BELONGING
“I like quiet places more; I want to go where there is nature, and then I came here, and I was like—wow, I love it. I mean, I miss that feeling of being in India. I might miss those people, but after coming here, it didn’t feel like left out...I just feel something I belong to.”
BACK TO SCHOOL
“When I got accepted into pharmacy school, and I told her [my daughter], the first thing she said was, ‘I’m so proud of you, Mom,’ and so that’s all I needed to hear because the whole reason I’m doing it is so I can pay for her to go to college and to do things that I didn’t get to do.”
HURDLES
“I’ve suffered from epilepsy since I was nine… Missing classes is a huge hurdle.”
AGENCY
“I have cerebral palsy, and I grew up in the medical system, right, which is just a rough land to live in. The thing that I had to cope with while piecing myself together is that I can say no, now. When I was growing up, I had no ability to say no to anything that was happening to me.”