What She Carried From the Window

 “I watched my homeland fade away out the window.” 

For Isabella, the memory of leaving Venezuela is not a distant image she can easily place behind her. It is still close: the feeling of boarding a plane, watching the land below grow smaller, and knowing that returning would not be simple.

"I would say when I left my country and traveled to the US," she said. "I remember boarding the plane and leaving Venezuela, knowing I wouldn’t be able to come back for many, many years."

 That departure changed the shape of her life. It meant leaving a familiar home, family members, pets, and the small details that had made up her childhood. It also meant beginning again in a place where almost everything felt unfamiliar.

It may be easy to describe such a journey as part of an “American Dream.” But that phrase undermines the difficulties in Isabella’s journey. Her story is not only about arriving somewhere new and finding opportunities. It is also about what remains behind: a house in the mountains, a bedroom window, a garden, the people, and animals she could not take with her.

“I lived in a big house in the mountains in rural Venezuela,” Isabella recalled. “Every night, I’d open my bedroom window and stare out at the stars, talking quietly to myself.”

Those memories stay with her not because they are perfect, but because they are part of where she began. Even after moving to Florida, she constantly thinks of the image: a young girl looking out into the dark, speaking quietly to herself beneath a sky that felt entirely her own.

In the United States, starting again was not one dramatic moment, but a series of ordinary difficulties that made each day feel unfamiliar.

“I couldn’t speak the language at all,” she said. “I couldn’t communicate with teachers, follow classes, or even order food at Starbucks.” 

She could not understand the people around her, the way people live, and every small routine she encountered. 

The first time using a vending machine was quite disastrous: “The first time I tried to use one here, I stuck my credit card into the cash slot, and the machine just swallowed my card entirely.” It was just a minor mistake, but it carried the embarrassment of being caught. “People laughed, but no one knew that I had never seen one in my country before.”

Life goes on, and she became more cautious, starting to learn how much of daily life she still had to figure out again: language, school subjects, technology, and so on.

The changes were not only outside of school. The house filled with care and love vanished into the crowded apartment. “My aunt didn’t treat us quite well, and we were suffering there.” However, it was my parents, again, who stepped out to change our lives.

Her parents were at the center of that process. Isabella speaks about their sacrifices with admiration. “My biggest motivation is my parents,” she said. “They sacrificed absolutely everything for me.”

Her mother had been a full-time housewife for thirteen years, dedicating much of Isabella’s childhood to raising her, encouraging her interests in piano and singing, cooking for her, and spending time with her every day.

After moving to the United States, however, her mother had to work again because life was expensive. Isabella describes that transition as difficult, but she respects how her mother continued through it.

Their sacrifices became part of the way Isabella understood her own goals. “I strive to be the best version of myself for them,” she said. “I’m their only daughter, and I want them to be proud of me.”

That desire did not make her past disappear. Instead, it gave her a reason to keep moving through the discomfort of beginning again.

Over time, Isabella noticed changes in herself. In Venezuela, she says she was insecure and did not think of herself as smart. “It’s not that I’m suddenly smarter — it’s that I never got the chance to develop myself back home.”

 In the United States, she found space to try things she once avoided. Now, she is comfortable speaking in front of crowds, has learned leadership skills, and describes herself as outgoing and social.

Isabella attending Yale Summer School

“I realized people will always have opinions,” she said, “so I might as well live fully for myself.”

Her new life has also shaped what she wants to do for others. She runs a small non-profit that supports immigrant students struggling with language barriers. That somehow just shadows the little girl who stuck her credit card in a vending machine.

“I believe I could change the policy one day, change the world one day to rewrite the story of myself, paving the path back home for millions of migrants who wish to do so.”

For Isabella, beginning again has never meant starting from nothing. She began again with memories of stars outside her bedroom window, with the fear of losing people before she could see them again, with the language she slowly learned to speak, and with the sacrifices her parents made beside her.

The window of the plane did not erase the window of her childhood home. It only placed distance between them.