Fulfilling Our Ancestors’ Dreams — Natalia’s Baggage to Oxford

We asked our scholars to go back to the moment they packed their luggage in preparation for their journey to Oxford. But instead of clothes and books, we asked them to think about the stories, people, memories, hopes, and all immaterial things that they would put inside. Find other stories in this series here.

I have always been proud of being a Brigagão woman. I come from a long line of strong matriarchs who built a life for their families from the ground up — from Julieta, a schoolteacher who became a municipal Education Inspector in the 1940s; to her daughter Hebe, who knew the brutality of losing her children’s home and had to lie low during the dictatorship due to her husband’s defense of social justice. From my grandmother Luciana, who watched her husband migrate to the US in search of a job and worked to exhaustion to rise above poverty; to my mom Regiana, the first Brigagão to go to college, who gave up on her career at a multinational corporation to be present during my childhood. 

While my heart fills with pride and gratefulness for the strength of the extraordinary women who made me who I am, it also breaks for them. If reality was different — if everyone had equal opportunities to access decent jobs, solid social security, and the high-class education standards —, my family and so many others would have very different stories to tell. Like the women in my family, who fought for dignity within their own contexts, I aim to do so by changing mine. This is the ultimate baggage I bring to Oxford.