Growing up, similar to many teenage girls in today’s society, I found myself struggling with self-confidence.

I always found issues with my appearance; my grades were never good enough and I was always wishing to be someone else other than me. I constantly compared myself to “that girl” I thought I should be.

“That girl” had the perfect hair, “that girl” had the perfect body, “that girl” received a better grade on her test etc… It never occurred to me that I still received an A on the test, had a long head of hair down to my waist, or that I had a pretty average muscular type body.

I only saw flaws.

When I was in tenth grade, I felt like I needed to control something in my life.

Everything felt out of control and there was nothing I could do to better myself.

I will never forget the night after my dance recital in May, when I forced myself to vomit for the first time.

Why vomit?

I still ask myself this, and I still do not have an answer. It was something that just felt automatic.

Something that was secret. Something that I only knew about. It wasn’t that I was trying to “be skinny” or lose a few pounds. It was simply control.

However, being the type of intense person that I am, it quickly become an addiction. The first time turned into an excessive daily habit. In my “worst days”, I could vomit up to seven times a day.

Luckily, my mother knew the signs and was able to get me help as soon as possible. As much as I regretted her finding out, and feared that she would be mad, she was understanding, patient, and refused to let me sink.

The last thing I wanted was for her to be disappointed.

My mother made a few phone calls and enrolled me in an extensive daily rehab program three days later. After a summer full of intense Monday through Friday therapy, I finally felt human again.

I learned how to eat appropriate portions and the importance of overall life balance, and the friendships I made there still last to this day.

Therapy consisted of eating our daily meals there, which was more of a struggle than I thought it would be. Many individuals struggled during dinnertime and for the first few weeks we were not permitted to speak during the dinner hour.

I grew up where everyone shared their stories around the dinner table, so this was definitely an adjustment for me. The most profound part of therapy was the after dinner accountability program.

We had to turn in our food logs that we had kept for the day, and after “tweaking” my portions for the first three weeks, eventually I realized that I needed to be honest or I would never receive the help I needed.

That moment, I realized it was up to me to make the change, and for the first time I wanted to get better.

I looked around the room; many of the individuals were in their late 30s and 40s. They had families at home, and were stuck there all day.

I did not want that to be me. I began following the program specifically designed for me religiously, knowing they were the experts.

The individuals in my program held me accountable for my actions, which is a necessity when struggling with any type of addiction. I “graduated” from the program filled with hope, confidence, and I knew that there was no better me, than me.

I learned how every individual has their own identity, their own unique story… So, why try to be someone else, when there is no other you, than you?

You may wonder… how does my self-confidence and therapy play a role in my life today?

Currently, I am enrolled in the occupational therapy program at West Virginia University. However, for the past year I have been second-guessing my decision, and was never truly satisfied with the profession I chose.

I always wanted more. I had always dreamt of being a surgeon, but never thought I would ever be capable. I still never thought I was smart enough, the finances did not seem to line up, and the schooling seemed to be endless.

Anytime I pondered the question in my head, I had a million reasons to shut it down. Unlike in high school, where I resorted to hiding my fears, I took positive action.

Action that would lead me down an exciting journey! So, this past summer, I had a meeting with the head maxillofacial reconstruction surgeon at our local hospital and he changed my life.

He sat me down and told me that if being a surgeon was truly what I wanted to do, I would NEVER be satisfied with anything else. He flat out told me to stop “half-assing” my life choices, and to be brave enough to take chances.

He has continued to invest the time into me, and for that I am forever grateful. I have finally decided that I will be attending medical school when I graduate in order to pursue my dreams.

Although there have been some bumps along the way, no one can stop me from being the best me possible.

Sitting in the airport awaiting my 5’o’clock flight I was anxious, nervous, and totally unaware of the adventure about to take place. I arrived in Florence unsure.

