By senior year, I was elected Senior Class president and had organized a three day senior trip on Orcas Island. It was an unforgettable experience!
In addition to planning the senior trip, I was, at the same time, creating a video called, “one second a day” in which I coordinated with all 355 of my peers to send me one second of their day for the entirety of senior year. This video ultimately became the foundation for my commencement speech, and Ms. Campbell was the teacher who helped me bring all my thoughts together for that day.
In this speech I talked about how little by little, day by day, second by second our actions all added up to getting to our commencement ceremony and created, ultimately, this movie we call life. I went on to say that what made this film so exciting is that each scene was different because if you spent your entire life trying to be something you aren’t or mimicking the lives of others, you would be stuck watching someone else's story, and not creating theyour own. My commencement speech was something that I carried with me as I decided against attending college directly after high school.
When the city I was born in made headlines for putting children into cages, I had to go back. So at 17 years old, I packed up my bags and found myself on the southern border in El Paso, TX, 1,200 miles away from my family. For almost two years, I served as the Communications Coordinator in El Paso, Texas for the immigration nonprofit Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. I was the team’s videographer, graphic designer and photographer, documenting the work of immigration attorneys, advocates and asylum seekers from all over the world.
