Mexico—my homeland—is one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists outside of active war zones. There, speaking up against those in power means gambling your life. Fear of the State is woven into the fabric of daily life. That is the country I come from. Nonetheless, it is a country I love, the land of my childhood, and where all my family still resides.
Leaving for college two years ago was not easy. My departure felt like a betrayal of the place that shaped me. But I knew that pursuing a career in journalism would endanger me if I stayed. I needed to learn and grow my skills elsewhere before returning and successfully fighting with the pen. So, I applied to college in the United States, seeking a place where truth-telling was a right, not a provocation. A place where freedom of speech wasn’t a fleeting aspiration, but a reality. That was the promise of an American education.
I won’t pretend I wasn’t skeptical. In my experience, freedom of expression has always been more of a privilege than a guarantee. Still, I had faith that this country would become the space I craved to safely speak my mind and chase my aspirations.
For a time, it did. For a time, I believed the promise might hold.
Then came Nov. 5, 2024—the U.S. presidential election day. Donald Trump was elected to a second term, and soon after, his administration began to deny various forms of freedom of speech—targeting dissent, restricting media, and amplifying disinformation. Day by day, the very reasons for which I came to this country began to feel increasingly uncertain.
On April 14, Harvard rejected a set of federal demands that threatened the University’s integrity; within hours, the administration froze more than $2.2 billion in research funding. Two days later, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered Harvard to hand over the immigration files of every international student within ten business days, warning that any shortfall would be treated as the University’s “voluntary withdrawal” from the F-1 visa program. Harvard complied and was punished anyway.
And on May 22, with the suspension of Harvard’s Student Exchange Visitor Program certification, international students saw the emptiness of this promise of freedom. The illusion of America’s commitment to free expression cracked. The Trump administration made clear that it sees international students not as scholars, but as leverage—pawns in his political warfare. We are being sidelined and silenced. America’s warnings have become akin to my homeland’s: speak out, and risk losing everything.
Now, as an international student at Harvard, I find myself in a state of uncertainty. If I leave the country, I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to return. I am unsure if I’ll be detained the next time I try to cross the border. Will I be able to see my family in Mexico this summer, the next school year? Will ICE show up at my dorm tomorrow? In this suspended state, I confront, face to face, the steep price of standing up to a government intent on silencing criticism.
This is the price of speaking out in a country that once promised to protect that very act. But I will not be silent.
I do not bear this uncertainty alone. The more than ten thousand international students and scholars who share Harvard’s classrooms are reckoning with these tensions.
How can Trump forget that the contributions of my international peers to our University and to the American nation are immeasurable? We seed new patents in engineering labs, fill medical research teams racing toward treatments, fund start-ups that hire locally, and put our scholarship to the service of innovation and truth. But our value goes beyond this; the diversity of perspectives that we bring to the classroom expands the University’s vision. To threaten our place here is to threaten one of the things that makes American universities unique.
We do not bear this fight alone. All across the University—from professors, students, and organizations—we have received support during these difficult times.
I know what it means to speak at a cost. I am intimately aware of that danger. As someone who has left a country to flee such a risk, I refuse now to trade that voice for a counterfeit safety.
I came here to chase freedom—I will not surrender it at another nation’s gate.
I call everyone to do the same. Americans, it is time to defend the ideal freedom that your nation claims to be built upon. Harvard is fighting, and we must too. Standing up to injustice comes with a cost, but not doing it comes with an even greater one.
Frida López ’27 (fridalopezbravo@college.harvard.edu) wants to protect her right to dissent.