Lesley
“The reason why we permanently moved to the U.S. is because my parents got separated. And they got separated during one of the biggest peso devaluation in Mexico. So times became really difficult in Mexico. You know there is a saying that says : “Cuando el hambre entra por la puerta, el amor sale por la ventana”. So when hunger enters through your door, love flees to the window”. And I think that is what happened to my family.
My mom left my dad and we moved to the U.S. My mom, two brothers and two sisters. So we moved to the States and we went back to the Central Valley. And my mom -even though she is the strongest woman I’ve ever met physically but also emotionally- she‘s also very smart. She knew that if we stayed there we were gonna follow the same cycle that many generations of my family had gone through. So she moved to the Bay area near San Francisco where we had an aunt who basically would help us get to school. And I think that opened the opportunities that I now have. I had access to go to one of the best institution in the country. I am now in medical school which could be unimaginable for many people. And I did not realize that until now that I’m in that position. And I have the opportunity to travel the world. So yeah, that’s kind of my story.”
“When I moved to the States it was really tough because first of all my family had completely collapsed. I’m not speaking the language. I mentioned meeting people from all over the world that had come for different reasons you know. Political violence in Vietnam, I had friends who’d left because they had parents there who got killed. I realized that we all had different struggles but at the same time we had come to a place where we had a lot of opportunities and one of them was going to school. And that’s something really good about the US; where people come , you know, and vow to work hard. Not only to work hard. I feel like what is the most important is that you are fortunate enough to meet the people who will open doors for you. Because working hard is not enough. Cause there is millions of people who work really hard day after day and they will never get the opportunities that I had because they will never meet the right people. The people who will open the doors for them and the people who will give them opportunities. Cause for me it's what happent”
Early, the first year I was in California, my English teacher, - ELD classes English Language Development- she basically pushed me to get out of these classes. Those classes are very destructive. ELD classes in poor neighborhood, basically that’s were you find a lot of the immigrants that come to California. And some people, some kids who come from immigrants parents who maybe their first language was Spanish or another language. So those environments have very poor resources. There is no structure and teachers just basically are being sent there to keep them out of the street. But they go back to the streets because they don’t achieve anything. They don’t learn anything. I remember first thing I was there, they would like teach you the alphabet. The whole year. So that teacher that I met, she really pushed me to get out of there.
I don’t know what she saw in me, but I do remember that in those classrooms, cause in California there are mainly Spanish speaking kids. I remember that the classroom was not nice, everybody was cursing the teacher, playing around, jumping around. And there was another student who then became my best friend, from Taiwan. She couldn’t socialize with anybody cause she did not speak english and she didn’t speak spanish. The other kids all spoke Spanish and somehow were able to relate to each other. So I went to sit with her, just because she looked like she was alone and she was scared of everyone else making a mess. So basically I isolated myself from the craziness that was happening with the other kids and I started practicing English with that friend. And I guess that’s how I learned english.
And I think that’s why my brothers and sisters struggled with English, and that’s why they went back to Mexico. Cause they just could not adjust. And for me it was because I stayed away from basically what was comfortable to me. The language. The people…
“It took a really long time to me to recognize that because at the beginning I was very angry at my mom when she left my dad. You know when things bad happen you wanna blame someone or something. And I felt like she had chosen to break our family.
I’m very like my mom. You know my mood, you can see me get very angry and speak up, I can get very stressed out, and sometimes I can be very nice. But I think the reason why I look up to her it’s because she has a strength that I’ve not seen in anyone. She was eight months pregnant and she was still working in the field; more than 12 hours, waking at 4 am and like, coming back at 6 Pm. Not only that, but when she came here she was so resourceful. She was working full time in a thrift store, and then she started making baby clothes to sell at a flea market. And we were collecting like plastic cans. And you know somehow she got us through. And still now, she continues to sell at the flea market, she’s done all kind of jobs. she’s worked as a cook, and she has worked as a nurse assistant. And she’ never given up. “
“I cry a lot but it does not mean that I’m depressed or anything I just… that’s how I express myself. I remember one time I was interviewed about a scholarship to go to college and they asked about my parents and I tend to cry because to me.. that means something you know. He was a lawyer and he asked me “do you think you’ll be successful in med school if you're not able to answer this question.” And I told him that the fact that I’m crying does not mean that I’m weak. Cause I think that in American society tears mean weakness. For me, it’s another way of expression. It’s how I express my anger or any other emotions. I can cry if I’m really happy and I can cry if I’m sad. And right now, I might be a little bit of both.”
“We are supposed to be in balance with nature, we are not supposed to be synthesizing things taking them from plants and putting them in a pill. The reason why you don’t do that is because let’s say, a substance you take out and put in a pill that they say maybe is not safe. If you use it naturally, and it’s found in a leave in a vegetable or in a plant. It is leaving in harmony with other chemicals. And that allows it to be beneficial whereas on its own it might not be beneficial, even detrimental.”
