College-bound Uvalde students grapple with leaving a hometown in mourning

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When Ariana Diaz’s high faculty decide notified her she had been accepted into the category of 2026, she rapidly imagined having to elucidate to her New York University classmates what nook of smalltown Texas she got here from.

But that was earlier than her former Uvalde High School classmate shot and killed 19 kids and two adults inside Robb Elementary School. Before her tiny city of 16,000 was thrust into the nationwide highlight for months and was compelled to endure what she calls “the worst few months ever.”

High college commencement was postponed. Media swarmed the city.

“The traffic was so bad. We never have traffic issues here,” recalled Diaz, 18, as she ready to depart for Manhattan’s West Village.

Overnight, the final summer season she was meant to spend with associates earlier than leaving city to begin a new chapter elsewhere was shrouded with emotions of grief and helplessness.

“I didn’t know what to do. It was a crazy feeling, going around and asking if they needed volunteers anywhere,” she mentioned.

Three months later, as Diaz prepares to maneuver into her NYU dorm room this weekend, she’s now bracing herself for the way the tragedy in her city will comply with her all through the autumn.

Her finest good friend, Jaime Cruz, 18, who began his freshman 12 months on the University of Houston this week, says he dreads others’ reactions, that individuals will all the time link him with the taking pictures.

“When I say I’m from Uvalde, they’re gonna know exactly where that is, know exactly what happened and, like, instantly associate one and one together,” he mentioned.

Students leaving dwelling for faculty typically expertise a flood of feelings: apprehension, pleasure and nervousness. But for college-bound students from Uvalde, like Diaz and Cruz, there’s the load of this summer season once they skilled each searing grief and worry, but in addition pleasure and reduction.

There’s the guilt they really feel about how they gained’t be there for youthful siblings who’re afraid of returning to highschool this fall. There’s the worry of how feelings may bubble up in a new atmosphere with out family and friends beside them who perceive what they’re going by means of. There’s additionally the apprehension about how folks may react upon listening to they’re from Uvalde. But there’s additionally pleasure for a new expertise and reduction that each time they flip a nook they don’t see a reminder of the taking pictures.

“It’s just going to be a little bit more room to breathe in a way,” Cruz mentioned. “But at the same time, I don’t think we’re ever gonna forget. No matter where we are, what time zone, what city we’re in, I don’t think we’re ever just going to forget the 21 people.”

Struggles to depart Uvalde

Right after the May 24 taking pictures, Diaz mentioned she didn’t wish to depart her household or her city. Cruz mentioned all of the conversations ceased amongst their associates about their new faculties, their dorm rooms and assembly new folks.

“All of us felt that iffyness,” Cruz mentioned. “Is it OK to even be excited to move somewhere at the same time that your community is going through something?”

In Uvalde, leaving city after highschool commencement is just not that widespread. Somewhat greater than half of Uvalde public college graduates every year straight enroll in a two- or four-year faculty after highschool, with a majority attending the local people faculty or the University of Texas at San Antonio.

In 2021, simply 17% straight enrolled in a four-year college, in line with knowledge from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Diaz mentioned her highschool doesn’t aggressively push students to use for faculty, however she has numerous household who left Texas for faculty and she or he has dreamed of dwelling in New York since she was a youngster. Plus, she needed to be a position mannequin for future students.

“[For] the kids that are going to be seniors after me: It is possible to leave and go to the city you’ve always wanted to live in and go to college,” she mentioned.

In Uvalde, it’s unimaginable to not know somebody impacted by the tragedy. Diaz’ father, Eulalio Diaz, Jr., is certainly one of Uvalde County’s justices of the peace, a authorities official whose job requires him to establish the lifeless in this city 80 miles west of San Antonio. It was her father who was known as to establish the 21 killed final May.

“I can’t even imagine what he had to see in there,” Diaz mentioned. “But I’m just very proud of him.”

