On Friday, Maria Yolisma Garcia jumped into her black Nissan Rogue and drove out of downtown Dallas for the weekend. The streets were clogged. Traffic moved slow and ongoing street repairs didn’t help the flow.

But none of this dampened Garcia’s spirits. She joked and laughed about other drivers as she made her way to East Dallas, where she had an important stop to make.

At the Samuell Grand Recreation Center, the 24-year-old Dallasite did something she thought would never be possible: She voted.

Garcia wasn’t born in the U.S., but she’s lived here since she was 3 months old. Her parents brought her to this country as an infant in 1994 in search of a better life.

She was undocumented until 2011, when her father received a green card after 17 years of living in the U.S. Garcia and her mother were able to get green cards through him as well. Her siblings were all born here.

After the two learned they were eligible for green cards, the family had just two weeks to gather all school records, bank statements, bills, receipts, pay stubs, family photos and any documents that proved they’d been living in the U.S. all that time.

They also had to pay about $12,000 in attorney and application fees.

“We sold our jewelry, clothes and a car,” Garcia said. “We got behind on bills and house payments. It just wasn’t easy.”

At her citizenship ceremony this May, Garcia cried and hugged her mom after taking the Oath of Allegiance. One of the first things she did after that day was register to vote.

Garcia walked into the center. She checked in with election workers. They scanned her Texas ID. But then there was a moment of confusion. A worker asked Garcia if she had ever voted in Dallas County and that he needed to make sure she was actually registered.

Garcia was afraid this might happen. Having lived in the shadows, she knows what it’s like to be turned away for not having the right paperwork.

“Being undocumented is living in a frenzy of having to archive everything you’ve ever done since the first day you stepped foot in this country,” Garcia said.

But if anything, Garcia was over-prepared. She’d been checking her registration for weeks, talked to friends about how to vote and even attended a sample ballot party.

She handed election workers her registration card, told them her birth date and the matter was quickly resolved. An election worker led her to a voting station.

The process was a breeze. Garcia thought she might cry the way she did at her citizenship ceremony, but she reminded herself that this was simply her duty as a citizen. She filled in her votes for propositions and individual candidates, not a straight ticket.

When it came time to vote between Ted Cruz and Beto O’Rourke, Garcia accidentally pressed on Cruz’s name. To her relief, she was able to switch it to O’Rourke.

Maria Garcia, a first-time voter, leaves the polling station holding her "I Voted Today!" sticker after casting her ballot during early voting at Samuell Grand Recreation Center in Dallas on Friday, Oct. 26, 2018. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

She filed her vote and was on her way.

“I thought I was going to get emotional,” Garcia said. “But in that moment, I was just like ‘Let’s do it. Let’s get this.’”

Garcia learned she was undocumented when she was 9 years old, but the consequences of her status didn’t really hit home until she turned 16. She couldn’t get a job or a driver's license.

It was then that she jumped into activism by organizing informational meetings for students like her and joined the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest Latino civil rights group in the U.S.

She also learned about efforts like the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation that would have granted legal status to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

Getting her green card in 2011, though, meant she was no longer in danger of deportation. But her fight was not over.

“Even though I had [legal] status, I never really let it stop me from advocating,” Garcia said. “I knew then I had even more of an advantage than my friends who didn’t have paperwork.”

Maria Yolisma Garcia, 20, of Dallas, center, rallies in support of the HB1403, the Texas DREAM Act, at a demonstration at the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday Jan. 14, 2015. More than 50 people, a coalition of businesses, affected students, supporters, and lawmakers, rallied to preserve the 2001 in-state tuition law. (Jay Janner / AP)

Garcia lobbied at the Capitol in Austin against efforts like repealing in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants or SB4, which required local authorities to cooperate with immigration officers.

She wrote letters and made calls whenever an area resident was placed in deportation proceedings by immigration authorities. She celebrated whenever a release was successful.

She marched in the streets of Dallas for immigration reform and chanted against white supremacy.

She even greeted people at polling places, urging them to vote for candidates who would support immigration reform. And she managed to get a handful of citizens to vote.

Maria Garcia, a first-time voter, holds an "I Voted Today!" sticker after casting her ballot during early voting at Samuell Grand Recreation Center in Dallas on Friday, Oct. 26, 2018. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

Her activism caused an identity crisis, Garcia said, because she was neither undocumented nor a citizen. She felt stuck in the middle. Being unable to vote only held her back.

That all changed with her first visit to the voting booth. She’s a U.S. citizen, but she has no plans to stop fighting for immigrants. She hopes her vote now and future votes will contribute to positive change.

“Now I have a sense of accountability as to who gets put into office. I’m partly responsible for it now,” Garcia said. “It feels good. Now I can go to them and say ‘I’m a voting constituent and you’d better listen to what I have to say.’"