In the midst of homelessness and abuse, Rose DF dreams of a life in science.
Rose DF is a born explorer with a passion for accessible and inclusive science and education. A first generation scientist born and raised in the Dominican Republic, currently pursuing studies in Biophysics. After opening up about her life for a feature in "Stories in Science" Rose's social media presence has increased since, and she now uses it to raise awareness in the topics of inclusivity and diversity in STEM as she constantly challenges some of the stereotypes associated with being an "non-traditional" academic and a Latina in the US.
This story originally aired on September 21, 2018 in an episode titled “Science Saved My Life: Stories about life-saving passion.”
Story Transcript
It’s 2008 and I’m standing at a train station in downtown Manhattan waiting for my train. I wasn’t really waiting for it to board it. I was waiting for it to jump in front of it. That’s because I had just come out of Family Court and I was feeling much defeated, like I didn’t really have a reason to try anymore.
The reason for that is because my son at the time, that was very small, was being used against me in court because I sort of made the mistake of thinking that I could do something more with my life than being somebody’s wife. And that’s it.
So things didn’t go the way I planned it. I went because the rights for my son were taken away for walking away from a very, very abusive marriage. There was a lot of sexual abuse involved. There was physical abuse, there was financial abuse. And I walked into Family Court thinking that I was going to get help and what I basically got was, “Maybe if you weren’t out working or studying or whatever you were doing, he wouldn’t be so upset. What are you doing out all the time? Who’s taking care of your son?”
It was just hell so that’s basically all I wanted. I just wanted to jump that train.
But while I was at the station, it kind of hit me that if I did that my son will grow up without a mom, something that I didn’t really put together at the time. So after a few trains came by, I sort of snapped out of it and walked out.
It didn’t get any easier because the thing is I was born in the Dominican Republic and I live between the two countries here and there. I was very confused about my duties as a woman because you're pretty much told a lot that if you don’t have a man, you basically failed in life. So to me getting married was a big thing. That’s exactly what I did.
When I came here, I got into that marriage right out of high school. I did not know who I was at all and the only good thing that came out of that marriage was my son. I walked out of the marriage and basically became the first woman in my entire family line to walk away from a marriage, so I had no support at all.
Pretty much everybody turned their backs on me. The father, because he had the apartment and I had nothing, he was given temporary custody of my son. I ended up homeless.
I was sleeping in New York City train stations for a couple of months, I would say. And, while I was doing that, I came across a newspaper that said that they were looking for help for Home Health Aide. I had no idea what that was at the time. But they said that they would train you and you could pay them with your work after.
It seemed something I could try so I cleaned myself up in a public restroom and went over there the following day and sort of applied and talked to them. I was like, “Oh, how long is the training?” It’s something very short. They said it was going to be a month or so.
Thankfully, they told me that we needed to wear scrubs which they would provide. That basically meant I had something to wear every day. So like clockwork, I was wearing those scrubs every single day, going to the training and sleeping on the train stations. Nobody knew.
I finished the training and the people who basically hire you said in order for you to get credibility you have to take any shift that they give you. Because I didn’t have a place to live and I still wanted to recover my son, I started working six days a week, twelve hours a day, and I saved enough money to get a room in Queens, New York.
I was sleeping on the floor. I didn’t really have anything so I used to lay down black plastic bags and that’s what I used to sleep. In between doing that, I went back to court because we were basically being called every two months or so to mediate. And once they figured out I had a place, the whole thing was like, “Oh, is it a safe environment,” or whatever so I would be doing a lot of just working and trying to meet my core obligations.
While I was staying at that room, I was somehow getting eaten alive at night by what they told me was bedbugs. I don't know how that happened because I did not have a bed, but to this day I’m still trying to figure that out. Just every night, I used to lie down on the floor on the plastic bags and think about how, when I was younger, all I wanted to do was science.
In the DR, I didn’t have any exposure to science. I didn’t know what science was. There was nothing. I just knew that I was an explorer. I wanted to know the why and how of everything. I wanted to know why the moon was up there and then why it would give way to the sun in the morning. I wanted to know why the plants were the color that they were, why the animals were different, everything. And because I never had the answers to anything, because nobody was either informed or nobody cared, I became very anxious about it. But throughout my life, I sort of put that on the side because you have to survive and stuff like that.
Once I was in Queens, I thought about it all the time, how I just love science and I wanted to do that. So I figured that maybe I would move along to something that paid a little more, because my job was paying $7.25. It was seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour, which is why I had to work so much.
I ended up recovering my son which was great. Once that happened, I decided I’m going to finance my studies by still seeing patients. So I decided to go for medical assistance because I was told that I will get paid a little more.
The pay didn’t really get that much so I took another approach. By that time I already knew that I needed to stay within the field that I knew. So because I knew medicine, I was like, “So, I’m going to try to go for medical school.”
So I found out about MCATs and pre-med classes and whatever I needed, and once I saw the price tag on my plan, I was just, yeah, that’s not going to happen. So I just stayed basically taking care of patients.