Unsure about what I was doing, unsure about spending 4 months in a foreign country without my closest people, unsure about my relationships and myself.  It took me a while to realize I had this giant opportunity at my feet and it was up to me and me alone to make it either the greatest lesson of all time or a measly, elongated vacation. I chose the first.

Stumbling through cobble-stoned streets in my worn out converse under lines of laundry and open windows, I found myself.

I found a home in a dated apartment with 7 other girls all on the same journey. At nights I planned my weekends away, filling my calendar with trips to places I had no idea would leave such an impact on me. I met the most wonderful people and experienced first-hand the most beautiful cultures. Strangers taught me more about life than my entire school curriculum ever has. (But I promise I still learned school things mom and dad.)

However, every day wasn’t picture perfect like it was portrayed via social media. I experienced some of my toughest battles while abroad, and being thousands of miles away from my support system was not ideal then. But that’s when I learned the most. Time and conflict are not compatible.

Life doesn’t throw you your toughest days when it’s convenient for you.

It was then that I learned how strong I really am. I learned that I couldn’t control other people, but I could control how I let them affect me. So I refused to let the bad ones get to me, not when I was surrounded by so much beauty and opportunity. I had the opportunity to waste my days abroad in a fumbled mess trying to put back the pieces of something so broken, but instead I chose to build something new.

I convinced myself that there was something so good to be seen in every single day, I just had to go find it. Whether it was something big like riding ATV’s along the coast of Santorini, or just eating a really awesome Panini, it was there, and it was important. My mind and my heart were stretched to new lengths. I found new wonders and treasures I will cherish forever, like my hideaway church on top of a lonely hill in Italy, or that hole in the wall restaurant where the owners know you by name.  So sitting here throwing out my worn out shoes, I’m actually proud.

I’m so proud of the places they took me and the memories made in them.

It came and went faster than it should have. There were so many pictures taken and “storage too full notifications”, so many 40 euro flights I wasn’t convinced were going to ever reach the ground again, and so, so many new friends and new memories that would be showcased on social media but would never actually reveal the true depth of the moment. Many feelings came to play throughout my months, but the one I found most consistent was gratitude. Every day I thank my lucky stars that I had this opportunity to see the moon from a new side of the world, to fulfill a part of me that’s been missing for a while, I just had to go find it.

I’ll never truly be able to properly put into words how much this experience meant to me, but if I tried to sum it up I’d do it with my favorite over-used quote of the trip:

“This just doesn’t do it justice.”

As I cringed and opened my email, my first reaction is the all too familiar “I must not be Mexican enough for their program.”

Followed up with incidences of colleagues using of my racial status in quotations, I am left feeling both arguments of not enough. Not enough Mexican. Not enough White.

If you ever wondered what it is like to only be half…I reopen the calloused wounds of rejection from minority programs. It was the perfect program; exactly the kind of work I want to do as a clinical researcher, making the kind of changes I want to contribute to the world. I thought for sure as a dietetics major, I would present a unique opportunity for this northern hospital to diversify its research mentor program.

But despite my laundry list of accolades and good marks in clinical and pre-med classes, I am searching for another minimum wage summer job with salsa playing painfully in the background. This is not to say that there are other factors at play, but society has successfully trained me to shy away from applications that have a minority requirement despite not only being a first-generation Mexican-American, but also college student.

Clearly, the bootstraps mentality is not enough.   You can’t talk about being a minority without exploring the unique experiences that transverse the stereotypes society expects. Never have I been deemed a fiery Latina ready to serve a silver bullet of tempered Spanish with flirty hips swaying and tantalizing tendrils of voluptuous hair.

Instead, my quiet demeanor only adds to the perception that I am a white lady; to be feared. I am called ma’am like a southern belle, born and reared. And yet, this is not the narrative I ever expected. It is so important that we stop expecting people to fit racially driven stereotypes. The field of dietetics is somewhere around 95% white female. While my aim is not to dismiss individual stories, we must build up the people who are going into this field whether they are white or not, female or not.

