For many students, back-to-school season means the end of long, lazy summer afternoons and worrying about what to wear on the first day. For people like me, undocumented students, the concerns are a bit different. It’s hard to complain because our education is what will essentially bring our families forward. I’m no longer the eight-year-old girl, scared and confused about attending my first day of school in the United States. Now, I’m nearly 18, fully understand English, and moving out of my house to attend the University of California, Davis.

But the anxieties linger. With the recent news about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, I joke that I chose the wrong time to move away from my parents. I’ve never been one to think of the “what if” because it only made me feel like there was no hope for my future. With our current political climate, it doesn’t look promising that I will be able to work after college. Still, I know that instead of sitting around waiting for the opportunity, I will go out and find it myself.

Since the beginning of the college application process in my senior year, my life has become very overwhelming. I went to Luis Valdez Leadership Academy, a mostly Latino charter school in east San Jose. College applications are daunting on their own, but there are a lot of extra steps that undocumented students have to take to not expose themselves and their families. I remember when filling out these applications, I would wake up and fall asleep full of anxiety because I didn’t want to fill out the wrong things and invalidate my application. It was very scary to open up to college administrators about my parents’ income, how many people lived in my house, how long I had been in the U.S. My mom has always been very untrustworthy of the world and the people around her. It was very hard to get answers out of her to fill out the applications because she was scared that they would leave us vulnerable to scrutiny from ICE. Talking about my status and what it means to me was not something I could do with just anyone. It took many panic attacks and falling behind on the applications for me to open up to my vice principal, Ms. Castillon, so she could help me out. Fortunately, she was able to walk me through the whole process, which made both me and my parents feel better.

After getting my acceptances, I thought the only problem I would have was deciding what school was right for me. As the acceptance letters came in and I told my mom about them, her first question was always how far away they were. Unfortunately for me, one of my top choices, UC Riverside, was not an option she was keen on. Her biggest concern was that I would pass through an immigration checkpoint on the drive to school and get picked up by ICE; she also worried that she wouldn’t be able to visit me if I did end up going there. Hearing that from her was very disheartening, and it brought me back to reality. It was at that moment that I realized that not even this decision was mine. I began to overthink every detail having to do with college, which set me back on choosing which school I would attend. Fortunately, my friend Teresa and her mother took me to UC Davis, where we both fell in love with the campus. The next day, I went to school and committed to UC Davis. Once again, it felt like everything was okay.