Joanna C.

Harvard College, Class of 2009
Human Evolutionary Biology
California

It was the second week of September, and as I slept on the faded green carpet of our single bedroom apartment, my mother’s presence was the only thing that made it all bearable. She was still alive. With my sister to one side, my brother to the other, and only a bright yellow blanket below me, I could not sleep, so I watched the clear night sky through the only window in the bedroom. I was only eight years old, I was to begin third grade the next morning, and I was full of dreams.

Everything happened so quickly. My mother had been sick that entire summer, and while I wondered when we would go on our yearly trip to buy school supplies, my parents had already made other plans. One rainy September day, we woke early in the morning. Dad said I could only take one toy with me, so I grabbed my newly acquired, koala bear from McDonald’s. With all of the time spent in the hospital, Happy Meals had been plentiful that summer. After a few hours on a crowded plane, we arrived in the United States. I expected to see skyscrapers and flashing lights, but there were no such landmarks. In noticing their absence, I asked Dad if we were in the right place. “Not now”, he was busy, so I settled for watching the arid land of the US/Mexico border from the car window. I was already bored, but in one year, my parents promised, I would be reunited with my friends and the rest of my toys. Fine, I thought, I could wait one year to be back home.

My mother never got better, and as one year turned into two, and two into three, the yellow blanket on the floor turned into a real mattress, and I had forgotten all about the school supplies and the toys and about the house in Mexico. I was already home.

My elementary school years flew by, and at eleven years old, my thoughts were occupied with the prospects of learning to play the saxophone the coming year in middle school. Three years later, as I prepared to enter high school, I was busy choosing my Advanced Placement courses. Clearly, I had to take them all – since the Dream Act had not passed that year, I would need to be a genius to be allowed a future in this country. Before I knew it, ten years had gone by, and as I nervously waited for the big envelopes of college acceptances, I was also rehearsing my big speech, to tell my friends that I may not to go to college despite my straight A’s and perfect SAT score.

In September of 2005, exactly ten years after my arrival in the United States, I arrived at the other place that would change my life. It took me about a month to realize where I was and what I had just accomplished; that October, I stood atop the steps of Widener Library and looked out onto the people passing through Harvard Yard. The faded green carpet was no more. Instead, I had the opportunity to look out onto bright green, freshly cut grass and red brick buildings that echoed with the memories of American History. Later that October, I got to see flurries fall from the sky. And in November, I finally took a chance at trying Mac & Cheese in the dining hall. Not bad.

The summer of 2008, during a weeklong visit home, I was reminded of the reality of my situation. My mother froze right in front of me. All of the signs were familiar; I had seen posters about this on the subway in Boston. She was having a stroke. Panic swept through my entire body, but I could not let her know. I had to make her feel that everything would be all right. The rest of my week at home, I hated myself for not being allowed to drive. My mother was perishing right in front of me, and I could not even take her to see a doctor.

That summer, I could not sleep, so I watched the cloudy skies through the window in my Harvard dorm. I had a comfortable mattress, and before long I would have a college degree, but the worries were greater than ever. Graduation would soon come and go, and the most freeing days of my life would be over. Every morning, the blaring sound of my alarm clock radio would wake me, and all I could think about was that I was one day closer to the moment when I would have to step outside of the Ivy gates and into a world where everything was uncertain.

Today, the faded green carpet is now a soft tan, and the once mattress is now a full bed, but I continue to worry. I might never have the chance to continue my education, much less to become the successful physician I would like to be. But above all, I am scared of never having the opportunity to give back to the country that has given me so much.

So, I cannot let my dreams slip away – these days, dreams are all I have.