Category: Student Views

When I think about Mexico, my family’s home country, I think about Jalpa, Zacatecas, where my family migrated from so many years ago.

As I boarded a flight from São Paulo to Brasília at 6 a.m. on a Tuesday, full speed toward the Brazilian Congress, I reflected on my past few weeks spent in Brazil.

The image begins in my mind with the Old Man, sitting, legs crossed, eyes shut and his head bowed to his chest. The way he sat most mornings (and how he could be found most other times of the day).

As I look in the mirror, I feel a sense of fear and shame.

And one day, your life changes. After weeks, or even months, spent perfecting your university application, the long-awaited email arrives. Most of the time, it begins with:
“Congratulations, I am happy to inform you of your acceptance into Harvard.”

There were two deciding factors, of many, that strongly influenced my decision to commit to Harvard for college:

In Latin America, many communities face escalating risks from climate change. Driven by a curiosity to understand how innovative, technology-driven solutions can address these challenges, I joined Suyana—a parametric insurance startup focused on climate risk.

Manuel Bandeira’s poem “A Morte Absoluta” (“Consummate Death”), first published in Portuguese in 1940 and newly translated by Candace Slater in 2018, contemplates the relationship between death and oblivion.

I used to imagine the Amazon Rainforest as a big piece of flat land with trees growing on top of it, farmers and ranchers grabbing land while Indigenous people fought off the invaders.

At 7:20 a.m. on July 26, 2024, I landed at Galeão, Rio de Janeiro’s international airport.

It was at the end of 2022, during a school project led by the beloved teacher Aline Arruda, that we read the book “Blindness” by José Saramago.

Walking through the cobbled streets of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, I admired the colonial architecture, the ocean’s faint smell and the smell of alcapurrias, bacalaítos, and various other fried foods.

“Mi estimado,” Wilder messaged me via WhatsApp a little before 9 PM. “Espérame en el portón para ir al frente a ver un caso. En 3 minutos llego.”

The Colombian Constitutional Court was created in 1991 as a body independent of the Supreme Court of Justice, tasked with the unique responsibility of judicial review.

It is Sunday, July 21, 2024. I am awake at 9 a.m., greeted by the sun and blue skies of Rio de Janeiro when I pull my shades up.

I still vividly remember, during my freshman year of high school, walking to the bus stop after school and seeing graffiti all over Belo Horizonte, with the message: Vale assassina (Vale [Mining Company] murderer).

English + Español
Every day at the lab was a learning adventure.

English + Español
On Sundays in Santiago de Chile, Avenida Andrés Bello stops traffic between its intersection with the Costanera Center to Plaza Italia, allowing hundreds of people walking, biking, on rollerskates, on skateboards, their dogs on leashes before them, to travel along the otherwise car-clogged street.

English + Español
In the Chilean capital, rain becomes the protagonist during the months of June, July, and occasionally April, marking the gloomy winter with its intense cold.