Perez navigates life away from family

Byline photo of Grace Lube
Grace Lube, Editor-in-Chief
September 15, 2025
Senior Arely Perez lives 2,000 miles away from the comfort of her extended family in Mexico. Despite only seeing them twice a year, she remains closely connected to them through culture and social media.
Senior Arely Perez lives 2,000 miles away from the comfort of her extended family in Mexico. Despite only seeing them twice a year, she remains closely connected to them through culture and social media.
Grace Lube

One of senior Arely Perez’s greatest values in life is her relationships with her family. Except, her family dynamic is different than many teenagers growing up. The majority of her family lives in Mexico, almost 2,000 miles away.

Perez is able to see her family about twice a year. Once during the holiday season, and once in the heat of the summer in July. Although her visits are scheduled and scarce, she still manages to remain closely connected to them.

Perez’s first language was in fact Spanish, and she is very grateful to connect to her family in that way.

“I can’t imagine if I wasn’t able to speak Spanish, how would I be able to communicate with them? I would just feel so distant,” Perez said.

Not to mention, the food she eats in the U.S. is just as authentic as she gets in Mexico; her favorite being enchiladas.

“I don’t feel disconnected from the food, my mom makes it homemade,” Perez said with a smile on her face.

Although her favorite cook is her grandma, she hadn’t had the opportunity to come face to face with her and taste her cooking until the age of 11, when she visited Mexico for the first time. She describes the experience as, “very eye opening to see where my parents were raised.”

Even though Perez is still closely connected to her family, she is unable to celebrate successes in person. She took a breath and her voice became more sincere upon speaking about it.

“I feel like I’m missing out on some parts of their lives, like my cousin she just graduated high school and obviously I wasn’t able to be there,” Perez said.

Despite her cultural background, Perez mainly celebrates traditional American holidays over traditional Hispanic holidays.

“I would love to spend Day of the Dead over there, all of the traditions are super cool… Living here kind of changes that, I feel like if I were to live in Mexico I would celebrate those traditions,” Perez said.

Perez remains in contact with her family almost every day via FaceTime and messaging, but she is counting down the days until she is reunited with her family once again in December.