Carrying Circuits and Dreams: My STEM Journey Through Borders and Barriers

I remember the way the Texas sun beat down on us as we filed into the town’s public library, our plastic name tags fluttering slightly in the dusty air conditioning. I had only been in the United States for three months then, my English watered down and hesitant, but the language of robotics—of code, motors, and problem-solving—felt like home. I was thirteen, holding tightly to my mother's hand and carrying a secondhand laptop under my arm. It was a scene so ordinary, yet to me, it was the beginning of something transformational.

Coming from El Salvador, where electricity flickered weekly and opportunities were tighter than power lines strung across corrugated rooftops, STEM was a whispered dream—something for others, distant and ethereal. But my parents, resilient and quietly hopeful, brought us north so that dreams could be spoken aloud. And it turns out, spoken dreams can grow very loud.

The First Circuitry Club Meeting

The library's after-school robotics club didn’t ask where I was from or if I knew all the right scientific terms. It just handed me a gear, a block of motors, and an invitation to build. I sat next to Sofia, whose dad immigrated from Colombia, and Akshay, who’d arrived from India three years earlier. We fumbled with wires more than once, but something clicked—literally and emotionally. We weren’t just building machines; we were rebuilding senses of belonging.

But outside those library walls, reality remained knotted with tension. My middle school had no Latinx teachers in the science department, and whenever I excelled in math, kids whispered “surprising” under their breaths—as though equations had ethnic preferences. I began to shrink back, suspecting that maybe they were right. Maybe STEM wasn't for people like me.

Rising In the Face of Disparity

Everything shifted during my freshman year of high school when I joined a partnership STEM program hosted by a local university and funded by the National Science Foundation. The program explicitly sought to uplift underrepresented students in STEM. For the first time, I saw Black scientists, Latinx engineers, and women wielding power tools like swords. Their voices weren’t just instructive—they were affirming. It was here I first heard about design justice and inclusive engineering, and where I first met Dr. Rivera, herself a Salvadoran-born electrical engineer. She looked me in the eyes and said, “You belong in this field. Not despite who you are, but because of it.”

Living the Statistics We'd Rather Not See

Programs like these are more than academic—they’re lifelines. And yet, I’ve watched such initiatives vanish like sand in wind. When I learned that the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s “Inclusive Excellence” program was terminated, I felt something between fury and heartbreak. It echoed the recent administration’s targeted STEM budget cuts undermining decades of efforts to level the playing field, particularly for women and immigrants like me (Ms. Magazine). These are not abstract policy changes—they are the loss of mentors, the shutting down of after-school labs, and the evaporation of hope for students on the margins.

A Voice on Behalf of the Voiceless

Yet, in adversity, I found my voice. At school board meetings, I began to speak out about the need for culturally representative STEM teachers, especially when only 14% of our educators came from communities that represent nearly 50% of the student body. I started tutoring middle schoolers in coding and mentoring girls who, like me, once doubted their place in science.

Defining My Future Enclosure

As I write this, my final robot prototype sits blinking gently beside me. But more than circuits and sensors, it represents my own journey—outsider to advocate, doubter to designer. I want to study biomedical engineering, not just to innovate, but to include. I envision developing neural devices that are affordable and accessible. But more than anything, I want to ensure that the next Sofia, the next Akshay, the next me—arriving fresh from distant cities and crossing both cultural and personal borders—understands that STEM has room for their voices too.

Because when diverse minds build together, we don’t just generate new solutions—we generate justice.