Vanessa

She’s an American. Her mother is Nicaraguan, her father Cuba. While she was born in Miami, her family doesn’t really consider her really Cuban or really Nicaraguan. She says she’s American, but not fully American either. While navigating these multiple identities, she works to identity what ‘home’ means to her while coping with homesickness as she is attending school out of state.

Her greatest struggle right now is understanding her diagnosis of depression and anxiety and how it impedes her being able to succeed academically. She’s most looking forward “to growing and looking back at this moment and thinking, it was worth it.”