presence that night.”
Victory came and went, but the grief remained, and she began to express it through anger and rebellion.
Team USA boxers love to eat flautas, Mexican fried tacos.
“I lost my way,” she said. “I was going down the wrong path, with the wrong people, and I was just doing stupid things because I was so blind and just wanted a distraction.”
After she returned to the ring and lost the match, she realized how far she had strayed from the path her grandmother had shown her and regained her focus.
She got back on track, winning the USA Boxing Elite National Championships in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and placing second at the 2023 Santiago Pan American Games to qualify for the Paris Olympics.
She plans to honor her grandmother by stepping into the ring at the Games and taking home a medal. Yes, there's going to be trouble here.
“I wish my grandma was here to see this,” she said.
Lozano was interviewed for “My New Favorite Olympian,” a series that tells the stories of Team USA's most inspirational athletes and the causes they support. Subscribe to My New Favorite Olympian Wherever you get your podcasts.
