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Graduation is a week away, and for the first time, I’ve built a life I don’t want to run away from. It’s bittersweet to leave the people who made Syracuse University my home, but I keep coming back to how lucky I am to leave with a heavy heart weighed down by love.

I’m the youngest of three sisters and will be the first in my family to graduate from an American university. Lacking a blueprint of what my experience should look like has made my time at SU seemingly boundless and entirely passion-driven.

I’m an honors student triple-majoring in sociology, geography and environment, sustainability and policy. I’ve worked more than one job since arriving at SU and have taken 18-21 credit semesters, alongside research and leadership roles. I’d be lying if I said balancing all of my responsibilities came easily, especially when I was still adapting to life at SU.

Being from Laredo, Texas — a 95% Latine metro city — is why I came to SU with as much passion as I did and took on so much. Simultaneously, it’s also the reason I struggled to adapt.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, an article from the Texas Tribune revealed that medical manufacturer Midwest Sterilization was putting my community at nationally elevated carcinogenic risk through exposure to the regionally unregulated chemical ethylene oxide. It was only after going down a rabbit hole of research that I learned what environmental justice is and how communities that are........

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