This division in identity between my roots and the place where I was growing them has been an invisible fine line I never knew how to walk on correctly. However, this line has created paths in my life that have led me to where I am. Words came easy to a child who had no relationship to the world they came from, to the world they were born in: a fine line, as mentioned before.

To me, the 26 letters in the alphabet were a way to communicate in other ways than what I was born. Spanish being my first language was never a tongue that felt like my own, having come from Mexican immigrants, it was a given. With English, the words had to be earned, formulated in my head as an extension to describe what surrounded me. This love I had toward words bloomed into a love toward English.

Later, with the influences of Latinx women who I had viewed on television who translated the American world into their native tongue, I realized I wanted to be a part of it as well. By my senior year of high school, debating whether I wanted to choose English or Journalism, I decided that I wanted to be the person who helped guide those who had no direction of the news. Similar to how my parents took into consideration reporters who had a platform to distribute the problematic, happy, or informing news to our community, I wanted to be that light.

So, my decision to apply to Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications became apparent, and here I am as a testament.