“You have to go to school,” my father ordered. My 12-year-old heart beat fast with worry. Just off the airplane from Bolivia, I knew no English. And America was too big, too different, and strange. Weeks of anxiety at school made the adjustment harder. But what paralyzed me with fear were the relay races in which I was told to participate. The distance I’d have to run between the starting point and the next runner where I’d hand off the baton made my stomach cramp. With each new race, I anguished—what if I should stumble or drop the baton? What…

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