"Help! Help! I can't breathe." I felt powerless and terrified by the idea that a single bullet could end my life. I tried to run without stopping. However, with the multitude of people, it was impossible to advance. Some people fell to the ground in a rush while women covered their children with their own bodies clinging to the idea that they could shield them from danger. "Do not look back. Keep running, and hold my hand," my mom shrieked as the detonations and burst of bullets continued. This was the "March of the Mothers" on May 30, 2018, where at the age of sixteen, I raised my voice for freedom against a dictatorship during protests in Nicaragua. In this effort, I faced a level of violence that few others have endured, witnessing firsthand the execution of protestors with a single shot to the head. 

             The cruelty expressed by law enforcement caused me to flee Nicaragua on my own and temporarily separate from my family. Yet, my choice for exile carried out different sentencing. I forced myself to build a different identity, away from my mother and brother. I was free, but I had nothing and could not go home. I still saw myself as a child, and I feared strangers or not knowing whom to trust. Escaping a dictatorship meant living on my own for months while learning a new language and adjusting to the U.S. educational system, in which I was discriminated against because of my immigration status. Many demanding voices constantly repeated, “You do not have the potential,” implying I would not meet the same expectations as my peers and, therefore, could not receive the same rigorous education. However, I refused to allow these prejudices to define me. The spirit of survival that I discovered while protesting in Nicaragua and looking out for myself for months gave me the courage and the inner strength to challenge these systematic obstacles and not settle for less. 

              There is no way to pinpoint how far my self-exile pushed me back, but I moved forward and endured. I encountered numerous setbacks that became a part of my path, yet I made a conscious effort to be persistent in the face of adversity in order to attain all of my objectives. Living through the assassinations in Nicaragua deepened my desire to become a physician to care for people whose life is at risk, a passion I discovered as a child when cancer struck my family in the same way that bullets cruelly killed Nicaraguans. Cancer suddenly took the life of my grandmother, who discovered her leukemia diagnosis too late and, days later, died, and now this disease has returned in the form of my mother's battle against stage III breast cancer. Despite this dreadful diagnosis, my mother has been inspired to fight and live to watch me spearhead innovation in cancer research and develop ground-breaking discoveries that would benefit those affected by this disease. Thus, I envision myself being an oncologist and researcher eager to challenge the limits of what is possible in the cancer research field.