Diaz mentioned she remembers on the day of the taking pictures there have been rumors flying round city that different faculties have been additionally being focused. As her mom went to select up her brother from the junior highschool, he heard an unfaithful rumor that a shooter was at his college and begged his mother to not come and presumably put herself in hazard.

“He was so worried and so scared,” Diaz mentioned, choking again tears. “I feel so bad that all of these kids are so scared to go back to school. I’m scared. I don’t like the idea of leaving my family to go out of state so far right after this … I do know I’m just a call away and just a flight away. But it’s still difficult having to come to terms with the fact that you’re not going to be here, present for your family.”

Diaz finds herself nonetheless processing that she really knew the shooter and had a class with him her sophomore 12 months earlier than he dropped out of college, one element she’s undecided she’s prepared to inform individuals who inevitably ask concerning the expertise all through her first 12 months of school.

“It almost makes me nauseous,” she mentioned.

Still, there are indicators that she’ll have a assist system when she arrives in New York. Her future roommate has already reached out and mentioned she was open to being a listening ear if Diaz wanted to speak. While she often will get pangs of guilt that she has the chance to even depart Uvalde, Diaz is making an attempt to give attention to the long run. “I am ready to get my education and see what’s next for me.” she mentioned.

Worries about what the long run holds

Cruz isn’t going as distant as Diaz for faculty, however Houston nonetheless appears like a totally different world from Uvalde. He is the primary in his household to attend faculty. Even earlier than the tragedy, he confronted pushback from his mother and father who needed him to attend college nearer to dwelling.

“It was more frightening, I guess, sending a child off to a city he’s never been to,” he mentioned.

When the taking pictures occurred miles away from their houses, adopted by shootings in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Highland Park, Illinois, it cemented his mother and father’ worry.

Cruz mentioned he noticed the concern in his mother’s face. But he mentioned he has the identical fears about his household staying in their small city. His mom works in the college system, and his youthful brother will return this 12 months. Cruz mentioned his youthful brother has particularly struggled with returning to highschool, asking if he can keep dwelling or do digital college as an alternative.

All of it makes Cruz really feel responsible for leaving his city at this second. That apprehension was barely exacerbated when he visited UH for summer season orientation two weeks after the taking pictures.

When he and his mother and father arrived at orientation, he informed a lady on the check-in desk his title. As she began studying out his nametag, she stopped midway by means of when she got here to his hometown’s title.

“You heard like the stutter in her voice when she didn’t finish reading,” he mentioned. “All throughout orientation, like having to meet people [who ask], ‘where are you from?’ I was like, ‘Oh, Uvalde.’ The blank stare you would get in everyone’s face. Or like instant apologies.”

He mentioned folks he didn’t know got here as much as him all through orientation to supply assist and sources if he wanted assist through the semester. While he appreciated the gesture, he is aware of it should take time to search out individuals who he’ll belief and really feel snug sharing when he may be struggling.

“I’m very frightened of like, OK, what if one day it gets to me and I need to cope, I need to talk to somebody? I know that first couple weeks, I don’t know if I might have someone to talk to,” Cruz mentioned. “That part’s the scary part.”

Healing in a new area

Diaz and Cruz aren’t the primary students to enter faculty processing the trauma from a mass taking pictures.

Jai Gillard all the time knew she needed to depart Texas for faculty, however by the point she began making use of to varsities in 2020, she was adamant she needed to depart for a contemporary begin.

One motive was she thought students in Texas can be extra acquainted with Santa Fe High School, the place she survived the 2018 taking pictures throughout her freshman 12 months that killed 10 folks and wounded 13 others. Gillard survived the taking pictures by hiding in a storage closet in the artwork room subsequent door to the one the place the shooter first entered. A pupil who ended up hiding with her in the end died from accidents.

“I feel like most people would know my story,” she informed The Texas Tribune. “It’s not that I don’t want people to know my story. But I didn’t [want to] go in being labeled as that. … Going out of state, it’s … like reinventing yourself and not being defined by something.”