With racial groups, come cultural food norms.

And yet, when we talk about healthier options, our discussions are riddled with white norms. We are replacing unhealthy “white foods” first. Not only does that spells dismissal for thousands of people needing guidance from registered dietitians, but in an instant a child is taught you don’t eat like me, so you don’t deserve the same health as me.

Doctors, firefighters, and even dentists persuade children to grow up and make waves in their field. They persuade them to grow up to be big and strong, brave, and have a healthy smile. When will minority children reach the collegiate classroom with their own stories of dietitians who helped them, who told them they too could grow up to be movers and shakers in the field? But wait. Maybe that’s  not it at all. Maybe they didn’t see the STEM in dietetics. Maybe they missed all the pre-med classes, the clinical training, and understanding of medical diagnosis.

It doesn’t seem as far-fetched as I consider a recent blog that cried out for doctors to have nutrition training when we have an ENTIRE field of professions armed with their evidence-based practice to change perceptions about food.

For now, I will brush off my recent rejection letter. I might indulge in a pint of ice cream-moderation of course. But, I will hold onto my Mexican Bootstraps. I will continue to seek out opportunities to be a mover and a shaker in my field, in my research, and in my future practice. But tonight I will wonder, maybe if I had been named Guadalupe then things would be different.

There aren’t any blacks in Buenos Aires. I heard this many times before arriving. I heard it even more after arriving. Even so, I was prepared for it. My mother felt assured that I would be alright once I arrived in Buenos Aires, because she gave me personal hygiene supplies as if I were Noah and the plane was the Ark. She packed me two deodorants, two containers of shower gel, two contact solution containers, two tubes of toothpaste, the list continues. So I stepped on the plane with confidence and left the United States for the first time.

I lost that confidence after the first day. Normally, a person takes a shower, washes his hair with shampoo, and uses conditioner. In my case instead of bottled conditioner, I use a hair grease that is a little bit stronger. When I finished my first shower, after a long day and an even longer flight, I realized that I had forgotten one thing: the hair grease I needed at that exact moment. I didn’t have anything to hydrate my hair.

I saw the reality of my situation the first time I tried to buy this type of hair product. After the shower, I immediately went to a mini-mart around the corner of my house. I walked through the aisles searching for something sufficient. I saw different kinds of foods, a lot of one kind of beer—Quilmes, products for babies, lotions, shampoos, conditioners, but nothing of any use to me. I went to talk to the store clerk, but at the time my Spanish was poor. I didn’t know how to describe a product blacks use in the United States. I used the process of elimination in my responses.

She repeatedly asked me “yes or no” questions, such as if I needed lotion, or shampoo.

Eventually she told me that they didn’t carry any products such as the one that I was describing. All of the personal care items were in the shampoo aisle. I wasn’t worried. Actually, I was sticking my chest out, because I had my first authentic Spanish conversation with someone who worked in the city. Besides, I could always go to a supermarket and find one there.

There was only one problem. If I didn’t hydrate my hair, then it would convert itself into a desert. My scalp would be like cracked earth, and my hair would harden into shrubbery. Everything would be lifeless. I looked in all of my luggage in order to see if there was something that I could use. My mother prepared me well. In a suitcase I found Vaseline.

So, in order to temporarily resolve this problem, I put Vaseline in my hair. I do not recommend it. As it turns out Vaseline is very greasy and very uncomfortable in human hair. The result was that the hair looked less natural, and faintly resembled the hair of a mannequin—plastic. However, I was out of options.

My priority the following days was to find a product that would agree with me, because while the Vaseline sat in my hair, I became increasingly paranoid that someone would notice that my hair looked a bit weird. Next stop was a supermarket on a street called Honduras. My program director told me that this supermarket had everything that I could possibly need. It was like the Walmart of Argentina.

I was charged with excitement, because the Vaseline was also beginning to itch.

