Writing Wasn’t My Gift — Or So I Was Told.

Why do I feel like I’m not good at writing? It’s simple. I never felt like a “natural” at it especially not growing up in Mexico. In my English classes, I wasn’t the smartest student in the room. I didn’t get the best grades. I was just one more classmate trying to get by.

If I could go back and talk to nine-year-old Karina, sitting in her first bilingual class, confused and lost while everyone else seemed to understand what was going on I’d tell her this: Learning English will change your life. One day, you’ll actually understand your education better in English than in Spanish. But in that moment, it just felt like an uphill battle.

Writing in English has always felt like one of the hardest parts. When I was 15, my parents gave me the opportunity to study abroad for a year. As a first-year high school student in another country, I had to take a basic English class and it ended up being one of the hardest experiences of my life.

That year taught me two things:

• A good teacher can change everything.
• The moment you start to stand out, someone will try to push you down

I was the smart kid in that class. I came from one of the best private schools in Oaxaca, where most of my classes were already in English. But instead of being encouraged, I was punished for it. I still remember my teacher Ms. Bold. She seemed to hate the fact that I finished my assignments quickly and often did better than my classmates. She started giving me extra work just to make it harder. And when I made a mistake, she reminded me how “bad” I was. She even tore up my homework in front of me more than once and threw it in the trash. She told me over and over that I wasn’t good enough, that my writing would never be successful.

I was only 15. In a foreign country. Learning in a second language. With parents who expected me not to fail. It broke me. I did manage to pass that class, but the damage stuck. My confidence was shattered. By the end of the year, I truly believed I wasn’t good enough to be accepted into a university not because I lacked potential, but because I had internalized the idea that I wasn’t talented. That my writing wasn’t worth reading.