in part out of disillusionment with the early promise of his presidency—out of expectations raised and frustrated

And it sucked because other people looked at my potential and I put myself so low that I didn't even look at that. Every time they're like, "Dude, you've got so much potential." And I'm like, "Yeah, right dude, what are you talking about? You just trying to butter me up man."

I didn't really have a relationship with my family. When there was a family events or anything, I felt like an outcast. I would never go to them. Christmas, I was always in my room. Every little... It's just weird man. Everything messed me up. I feel like traumatic. Just the trauma of everything.

It kind of messed me up, got me depressed a little bit. I started hanging out with bad people, doing the wrong things, and I dropped out my senior year.

Mike: That was going on high school. I think it was my freshman year, because like I said man, it's just all these things that happen to you, there's just only so much you could take to where you're like, "You know what? Eff it." You're just done with everybody and you're just like, "You know what? If life paid me back like this, then why should I care?" You know what I mean? And it makes me feel like inferior at times.Mike: So yeah, I feel like it was around my freshman year, everything started going downhill, because I used to be in events, classes, and all my teachers loved me. I would have conversations like this with my teachers and they'd be amazed sometimes like, "Wow, this kid has so much insight. So much to talk about." And they would always encourage me, but the thing about it is I wouldn't feel like that.

And my mom was—I feel like a lot of Mexican women and men, they have something against black folks even if you want to or not. I feel like that's racist too, because my mom would always be like, "Why do you hang out with them? Why do you do this? Why do you do that?"

Luisa: I do. I remember my dogs. I remember my mom. I remember my dad. I remember my grandparents. I remember everything, and they didn't remember anything. Their entire life was over there, so that's just my bitterness. We moved back and I was so depressed. I don't think I've ever been that depressed in my life. I had to go back to high school because … even with the IB program. I killed myself. What was that worth, all that effort, and all that [Chokes up]? What was it worth? Nothing. I had to go back to this broken education system in Mexico which I could run laps around the fucking curriculum and I had to redo it in order to go to university, and fuck, that sucked.