An Open Reflection: What May Appear as a Loss at First, Turns Only into a Lifetime Gift

In all my 24 years of life on this planet, I choose one moment in time, over and over again. A single moment at 20 years old, which approached me when least expected, I simply, wouldn't trade it for the world.

At the arrival of the news, there was ecstasy,

There way joy,

However, as life's nature unravels,

Soon enough, the sadness, confusion, and unsettlement kicked in.

It's one of the biggest mysteries of life, as to why some things turn out the way they do, even when seemingly at first, everything feels right.

I choose the moment in time when for a few minutes the world around me paused. Approached by one of my most admired professors in undergrad, I was nominated for one of the most competitive programs the university ever created since its establishment. Nothing bigger, nothing more significant came forward to a 20-year-old, first-generation, Latinx student than being nominated to study abroad, at Oxford University, England.

The world indeed paused at hearing the news, and more than anything, being asked to join by a professor who changed my life, a lifetime mentor, Dr. Michael E. Brint.

Dr. Brint and I shared a mutual fervor for life's biggest questions, fueled by the study of philosophy. It all guided me through the biggest and toughest positions. A passion for articulating intellectual conversations, all together, remains the most significant aspect of my learning and studies with him.

Yearly, only about fifteen top university honor students are selected from and across Political Science, International Relations, Communications, and Philosophy departments at Cal Lutheran University. At one of the world's most prestigious universities, students learn from renowned scholars and do their reading and research in the famous Bodleian Library.

After about six weeks at Oxford, they then move to London, where they have the opportunity of taking up to two classes with a linked internship. Dr. Brint accompanies the students during the Oxford journey providing academic and logistical support, all while equally teaching them a four-unit semester-long course.

All I knew was that my academic position had miraculously paved the way for me. And more than academics and intellect, the sacrifices of my parents for their children to attain higher education...

All the sweat, fight, and tears, had paid off.

At 20, this was groundbreaking.

A "Dreamer" in America beats the odds.

I wonder if an equation would suffice to explain what this opportunity defined for my life.

Politics, systematic hierarchies, barriers, and racism in America all lingered in, however, regardless of the palpable accomplishment I had fully fought for since the age of three. Being Oxford material is simply not enough for America when one is an immigrant and classified a "Dreamer," ruthlessly being put into boxes and categories aimed at diminishing the identity of someone who is different. In simple terms, actions done by the system would very much classify as a human rights violation.

America with its broken immigration system, overall backward nature, and its peak of a fear-based political agenda under the Trump administration very much may have prevented me from going to Oxford in 2017. Such a provoking "land of opportunity," right.

But did it break, demoralize, rob me? No.

Over time and time, in clear daylight, we have hard-core, brilliant, educated, valiant people of color, immigrants, and women fighting for their voices to be heard. Leading up to the historical 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, to the indigenous standing firm for our planet.

Saddest yet, we have our very own politicians like AOC fighting inside the very own walls of the nation's "leaders" only to remind her fellow colleagues of basic human rights. Confronting them to not fund fraudulent campaigns, to give citizens a decent minimum LIVING wage, and to protect the planet towards a greener future. Evermore, those in power admitting without shame their full awareness and involvement of Trump's most disastrous relations with Big Pharma corporations and dark money. It all says enough of the nature of those in "power" in the system.

American politicians have to be reminded by their citizens of giving them what the constitution grants them, freedom, regardless of nationality, and a rather skewed promise of opportunity and the right to undergo the justice system as much as their fellow American colleagues.

It may have simply not been my time and I will, without ever second thought, conquer my rising and future opportunities.

I shared the best of my humanity to my Alma mater, something Oxford or any other university will have the privilege to one day, also experience for themselves. And it will be less for them, and more for the causes I deeply invest for. All of which involve the well-being and representation of other human beings from abroad.

Because of this experience I share my biggest lessons:

• I welcome only endeavors and opportunities who embrace and fight to spread humanity. I stand with organizations, creatives, filmmakers, investors, and artists who give their all to minimize the hurt and darkest of forces harming the vulnerable. For good people, for our planet, and our endangered species.
• I say goodbye to those with self-centered interests, competition, focused solely on growing "revenue," "likes" and their appearances.
• There is no template, no guide to how to navigate life, "the right way" nor there is a "template" to guide an immigrant like myself to not be "demoralized" by the struggle. There is only the act and nature of boldness, a flammable fervor within, through the blood and veins - to not go low.
• Only move upwards and forward. Besides, as Michelle Obama states, "when they go low, we go high," and it isn't ego, it's our birth-right as POC, immigrants, Dreamers, the Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and BLM to achieve who we are without a system setting discriminatory barriers.
• Nothing can overwhelm, destroy, and rob of originality. A rare spark within is only complete and capable.
• Optimism, confidence, stubborn perseverance obscures the struggle.
• ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. There is no time, no tolerance for going backward.
• Conquer EVERY opportunity. CONQUER IT, fearlessly.

Dr. Brint recently retired from Cal Lutheran and his legacy leading the CLUxOxford program since establishing it in 2008. And still, in spite of his retirement, he remains being present in my life as the most admired and respected professor I have ever had the privilege to meet.

This notable man taught me to articulate and create with a brilliant mind, and the result of it has taken me so far. Still, greater than intellectual stimulation, I roar of gratitude for his existence and example, for uplifting and believing in something far more valuable and which I continue to carry with me during my roughest endeavors and even across uncertainty. And that is my moral compass.

I thank him for sharing an incredible mentor relationship in this ever-changing world. There is no next chapter in my life without reflecting on my education and the impact he has on everything I do in my career.

A million times, for a lifetime, thank you, Dr. Brint. Muchisimas gracias, por todo.