Gillard attends Harvard University, the place she is about to enter her sophomore 12 months. When she arrived final fall, it had been three years for the reason that assault and she or he mentioned few folks mechanically made the connection when she shared her highschool, which made it simpler.

She empathizes with the students from Uvalde who might need a more durable time being nameless, provided that it’s solely been three months since their city made worldwide news.

“Going in, they could be closed off or maybe not want to talk to anybody because of the fear that people may define them as what they’ve been through and what their community experiences,” Gillard mentioned. For them, she had some recommendation.

“As individuals, we have the power to create the narrative that we want,” she mentioned. “But also set boundaries and have conversations with people that you need to have conversations with so that you can get the help that you need and make sure that you feel comfortable and safe at the school that they attend. I think that’s very important for them.”

Gillard mentioned when she first arrived at Harvard, it was tough at instances for others to grasp why she may act a sure manner because of the trauma she was nonetheless processing. In class, she would all the time take a seat in the again of the room as a result of that’s the place she was in her artwork room when the taking pictures started and she or he credit her location with serving to her survive. When a comparable incident occurs — like the college taking pictures at Oxford High School in Michigan throughout her first semester in faculty — she avoids watching the news.

She additionally was hesitant to share her story with others as a result of she was afraid folks would assume that’s why she obtained accepted to such a prestigious college.

“I knew that I still had work to do,” she mentioned. “And I still had to do what was best for me. So I had to advocate for myself, even when people didn’t understand.”

But grief and therapeutic don’t occur in a straight line. Her return dwelling from faculty this 12 months was particularly robust. It coincided with the mass taking pictures in Buffalo, New York, the place 10 folks have been killed and three others have been injured. Then, the fourth anniversary of the taking pictures at her highschool. And then the taking pictures in Uvalde. She mentioned she now simply associates May with these sorts of occasions, one thing she’ll have to organize herself for every year as she continues to heal.

But she credit faculty for serving to her course of that trauma.

“Once you go to a new place, it doesn’t really have — if you want to use teen slang — that vibe,” she mentioned. “[Y]ou’re surrounded by something other than maybe a school or things that remind you of what you lost or what you’ve been through that really traumatized you. The healing process … it was sped up exponentially because I moved away.”

Turning trauma into advocacy

Ultimately, each Diaz and Cruz try to see their capability to depart their small city for faculty as a chance to be advocates for these nonetheless there, for the households who misplaced family members and people who died three months in the past this week. They each wish to advocate for stricter gun management measures that they consider are essential to forestall different cities from experiencing the identical horrific occasion.

They each marched for gun management in Uvalde weeks after the taking pictures. Diaz mentioned she was overwhelmed by the massive turnout, provided that she had attended a Black Lives Matter protest in her city in 2020 that was sparsely attended.

Gillard, who desires to main in psychology, has additionally began to talk publicly about psychological well being consciousness, one thing she grew to become intimately concerned in as a option to course of her trauma and discover which means in her survival. She’ll give a speak this upcoming semester at Harvard’s Institute of Politics about her expertise throughout and after the taking pictures.

As Diaz spends a few days in New York earlier than shifting into her dorm, she hopes the easy act of leaving can encourage these again dwelling, too.

“It shows them that we’re still moving forward. And that even though this happened, we’re still struggling, we’re still working through these things,” Diaz mentioned. “We can still do the things that are important to us and try to make the difference in those spaces.”

Cruz mentioned it took him a few months to understand he could possibly be doing comparable issues in Houston and doubtlessly have an excellent greater impression, which made leaving his household a little simpler to course of.

“It helps,” he mentioned. “Not the guiltiness, but more like it makes the moving feel a little better.”

Cruz moved into his dorm in Houston final weekend with the assistance of his mother and father and two brothers.

It rained that day, which Cruz mentioned he is aware of is regular in the Bayou City. But he additionally took it as a signal.

“I like to think that the rain was symbolizing a new beginning.”

Disclosure: University of Texas at San Antonio and University of Houston have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded in half by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a full list of them here.

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