Since I was young, my family and I’ve moved from one state in Mexico to another. Always looking for a better place to live. All my life we’ve lived in places with violence and poverty. Every time we thought we were going to get ahead, something bad happened.

I was born in Tehuacan, Puebla in central Mexico. When I was little, my father used to hurt my mom. When I was one, my mother had my brother, but she had suffered so much violence that my brother died two days after he was born. My mom didn’t wanted me grow up without a father, however she couldn’t stand the violence, so we left when I was four. The same year, my sister was born and months later I fell from the roof of a house and frac- tured my skull. For a year I was unable to walk. When I could walk again, my mom had another girl. By the time I was five we had lived in five different houses in one city.

When I was six, we moved to Tierra Blanca, Veracruz, a beautiful place with so much nature and rivers, on the east coast. It was the first time I traveled to another state and I hated it. I didn’t like leaving my friends and all I knew. Meeting new people, learning a new culture, and having new experiences was a challenge for me. The first month there we lived in two different houses. My school data didn’t get transferred, and for a year I couldn’t study. In Veracruz, my mom had my brother.

I was nine when we moved to northern Mexico, to a small city with many mountains. There was a lot of violence and crime, more than what I had ever seen. There I learned to defend myself. Again, because the paperwork didn’t transfer, I lost another year of school. We lived there for two years before moving back to Tehuacan. In Tehuacan, my mother had no job and couldn’t pay for my education, so my godparents took care of me and my grandmother took care of my siblings. My mother left us to find work in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, one of the biggest cities in Mexico. We were living separated, but we knew it was for a good reason. It was there, that I met my father after eight years of separation. He wanted to meet me, but he was a complete stranger to me. I only saw him three times and then we didn’t talk anymore. When I was fourteen, my mother came back for us and took us to Monterrey.

In Monterrey, we had to live in the Hotel Nuevo Leon. My mother’s wallet and identification card had been stolen, and without it she couldn’t work. My stepfather paid for the hotel, but after some time he walked away with- out saying anything and left us. My mom looked for a job quickly. She start- ed selling drugs so we could eat, but she never let us know that until later. Finally, we had money to leave the hotel and she stopped selling drugs. At the age of sixteen, we moved houses in Monterrey. I entered high school and for a little while we were fine. Then my mom decided to bring us to the United States. While she was working on this, I turned seventeen and my stepfather attempted to kidnap me. He was part of a dangerous cartel and one morning he pulled up in a van while I was on my way to school and tried to grab me, but I ran away. For a week my siblings and I hid in our house and didn’t go to school.

We then applied for political asylum in the U.S. We spent two days and three nights on the street in Tijuana, waiting for the opportunity to ask for help. On the third day, we were allowed to enter the United States with the hope of having a better life. I am now twenty years old. I’ve lived in the U.S. for three years and am about to graduate high school. I am so thankful for the support of so many people. I think of all the sacrifices my mom made. I’m so far away from where I am from. Even though all I have been through, I know that I have to keep going.

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