In 1996, Reyna and her boyfriend Edwin drive north to UCSC and California State University, Monterey Bay, their respective universities. Reyna’s ambivalence grows the further they go. On one hand, leaving Los Angeles saddens her, despite her troubled relationship with her parents and siblings. On the other hand, she is excited by the prospect of becoming the first person in her family to earn a university degree, which she sees as the key to the American dream. Reyna recalls supporting her father Natalio during his divorce, only to be rejected by him after his wife agrees to take him back on the condition that he renounce his children.

Reyna’s father has a long history of betrayal. He moved from Mexico to the US years earlier, leaving Reyna and her older siblings, Magloria (Mago) and Carlos, in the care of their biological mother Juana, who later abandoned them. The children eventually joined their father in Los Angeles, but the damage was done. Reyna dreams of having a healthy relationship with her parents. As she arrives on the UCSC campus and admires its majestic redwoods, she remembers her father’s emphasis on tenacity and his belief in the transformative power of education: “I’ve done my part,” he said when he handed her a Green Card as a teenager, adding, “The rest is up to you” (8).