At my first opportunity, I walked to the supermarket. I was astounded when I walked in. It actually did look like a Walmart. This was very unusual. Although Buenos Aires is a modern metropolis, it still has fruit vendors on every other street corner, and stores that specialize butchery. Large anything, in general is the exception.

Yet, there was the super-sized parking lot with a small army of cars in it. Inside there were scores of families only looking to buy enough to last them the day. It was even more chaotic than Walmart! The organization confused me, because it had an escalator in the middle of the store that was adapted to be large enough to easily lift shopping carts.

I spent 30 minutes lost in the lanes before I found the hair products. This time I was sure that I would find the product that I needed, because there was a small mountain of products. I searched the large aisles. I saw some of the same products that I had seen in the mini-mart such as shampoo, hair conditioner, lotion, but I also saw some new and promising products such as “tratamiento capilar,” and “fijador”.

These gave me hope.

First was the fijador because there were far more images of guys on the labels. The men seemed confident and stylish, feelings I yearned for. I snuck a peek to have a better understanding. It was styling gel, which doesn’t just fail to solve my immediate problem, but is also completely useless on my type of hair. All of a sudden the second seemed promising. I snuck another peek. The texture was much more smooth and soft than Vaseline. I examined the word “tratamiento.”

I had no idea what the instructions were trying to tell me. Something felt off. I had a feeling that my current problem could transform into an even worse predicament, so I concentrated really, really hard on the instructions. “Dejálo actuar entre tres y cinco minutos…” I searched for the definition of “dejar” in my cellphone. My God! This product wasn’t something that I could put in my hair for two or three days at a time; it wasn’t even something I should put on my head for two to three minutes! It was hair treatment! I knew that something like this existed in the United States, but here it was just as popular as shampoo!

I walked through the supermarket. I didn’t see any more hair products, but there was a light in the middle of the chaos. There were families that were trying to obtain food for dinner that night. Families that went to the supermarket together, in order to buy that which the children needed. Teenagers that were gazing with slacked jaws at bottles of Fernet. It was a social island. There was no one that could help me find what I was searching for or who could understand what I was trying to describe. Even more, there were no products for blacks, because I was the only black person in Buenos Aires, I thought. It was true; the supermarket had everything necessary for the people of Buenos Aires.

Still I had one more option. My eyes fell to the pharmacy. The complication was that there was not enough time in order to go and search more, because at this point I had begun the study portion of the study abroad. I had a lot to learn. By second week in Buenos Aires, I went to the pharmacy with confidence that I would going to find something for myself. Unfortunately, it was the same story as the supermarket. Nothing.

Absolutely nothing looked even close to a product that I could use.

There was only the dangerous capillary treatment and styling gel. Moreover, I was desperate for a change. The Vaseline had submerged into my capillaries, leaving my hair an unmovable mass. Without more options, I looked at the styling gel for what felt like an eternity, trying to decide if gel would be superior to Vaseline. Almost anything is better than Vaseline. I resigned. There was no hair grease, and so I bought the men’s styling gel.

The next day I went to a ranch with my program group. In a terrible mood, I told my friends who were black about my misery in the city. They laughed. However, they gave their sympathies. One girl told me that she had enough hair grease to share, and for the first time in a week my confidence came surging back into my body. Later, we went to my friend’s apartment. The apartment was located far from my house, but it was worth it. We exchanged hair grease for a drink. That night I washed the Vaseline from my hair. Rain had finally come to the desert.

In light of this experience, I can imagine the feelings of immigrants arriving to a new country being somewhat similar. A thousand thank-yous to my friend who was prepared. She helped me when the stores of Buenos Aires simply couldn’t. It is challenging trying to live in a place with people being completely different from yourself. Humans are social beings.

We need a community in order to support, and understand each other’s difficulties. For this reason, I understand why there are entire neighborhoods of specific ethnic groups. By luck, I had my friends. A small group of four people was sufficient to resolve my problem.