Pinellas County Schools is holding graduation ceremonies this week.

Among the students taking the stage to receive her diploma is Ailyn Alis​sandra Alvarez-Perez,​ 18, who graduated from Boca Ciega High School.

Alvarez-Perez and her family left Cuba for the United States when she was 5 years old.

She suffered from chronic asthma and said poor living conditions and a lack of health care in Cuba made her condition worse.

When she arrived in Florida and started school, Alvarez-Perez said she only knew two words of English.

"I was lost. All I knew was "apple" and "teacher" because my mother had taught me that," she said.

Alvarez-Perez studied hard and flourished in school but she never forgot her early struggles.

She said watching the protests after the death of George Floyd touched her to her core.

"Imagine not being able to tell my kids that I fought for the society we live in," she said. "A more equal or more whole society. I was just so sad and frustrated."

So Alvarez-Perez and a friend started a club at their school called FAIR which stands for Fighting Against Inequality and Racism.

One of their activities was to wear badges around school to show their support for causes like Black Lives Matter, crimes against Asians and immigration.

"We normalize too many racist things and injustices in our society because we're used to it. You can't let things get normalized because we're used to it. Sometimes we're going to have to step out of our comfort zone and take that initiative to see the future we want to see," she said.

As she wraps up her high school career, Alvarez-Perez is heading to Harvard University on a full scholarship.

Her message to other students is they can do anything they set their mind to.

"Don't let where you're from dictate where you want to go and what you can do in this world," she said.

Alvarez-Perez plans to major in psychology. She hopes to go on to medical school to become a psychiatrist to help physically abused women and children and war veterans with PTSD.