Since I was a child, my father had destined me to be a nurse. In fact, he wanted me and my younger sisters to all become nurses. Nurses were well-respected, admired, and had job security. However, I was born in Bluefields, Nicaragua, in 1982, and this was a major obstacle in me fulfilling this call.
Nicaragua was at war and there was (and still is) great poverty, with little access to education. I was four years old when my mother and I flew from Managua to Mexico City to cross into the United States. My father could not come with us, as he had to leave to find work. We had to have enough money for the flight and the “fees” for those who made a business out of helping others like us.
Once in Mexico City, our handlers helped us cross the river into Brownsville, Texas. We were caught by immigration as we tried to board our flight to Houston and put in a detention center. My mother remembers that the detention center was filled with other mothers and their children, and how she and I shared a cot together. We applied for and were granted asylum after four days in custody and allowed to unite with my grandparents in Port Arthur, Texas.
My childhood was much like any other immigrant child’s: My education was the single most important thing to me, and a contribution to my family. I knew my trajectory was nursing. I graduated cum laude and had a full scholarship to Lamar University’s nursing school and graduated in 2005 with my bachelor’s of science in nursing.
However, in 2008 my trajectory shifted and I found myself wanting to help others who were refugees, displaced, and in poverty. I was accepted into Baylor University’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing and received my master’s of science in nursing as a family nurse practitioner in 2010. I went on to get my doctor of nursing practice in 2013 because I felt I had to continue to advance my degree in order to better advocate for vulnerable people.
In my quest to be equipped to serve displaced people I earned my master’s of public health from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health with an emphasis on global health and population studies. While studying humanitarian crises and global refugee care, I noticed that MSF was always at the forefront of critical responses. So, after graduation, I applied and was accepted for my first assignment in Ethiopia.