Selinda LeVoir was a 9th grader when she spoke with the Missouri On Mic team at the state fair last August.
She recently moved to the state due to her Mom finding her own extended family online through 23andMe—a company that helps connect people to biological relatives using DNA testing.
She spoke about her recent move to Missouri, how it’s different from living in the city and a little bit about how she’s settling into her new home.
Missouri on Mic is an oral history and journalism project documenting stories from around the state in its 200th year.
Selinda LeVoir: Well, I was born in Guatemala, but I'm from the state of California. But we moved to Missouri about a year ago.
My mom found her family over 23andMe, and she really wanted to meet them. So she met them. And she really liked it here, so we moved here.
At first, it was overwhelming, because like, what my impression about finding family over online is like, "Wait, are they fake? Or are they real? Is this like a scam?"
But once I met them, I believed it because I saw my uncle and my mom. They really had a good connection right when they met. So I knew... I was like, "Oh, wait, this actually could be her brother."
So it was overwhelming, but I'm really glad I met them 'cause they are super sweet.
Well, it was really hard 'cause I was in the eighth grade in California, and we were doing online learning. But we were also moving at the same time. So I had to come here and do online school here, which was harder for me. But after school was over, it was just... It was summer, so it was pretty chill.
I've made new friends. I've gone swimming. I've just been home a lot.
I like playing soccer. I like reading when I want to. I like running and I like playing with my dog.
I wanna be a family doctor.
I mean, when I was little, my grandma got sick a lot. So we would always go to the doctor and we would go there so much that I knew how to do every single thing.
I knew how to take her blood pressure, how to just hear her heartbeat. And I was like, four.
So, by the time I was five, I knew that I really wanted to be a doctor. And I've just been saying that ever since.
I mean, I thought it was like country stuff, which it kind of is and there's a lot of room here. There's like a lot of green, which we don't really see in the city. So that was nice.
It's really quiet here and I'm from the city.
So I'm not really used to quiet so when it's like night, and it's super quiet, I get nervous because like, I need sounds of the city like trains and cars and yelling and all that.
So I really, when I grow up, I kinda just wanna go back to the city 'cause that's what I'm used to.
