Letter from Carlos Iván García Delgadillo

Hello, my name is Carlos Iván García Delgadillo, and I am writing this letter on January 9th, 2025, to explain why I would not like to return to Mexico.

Since I’ve been in this country, it has allowed me to feel calm and safe. Here, I have the opportunity to grow and see a future for myself, and that makes me very happy.

Since I’ve been here, I have made great friends who have helped me a lot to step out of my comfort zone. The teachers at school have also helped me a lot with my homework, and if I have problems, they have been able to assist me.

In the place where I lived in Mexico, there have been confrontations between the police or the army and armed groups. In fact, in Colima, the city I lived in, there was a recent news story about the secretary of the Navy being shot and killed on a beach there. There have been times when we couldn’t go out at night or even during the day, without worrying about encountering a confrontation between the police and armed groups. The idea of living with that fear makes me think that returning would be a great risk.

Canada has one of the best educational systems, with resources, technologies, curricula, and teacher support that allow me to learn better and access opportunities that wouldn’t be available to me in Mexico. Also, I would like to study something related to technology or science. Here, I have access to scholarships and study programs. In Mexico, there aren’t as many scholarships related to science and technology.

It will be very difficult for me to leave the friends I’ve made here and the people I treat like family. My friends and school are very important to me because they have helped me with my anxiety. Just thinking about returning to Mexico and having to start everything from scratch makes me very nervous and I have trouble breathing.

Since I arrived, my life has improved a lot. I was given the opportunity to retake the grades where I hadn’t done so well in Mexico, and that makes me feel very confident. Also, my family has been able to have a stable life.

I’ve made several friends and completed many hours of volunteer work at school, which has helped me improve my anxiety, feel more comfortable, and integrated into the community, and has made me feel that I am part of something important.

My goal is to study at a university, and with the opportunities this country offers, I believe I will be able to achieve this goal. I hope to contribute to the development of technology or science in the field I wish to dedicate myself to.

Although I love Mexico, the situation with my family on my mom’s side, after her divorce from my dad, has been difficult for my sisters and me. When our parents divorced, we stayed with our mom. At times, she wouldn’t come home to sleep or would regularly go out. There were also days when we didn’t have food in the refrigerator.

When the pandemic started in Mexico, I stopped talking to the friends I had, and I spent most of the time locked in my room. I would sometimes only leave to go to the bathroom or eat, and when the quarantine was lifted, I spent the entire day in my room. Even when my mom and sisters went to my grandmother’s house, I didn’t want to go.