“There are no Paraguayans in this program, I can’t recall if there was one before”, the graduate professor told me during the meeting we had on the same morning I attended the seminar. Her comment was an allusion that perhaps my underrepresented background could favor me in the future. Instead of bringing me comfort, her comment just enhanced my anxiety. She could not understand that perhaps my inner motivation that led me to stand in front of her — and to take a flight from Iowa to the East Coast during a critical moment in my academic year — was not just an individual interest of academic formation but indeed a collective aspiration for representation — representation of the million voices I hear every time I check the websites of Paraguayan newspapers and find new social and political catastrophes.

“Great applicant, but not ready”, she quoted the conclusion the admissions committee reached about my application. I was surprised she had just announced my rejection on that occasion. My fearful thoughts of rejection expected a letter in the incoming weeks but not an individual description of her views about my application. I had come to visit the school, show my interest, and hear more about the opportunities to work with Professors on some of their projects in Latin America. She said my application was memorable; she remembered my specific interests, my intentions of returning to Paraguay, my academic profile and the fact that my application was one of the few ones which stood out among those of other applicants who also applied during their senior year of undergrad — most of the admitted students had several years of work experience in the field. Finding the news about my rejection did not break me. I took the meeting as an opportunity to learn how to improve and I picked my journal to write down all her comments: I needed to build my resume, I was somehow inexperienced in this area, and I needed to experience the complexities of this field firsthand.

I left her office with a smile. My journey had prepared me for this negative response, and I knew it would not stop me from becoming an asset to my country and my people.

On the evening of that same day, I attended a book presentation of a young Nigerian writer: A. Igoni Barret. The room was filled with white scholars, upwardly mobile black students and me — the Hispanic visitor. He read some excerpts from his novel out loud. His words were powerful and they denounced the injustices experienced by his people and the precariousness of the infrastructure and public services in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. He was here at the epicenter of the development of new theories of governance narrating the failure of his government. I could see a Nigerian, who deeply cared about his country, and whose ideals had brought him here to read his book to an American audience. His voice was loud and strong. Nigeria was being heard with some broken English terms and some Yoruba slangs. For a second I imagined a Paraguayan standing in that same podium reading a book about the Paraguayan context and sharing some words in our native language, Guarani, with the world. I concluded the night having dinner with a Paraguayan friend living in the area, I expressed him my concerns for not seeing many of us, Paraguayans, in that place. We discussed some of the causes for it: our 35 years dictatorship, our small population, the quality of our public education, our landlocked geography.

Leaving my country was a tangible manifestation of my inner sense of dissatisfaction for not having representation in my country — my authorities did not represent me. Living abroad not only confirmed this dissatisfaction but it even made it stronger, because it made me realize how much our communal voice was prevented from being noticed, and of how the current political, economic and social barriers do not allow Paraguayans to transcend in many areas. Paraguay is a country full of talent and potential, but in the same way that our Mediterranean geography, we are locked and limited by several barriers.

While being abroad I realized again and again how my privilege was and continues to be so unfair. When people ask me about my country I always have to ask about which story they want to hear: my story, that of the middle class Paraguayan from the capital, or the one that includes the story of the young Paraguayans who are not able to study due to lack of resources, of the women in the slums, of the kids that ask for money in the stoplights, of the families that lost their house in the past flooding. I always end up telling the diverse reality with all of its successes, failures and inequities.