Every day this week, from around 9 am to 10 am, my dad and I head out into town, when the streets of San Miguel de Allende are beginning to bustle. There’s a rhythm to it all—coffee, pan dulce, a stroll through the jardín, the town square at the heart of the city. For the many tourists, it’s an Instagram-perfect scene. For us, it’s something deeper: a return.

This summer marks the first time we’ve come back since the COVID era. San Miguel was like a second home to me before the pandemic; we would come here almost every summer. Colorful, musical, and rich in history, it truly is a stunning place. But more than that, it’s where my family’s story begins.

My grandpa grew up here. And right in the center of town, beneath the pink, Gothic spires of the Parroquia, he met my grandma. It was the 1940s, and—as the story goes—the town was holding some kind of community gathering in the square. A real-life meet-and-greet. Kind of like Tinder, but with…walking. Round and round in circles, with women going one way, men the other, trying to catch the other’s eye. They started a tale that day that would eventually take them far beyond this small Mexican town.

My grandpa worked relentlessly to bring my grandma to America. He gave everything he had to pursue the "American Dream," not only for himself but also for the family they would raise together. He worked long hours, sacrificed comfort, and built a life from the ground up. And he achieved his dream somewhere along the way: a home, a stable life, sons who would go on to do even more than he had.

And that’s where my dad comes in. He and his brothers were first-generation Mexican-Americans, growing up attending certain Californian schools where children with brown skin weren’t all that common. They each had their own battles—learning to navigate two cultures, two languages, and the weight of expectations I know I’ll never truly understand. My dad describes his memories to me whenever I ask, his stories both from visiting San Miguel and growing up in San Jose, CA, and I know those years weren’t all easy. And yet, he never gave up on what his parents started. That never occurred to him once, not then, not now. He carried on. He built a life of stability and love. I'm lucky to be living it now.

I occasionally reflect on the various paths that had to cross in order for me to reach this point. Then, as I glance around San Miguel, I realize that I'm literally walking down the streets where it all started.

I'm not really sure what my future holds. I'm still young, still determining who I am and what I want to be. However, I am aware that I am living the life that generations of people before me worked unimaginably hard to achieve. I am a grandchild of immigrants. The daughter of a dream fulfilled. And I want to envision—and contribute to—a future in which more families are afforded the same opportunities that mine were. One in which suffering is not a necessary consequence of hard work.

I often reflect on how the “American Dream” has changed over time. It was an opportunity for my grandparents. It meant survival and upward mobility for my dad. For me, it means respecting their history while having limitless dreams for the future. I want to live happily and with purpose, and I want to pass that ideal forward.

So I sit here in San Miguel, the place where it all began, feeling mostly one thing: awe. Gratitude, too, and a deep, deep thankfulness. I’m aware of my good fortune. Even if my future is unknown, I’m aware that it’s based on decades of love, resiliency, and sacrifice. I carry all of that with me. And when the jardín comes alive and I hear the church bells ring, I can feel it: I'm home.