Entering Third (Final/Thesis) Year of Grad School: A Pivotal Time

As I stand at the tail end of my second year in grad school at the University of Kansas, I feel a quiet turning — a shift that moves beyond deadlines and seminars and into the parts of me I’ve been taught to ignore. This time has been more than academic; it has been an opening. It has made clear the urgency of reclaiming a heritage I’ve long sidelined and the necessity of stepping forward into family, friendship, and community with intentional courage.

For too long I allowed fear and the weight of colonizer narratives to dictate what parts of myself were acceptable. I cut away pieces of my culture until I could breathe easier in environments that demanded assimilation. But that ease was hollow. It came at the cost of a piece of my soul, and the cost finally feels too high to pay any longer.

Now, I choose otherwise. I choose to reach out — to elders I haven’t known how to approach, to relatives whose stories I’ve only skimmed, to friends who can be witnesses and allies. I choose to take the leap of faith toward community: showing up imperfectly, asking questions, accepting correction, and making space for joy and mourning alike. I will nourish what was pruned away. I will learn the language of my ancestry where I can, listen to the stories that have been kept, and practice traditions with humility and curiosity.

This is not a moment of theatrical revelation but a steady, deliberate reclaiming. It’s the small, daily acts: cooking a dish I’d been told not to, using a word in Spanish without translating it away, sitting with history that is complicated and proud. It’s honoring rituals, making time to ask the questions I avoided, and accepting that some answers will be messy and take years to unfold.

I know this will change my trajectory. It will alter relationships and priorities and how I hold myself in public and private. It will require patience, forgiveness, and the bravery to be vulnerable. It will also bring reconnection, grounding, and a fuller sense of who I am.

I’m done being scared. I’m done denying myself. I’m done letting colonizer narratives determine my worth or my belonging. It’s time to take it all back: the language, the food, the stories, the songs, the grief, and the laughter. I will tend to this reclamation like a garden — planting, watering, weeding, and waiting for new growth.

This next chapter is about tending and becoming. It’s about building bridges to family and community and allowing those bridges to hold the weight of my questions and my courage. It’s about honoring the past while making space for the future I choose to create. I am biracial — half white, half Mexican — and I am proud of that fact.

My identity is a blend of histories, languages, foods, and traditions that shape who I am. From one side I inherit stories tied to places and customs, from the other I carry different memories and ways of being. Neither side cancels the other; together they form a whole that is uniquely mine.

Being biracial means navigating questions from strangers, correcting assumptions, and sometimes explaining what I look like or where I’m from. It also means celebrating dual heritages: the flavors of family recipes, the rhythms of two cultures, the languages that echo in my home. I draw strength from both lineages and find belonging in the intersections.

Pride in my identity is steady. It is an affirmation that I do not need to choose one part of my background over the other. I honor my roots, and I carry them forward with confidence, knowing that my mixed heritage is a source of richness, resilience, and perspective.

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