I just came across this wonderful story on Humans of New York featuring Esther, a single mother who worked hard for her three daughters.  Tu exito es mi exito — your success is my success — is what she told them as she worked long hours in housekeeping. Two of the daughters ended up graduating from Wesleyan and Yale, and the youngest is at Stanford.

This story resonated really deeply with me. I love immigrant stories, especially with a strong matriarch like my mother. She used to drill me with math exercises after school and in the summer, and it had a profound effect on how I geek out with numbers.

Immediately after shaking off the social media haze of Instagram, I filled up my Columbia University water bottle and had a flashback to my junior high school English class.

The teacher asked us where we wanted to go to college. Portland State. University of Oregon. Oregon State.

Me? Columbia University. I don’t remember exactly what the teacher said, but her reaction was a mix of both being impressed by my ambition and being slightly taken aback by how much it differed from everyone else’s responses.

While I didn’t end up going to undergrad there, it was my mother’s hard work that allowed me to go to grad school there. She could have retired when I lived in New York. Yet she continued working to help pay for my tuition, even though I was an adult in my late 20s. My success was her success.

If you enjoyed my story or the story of Esther who was featured on Humans of New York, please consider giving to this GoFundMe to help Esther, or donating to Causa — Oregon’s immigrant rights coalition.