Breaking the Cycle - Caro (final)

Being here at Stanford is a privilege that I often forget. I have so many opportunities to grow and flourish here. It’s only when I go home and see my family and friends struggling to stay in school and find any job in order to make ends meet that it hits me. I came to Stanford to better my future, but I also want better my community’s future. I want to go back and help marginalized students get into college without a huge debt for the rest of their lives. Many don’t think it’s possible to break the cycle, but yet I did. It is possible.

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My parents immigrated to the United States from Durango, Mexico in 1996, just two months after they got married.
“Dad, what made you want to move to the US?”
“I didn’t want to come here. I had lived in Los Angeles for a couple months and I hated it. Tanta chinga trabajar pa’ los güeros nomas por unos dolares. But your mom and I wanted to start a family. There would have been no future for you or your brother over there. I knew you would have more opportunities here.”
I barely saw my parents growing up. My mom would go to work to clean houses in the morning after dropping us off at school, pick us up after school and feed us, and then leave to her second job to clean offices. By the time she came back, we were asleep. My dad would leave to work at six in the morning and come back until like 7pm. He would shower, eat, watch his novela, and then go to sleep.
“Do you see how much your mom and I have to work to make sure we have a roof above our head and food on our plates? Es una chinga. That’s why you need to focus on school, so that you don’t have to scrub floors or work outside in the burning sun or rigid cold. So you can work a normal Monday to Friday job, 8am to 4pm, and have enough to pay the bills.”
When I got to high school, I longed for a job. I wanted to have my own money, but I also wanted to help my parents. My dad was switching jobs every couple of months, struggling to find a stable job, my mom was up to three jobs, and their savings were gone. But they refused to let me work; they refused to take away my focus from school and my future in fear that I would like the money, fall behind in school, and not go to college. But then, my dad lost his job again.
For two and a half years, I worked at McDonald’s every free time I had. I would work after school Monday-Wednesdays from 4-10pm and full time shifts on the weekends. My boss would even have my school calendar, so she could put me on the schedule on days we had off. When I wasn’t working, I was doing my never-ending homework and studying for tests. In the summer, if I wasn’t at home, you could always find me taking orders at McDonald’s. I rarely took a break.
“Te pareces a tu madre,” my mom would proudly say. My parents constantly bragged about their hard-working daughter who got straight A’s in school. They found strength in mine, and as I grew more independent, they began to depend on me more.
“Mom, I got accepted into Stanford!”
“The one in California?”
“Si!”
“But what will I do without you?”
Despite their orgullo, my parents were devastated to see me go. The first year was the hardest, especially, as they had to learn to be on their own again and to speak to los güeros in English. But the one phrase in English they learned rather quickly was:
“My daughter goes to Stanford for free. She is going to be a doctor.”
“Guys, I told you I’m not pre-med anymore, it’s too much”
“Hija, I saw you go to school and work full-time all while taking care of this family. And you smiled through every moment. I know you’re going to do great things. Even if you’re not a doctor, I know you want to come back and help people like us. But don’t ruin it for us, I love seeing people’s faces when they hear that my daughter, hija de Mexicanos, goes to a school better than Harvard.”