Something that I think is often overlooked in graduate programs are the multiple intersecting identities and experiences that graduate students are engaging with as they pursue their education. This really hit me as I have been speaking with students interested in pursuing their PhDs. One thing I always enjoy when speaking to students is hearing about their stories and learning who they are beyond their education. I have met students who are parents, students who are very involved with their nuclear and extended families back home, students navigating physical and mental health challenges, students from all types of minoritized backgrounds, students who simply are human and doing their best to survive and thrive in this thing we call life. Today, I am going to talk about a critical experience that shaped my graduate experience from the start. Until about 2 years ago, I was the child to two undocumented parents. When my parents were 19-20 years old, they took a chance for a better life and immigrated to the U.S. They somehow learned to navigate the United State of America with little money and with no way to communicate with others since they only spoke Spanish. My parents began their new life in Los Angeles, CA, which is where I am originally from. After some time, my parents moved our little family to AZ because they knew they had an even better chance at a better life there. I started my elementary education in Arizona and soon after my mom decided that she also wanted to start working. But this meant that at the young age of 6 years old my mom sat me down and explained to me how she and my dad were undocumented. I reflect on this moment and it is crazy to think that at the age of 6 I had to carry this weight on my shoulders. Since that age I had to learn to navigate the world as a child of undocumented parents. This meant I was often translating documents, meetings, appointments, my own parent-teacher conferences for my parents. Can you imagine a 6 year old having to take on all these additional responsibilities? Life continued this way! Eventually my little brother was born and my mom had that conversation with me again, but this time added that if anything ever happened to her or my father I would have to step up and take care of my little brother. Thankfully, for most of life I was able to live a generally normal life despite having these additional responsibilities and weight on my shoulders. Flash forward to Spring 2015 when I was deciding where I would pursue my doctoral education, the real difficulty in the decision honestly weighed on being so far away from my parents because I know how much they rely on me to help. Ultimately, both my parents and I knew where the best place for me to pursue my education, so I went ahead and moved forward with my decision. Concurrently at this time, my parents also decided to pursue permanent residency, which meant that I would be the one to sponsor their applications. So on top navigating all the usual challenges of graduate school, I was also navigating the U.S. immigration system with my parents. I cannot even begin to tell you all how stressful doing all this was during graduate school. Because by opening up a case with the U.S. immigration system it meant that my parents could longer just live in the shadows, all their information and everything about them was going to be out in the open! At the beginning I had to submit many confusing forms to our attorney as the sponsor. I had to travel to Arizona often to meet with our attorney and check-in on anything my parents needed help with such as getting fingerprints, health checks, and the list of items USCIS asks for when submitting an application. As part of the process, once things moved along you have to attend interviews with USCIS, thankfully my mom was able to bypass that step and secured her green card pretty quickly. My dad’s case was more complicated. USCIS wanted more paperwork and additional checks of information. We had to undergo a psych eval as a family to prove that my dad should be allowed to stay. Can you imagine how crazy it is to think that you need to prove why a family member is important? All this was going on while I was doing comps. My stress levels were already an all time high, plus waiting to see what the fate of my father’s future would be!!! Thankfully, (even after some scheduling hick-ups) my dad received his green card. What a sigh of relief. I know for many of us this is or was the reality in graduate school. We are navigating and carrying very hard experiences on our shoulders. And often we can’t open up about them because we are not sure who we can trust with such precious information. Especially in my case, where imimigration and undocumented families can be a testy subject in a predomiantely white environment. I wanted to shed light on how important it is to try to step into other people’s shoes. I know I often did that in graduate school and absolutely do it in my job, but it can get exhausting when you are the one constantly having to step into other’s shoes without people in power trying to at least for one second step into your shoes. Everyone has battles they are fighting and they do not need to explain these battles in order for someone to be compassionate. The issue here is that many times graduate students are overlooked as just students and are not seen as human beings that are also navigating many complexities in this world. It is truly unfair to overlook these and this is not an issue about graduate school specifically, I think this is something we can work on in our daily lives, especially if you are in a position of power. Take the time to understand where someone is coming from. Acknowledge that other people (especially those who may be younger or not in positions of power) may not see the world as you do. What the world needs more of is compassion and love. We need to support each other, especially at the worst moments. I once saw tweet on Twitter that simply said the world is filled two kinds of people: 1) people who went through hard things, so they expect others to suffer as they did and 2) people who went through hard things, so they go out of their way to help so that others don’t have go through what they did. I strive everyday to be the second person, I hope you do too. Much love, Lorena Comments are closed.
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AuthorDr. Lorena Aceves unapologetically telling you the real deal about being brown in an academic world, but deciding she is going to be her authentic self and make her wildest dreams come true en esta vida! Archives
November 2022
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