OpEd: 'These experiences have given me a deep sense of appreciation and love for other people — and things — who have been abandoned or left behind.'
Just before my eighth birthday, my mother came home with a suitcase and told me to pack my favorite things. She said we were going on an adventure. She had decided that the violence surrounding us in Rio de Janeiro had become too frequent and normalized for us to stay, so we left in search of hope and opportunity.
But having to remain invisible for over a decade often made me feel like we did not belong. I soon realized this feeling was shared by many other immigrants and underrepresented groups. On one of our night walks in our new city, we came across a curb that was covered in furniture — couches, beds, dressers — all of it perfect in my eyes, but abandoned. When I found out the furniture had been put there to be picked up by a truck, crushed, and thrown away, I was shocked — especially since we had no furniture. We had just come from a country with such poverty, where so many people had so little.
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