After navigating through difficult experiences, a junior SHS student feels proud and accomplished for the person she has grown up to be despite facing discrimination and feeling singled out about her identity.
Having moved around a lot, Kaylee Solis’ childhood was full of discrimination, but she learned to embrace her identity and be proud of her ethnicity.
“It was kind of hard,” Solis said. “There’s less [racism] now, but I felt singled out for a while. People would look at us weirdly, but I would choose to be Mexican in every life.”
Kaylee’s older sister, Jackelynn Cruz, graduated from Stillwater High School last year and now goes to Oklahoma State University. As the oldest sibling, she experienced different kinds of struggles.
“I had to help my parents a lot more, “ Cruz said. “Once I learned English, I had to help translate for my parents in teacher parent conferences as well as any little things that they came across and didn’t understand.”
Their parents moved to America from Mexico and have been here for approximately 20 years. While most of their mom’s side of the family lives in America, a lot of their dad’s side still lives in Mexico.
“I’ve never been to Mexico,” Solis said. “I do want to go and meet my grandparents. We planned to go last December, but we didn’t get our passports back on time.”
Solis’ parents taught her many things, but being humble is what stuck out most to her.
“Even if you have everything in the world, just be nice [to everyone] and be humble,” Solis said.
Learning to work hard is one of the most important lessons that Cruz took from her parents.
“If I don’t make sacrifices or make any efforts to reach my goal, then I’m not working hard enough,” Cruz said. “They’ve also taught me to value and appreciate what I have [and get] because growing up, they didn’t.”
Cruz specified that the woman in her family inspired her to pursue a career in construction engineering as her mom started working in construction to help her dad pay for her college.
“Growing up, all I’ve seen them do is work,” Cruz said. “They are the reason why I want to be in the field where society sees it’s only a man’s job. It just makes me work towards my goal even harder because I hope to have them beside me in every job I work in.”
Kaylee Solis is also close friends with Janelle Malatbalat, who is in a similar situation. Being from the Philippines, she doesn’t have any grand plans for the future, but she wants to have a stable job that makes enough money to give back to her family.
“I just want to send back money to my parents and repay my aunt,” Malatbalat said. “She was the one who got us out of the Philippines.”
Malatbalat says she learned all of her manners from her mom who showed her how to act instead of just telling her.
“We couldn’t take her with us,” Malatbalat said. “My siblings have vacationed there but I haven’t yet. We’re still in the process of getting everyone to move here, but under the administration it’s been harder. They’re happy there (in the Philippines), but it’s still hard in a corrupt country.”
Janelle’s dad also taught her the importance of being generous and working hard.
“He doesn’t have the most professional job, but he taught me that any job can make it work,” Malatbalat said.
Solis encourages other first-gen students to work hard in school to make it up to their parents. She also wants everyone to have hope during a time where immigrant policies are being challenged.
“I know a lot of people in our community give up easily,” Solis said. “It’s important for them to believe in themselves and have the mindset to be successful. Our parents didn’t immigrate here for us to not do great things. And never lose touch with what you stand for.”
With these high tensions, Cruz also encourages everyone to think before they start judging.
“Put yourself in the positions of those families who are sadly being affected by it and don’t just jump to blaming them for leaving their homes so they could give their future families a better life,” Cruz said. “Anything that involves immigration should be taken seriously and researched so that people don’t have the wrong ideas of immigrants.”
She also wants everyone to have more empathy and love towards immigrants.
“Legal or not, we’re still trying to get a better life for us,” Malatbalat said. “We’re not coming here to take over your country. America has this big reputation of being the land of the free and full of diversity, but it’s weird that people look at us as less than human. I just want people to [know] us as people.”