A little settled in with my son throughout the whole thing I was like, “Okay, what I’m going to do is I’m going to use the money and instead of actually trying to go for something I don't want to do, I’m going to try to go for science regardless.”
So I started looking for schools. I kind of wanted to go to a private university because I thought that would be better because of the prestige. Well, once I found out the price of that, I let that go too.
So I was like, “Okay, let me do the practical thing and find a public institution.” So I found one and I went in and I was super naïve. I was very wide-eyed and, “Oh, my God. I want to do science.”
Everybody started asking me, “What area of science do you want to do?” “What do you like?” “Are you sure you want to do this?” “That sounds like it’s going to be too hard for you. You're a single mom. Are you sure?”
There was so much doubt right away that I was starting to doubt myself. Not only that, but I didn’t know how to answer the question because, since I never had exposure to science, I wasn’t like a lot of people here where they see that, they get exposed to it since a very young age so they can say, “I’m going into that field,” “I’m going into this field.” I had no clue. All I knew is that I wanted to explore.
So after talking to an adviser and getting tons and tons of discouragement, I decided not to listen and I enrolled anyways.
The first time I actually went into a lecture hall for biology, I cried. That was my crowning moment for that because I had no idea what was happening. There were like 300 people in there. Nobody realized that I was having a moment because, to me, it was just like, “Wow, I made it!” So I thought.
So everything was fine. I was settling in with my son. I was finally paying for school. Things got a little rough at some point. I didn’t have enough money to pay for the classes so I basically resubmitted myself to the abuses of the person that I was with just so that I can have a roof over my head without having to pay money for rent so that I can save to pay for school.
The abuse was too much. I started realizing also the amount of trauma that I was carrying. I started understanding more that I had PTSD, that it wasn’t going to work out, that I didn’t want to have my son around that environment and that it wasn’t worth it. So I gave up school just so that I could focus on moving away from that abuse and not having to submit to it.
That was really painful for me and the people who know me know that because I value education a lot so it was like I had a whole period of mourning. I got depressed, my GPS dropped, it was just a complete mess.
Later on I tried to move on with my life. I said, “You know what? I cannot do it. I'll wait.”
I ended up moving from taking care of patients for the city into a private company, which was paying me a little more. They were a bit more strict with the way they take care of you as a caregiver where they wouldn’t just send you to any place. They will make sure that you went into safe places. Because I got hurt a few times while I was working with patients. I was sent into a lot of bad areas.
So this company, because it was private, it was more careful. So I started working and I started putting my school dreams away for a little bit. I was like, “Let me focus on my son right now.” But at night I was always dreaming about it. I just want to do science. I would read about every single field. I would just sink into it because I wouldn’t let it go. That’s how I knew that I loved it.
So after a while working for this company, I realized that I was in a steady place in my life and that I could go. So I was like, “Okay, I’m going to try one more time.”
The year that I was going to do that was 2017, because I have worked for them for the whole 2016 and I have money saved. On January 2017 coming from work, I get hit by a car crossing the street. So I had to be out of work for the entire year.
A couple of surgeries after and everything like that, during the recovery period, that was the whole 2017, I was going insane. So what I did was I had this Twitter account that I never use and I decided to use it. I was like, “Let me see what’s going on.” Once I got in there, I noticed that they had these little communities where, say, science Twitter and all these scientists talked to each other.
So I was like, “You know what? Maybe I can use this for something good in the meantime while I recover.”
And I've met a lot of great people there. I’m basically enamored with the idea of people doing science communication and how you can just sort of share what you love with people. Even though I've gotten a lot of discouragement also online, I notice that you can take pretty much every struggle that you have and you can use it to inspire other people.
By last year, I had already realized painfully, because I was very naïve even with everything that I dealt with, that I was some sort of Latina stereotype. I’m the single mom. I’m the person who doesn’t have the PhD. Somehow people look at me and automatically thought, “I don't think you can handle that.”
I don't know how to quit so I sort of learned that perseverance can be basically your greatest superpower. I don't have anything. When people ask me, I always say there's nothing special about me other than the fact that I don't give up. And if I can give that to someone then I want that. I want people to see that if I can do it, they can do it too. You just need to push yourself.
So I use my Twitter account now for that. I use it for STEM communication, I use it to talk about the importance of representation. The fact that you can’t really look at someone and say, “I don't think that person is that,” “I don't think that person can handle that.” You just never know.
People look at me and they have no idea what I came from. They either assume that I had a very straight path or they assume that I have nothing, or that I know nothing based on race, based on me being a single mom, based on a number of things.
So that has basically become my goal. So that now that things are slowing down, I’m finally settled, I've recovered from the accident and everything like that, I’m pursuing biophysics. That’s what I’m going to do.
I never really got a specific dream when it came to science. I just wanted to be a part of it. It’s not because of the prestige. It is not because of the names. None of that stuff matters to me. It’s just what used to move me when I was younger. And I notice through time that that’s part of what kept me alive. I’m just dreaming about science every night, so that’s me.
Thank you.