What It’s Like…Feeling extra FGLI

Yeah, it’s been a minute since I’ve written something. 2022 has somehow started off to be one of the hardest 4 months of my life most recently and for so many reasons that I’m not going to talk about; not right now at least. But I will talk about this for sure: I’ve been feeling extra aware of my first gen, low-income identity. The most I’ve felt about it in a long while. But I want to talk about it in a way that I don’t think many people really understand and I think in a way that I’ve more recently come to understand since graduating from college.

As I always start these conversations, I want to assert that I am proud of my first gen/low-income identity. It has made my life harder in many ways and have required me to try to maneuver around so many barriers, but it has provided me a lot of empathy, kindness, strength, happiness and love. It’s made me who I am and I can never fault nor be angry at my parents, who have done so much with the income they have to make sure I had enough to get me to where I am today. So when you read through this stream of conciousness, these thoughts and feelings I’ve been having about my FGLI identity, know that I am truly grateful to my parents and their love (complicated and all) and I will never be mad or hate my FGLI identity.

That being said, the past two weeks, yeah being FGLI can really suck.

And yes, the moment I typed that sentence out I began to cry and had to take about a 20 minute break to let those emotions out.

When I’ve thought about my FGLI identity, it has always been in the context of my experience as a hopeful physician-scientist and the experiences that I’ve had that has made my journey in academia very difficult. Of course I’ve brought in my personal life in these conversations/perspectives; such as how I knew from a young age that when everyone in my elementary school could afford converse shoes or my cousins getting to do many social activities that I never had the chance/nor was able to do, because even asking my dad for lunch money was an anxiety inducing task, yeah it didn’t take much for me to realize that my family did not have the same financial means as a lot of the people I grew up around and that their ticket to just a percent of that stability was going to be because of me. Yeah, not a great pressure or responsibility to have at age five but that is for my therapist to help me unpack (side note: I finally started therapy and to my FGLI family especially, we all need it so do it. please. for your own good).

But yeah, awareness about how having money can be life changing/stabilizing wasn’t a foreign concept to me, but was foreign in the sense that it was something I could observe in others and not experience myself. My parents also had limited academic experience. I am first gen on my mother’s side and while my dad has a college degree, it is not related in science what so ever. The only thing about science my parents really knew about in terms of a career was being a medical doctor. As far as I know there are no PhDs in my family, very few MDs, JDs, nevertheless, MD/PhDs. So you can imagine my parents surprise when I told them at 18 that I wanted to do an MD/PhD and set forward a course of having to explain to my parents for the rest of my life why I have to take three gap years before I start med school, or explain why I’m going to be in medical school for eight years everytime they call me and ask what i’m doing with my life.

Does that get annoying? Yeah, it really does. But that’s not their fault. I’m sure they would love to understand more about the things I’m interested in, why I get so excited talking about immunology and cancer, and why I’m willing to be in a career that requires so many years of training. So I accept that reality, that loneliness and do my best to accomplish the things I want each day I walk into my lab.

But sometimes, that loneliness gets overwhelming, even in a lab where I generally feel safe and accepted. Now, if anyone from my lab reads this (especially my PI—Hi Matt you’re an amazing PI. Thank you for changing my life and I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and I hope I’ve made that clear at every one-on-one meeting we have, I’m sorry if that gets annoying, i’m just awkward and grateful) this isn’t supposed to be shady or dragging any of you in any ways. But sometimes, and more recently, I’ve really felt like being a FGLI student has made my experiences in lab, and my perceptions and interactions with people a bit more complex.

Now, I don’t know that background of a lot of my lab mates and there is always more that meets the eye, but I think it is a fair assessment that I am likely the few, potentially only person, in my lab who identifies as FGLI. That’s not a problem and I think it only just really speaks to the reality of being FGLI in STEM and the way those barriers that are present have pushed so many of us down, that I represent the few that have survived those fights and have gotten to this point. But it only adds another layer of loneliness that I feel about being FGLI. That I can’t really join in on the conversations about all the trips people have been on, the concerts, even the research opportunities people had in high school and undergrad (because I literally had to fight my way and beg people to give me a chance being I was FGLI—and Black obviously).

And you know, I’m sorta used to this feeling. Most of my best friends did not grow up FGLI and also talk about the same things my lab mates do and I feel pretty okay when they do… for the most part. Like I still have my moments with my friends where I get that cringy, jealously feeling about the things they didn’t have to overcome to get to where they are, but generally it’s okay. But lately, in lab, that feeling, that loneliness, it feels heavy.

And maybe it’s because I’m living in a city where someone can make 120K and still be considered low-income and I think about how my parents make just under a 1/4th of that and I wonder how they managed to take care of me. But it’s more than that frankly. It’s the stress and burden of my life at home, that even in this new place and new life, there is still so much I hold on to and think about constantly. Like I said, there is a lot going on in my personal life that I’m not ready to talk about just yet, but it is very much dealing with financial things at home and carrying that stress with me to work.

Graduating from UChicago and moving to California didn’t automatically update something in my parents life where they are now financially stable. No. Everything about their life is the same, and to an extent, even worse now. And for the past two weeks, it has been on my mind more than ever. I’ve had to pause experiments and frankly, go walk over to Clinical Sciences, sit in empty classroom, and just cry. Because it’s so tiring. I’m so tired. I cry about how much I wish my life could be different, how much I wish I didn’t have this pressure of having to be responsible for helping my parents, and thinking about everything my parents are going through. I cry in sorrow and in anger because when I finally stop crying and my eyes are no longer red, I’m going to walk back into a space where I don’t think there are people in my lab who understand this feeling or have gone through these feelings. And it sucks.

And sometimes I think i’m just being irrational and critical and i’m letting my jealously get in the way. But then today, when I talked with one of my really close PROPEL Scholar friends, he really reminded me and affirmed that these feelings that I have, even if they feel wrong, that I’m allowed to feel this way because it is really hard. It is so hard being FGLI and to carry the burden of changing my parents lives, while also trying to just take care of my own personal needs. My FGLI identity is not simply limited to fighting barriers in academia. My FGLI identity is everything about me. Everything I do, everything I believe, I feel, etc. It is because I am FGLI and I don’t get to take it off like a piece of clothing. It is a major part of who I am.

And I'm in the real world too. Yes the world of science and academia is a niche don’t get me wrong, but I’m working a full-time job as a scientist, taking classes and trying to study for orgo and in about two months, the MCAT, while living in my own apartment—not a dorm. I’m not at UChicago. I’m not in college where I can go hang out with some of my FGLI friends that live in my same dorm or are a five minute walk from me. I’m not in a space where there are 500-1000 people who I can find who share aspects of my life. I’m lucky if I even find one person now who shares the experience of being FGLI and the emotions that brings—and that they’re a five minute walk from my lab. And that’s another layer of loneliness that has really set in.

So what am I doing to tackle this feeling? Right now, I’m trying to figure that out. Talking with friends that can relate and people I trust is something I’m trying to do, but I am very much trying to find something within myself to tackle this feeling too.

I don’t have a beautiful conclusion or statement to write at the end of this blog or advice I can give to others right now, because I don’t know what to say about myself and these feelings. All I can say is this. Being FGLI, yeah it sucks in so many ways. And it can be so lonely at times (almost all the time frankly). But i’m not ashamed of it. I will never be ashamed of it. I’m so proud to be FGLI. But I also wish that being FGLI didn’t have to feel so lonely.

Sometimes, I just wish things could be easy.