18 May 2010
Special Circumstance Essay
My life as a student that is going to attend college is only possible by the hard work of my parents. I was born in Thailand in which my parents have fleed from to the land of freedom know to be America. When they rode the airplane to America, their only thought was a better future for their children. I was only a year old then, knowing nothing, but to cry when hungry. My family suffered from discrimination within the new community we have exposed ourselves in; the Minnesotan American community. My parents both dropped out of high school for family matters. My father, for the sake of income while my mother, for the sake of the children's care. No one really wanted to help my family because my paternal relatives did not like my mother so they sometimes refused to give a helping hand. My maternal relatives, sadly are still stuck in Thailand then. The only people we could depend on were ourselves. I as the oldest and only daughter in the family of seven people, was already holding the whole world on her shoulders before she knew anything. I was the first in my family to experience the lifestyle of an ordinary American child. Everything was difficult; I did not know how to speak English. My first day of school was the most memorable event of my life.
On that first day of Kindergarden, my teacher asked me nicely in English what I wanted, but I did not know that there were such things as languages so I spoke back in my language, Hmong. I did not know that that was my first and biggest step into my future, but I was able to proceed the day with aid of new friends. Now, I thank myself for stepping out, although ignorantly, into a world which many may and will never be able to reach at all. Although my friends helped me on my first steps up the stairs, they were not always there to baby me. I had times when they did not want to help me because I was so ignorant in such subjects like saying the alphabet. I went home everyday struggling to do my homework and with my parent's level of education, my parents were still able to help, but once I went to grades than 1, homework became an obstacle for my acheivement in school. I had to seek for tutors and I became much more independent upon myself in doing my work. Once it came to my brother being in school with me, he struggled and I did too, only that he was better off because I knew the things he was weakened by so I was able to help.
There was a moment in my life where I gave up on everything. One effect may have been the cause of my paternal Grandmother's death. My father's whole family went into chaos and depression. Although my paternal relatives did not like my mother, I was the only grandchild who actually bonded with my grandmother. I was also the only child that saw all the drama in my mother's life that she had to face off with the taunts and accusations from my paternal relatives. They brought my family down by putting us in the level lower than soil by making us inferior and themselves superior. All these aspects did not bring me down, it only increased my passion to prove them wrong and prove that I am capable. What really brought me down was my grandmother's death. She was always there to comfort me when I needed someone. She was like my second mother. I was only a child then too, which her death was just a shock to me that it caused me from doing anything. The only thing I did was eat because that was the only thing I found comforting to myself. I came out of that situation when I realized that the past should not make such an impact on my life that it would bring my whole future that I have taken my first and biggest step for. It came to me so suddenly one night when I was thinking about my grandmother, of what she would want me to carry on my life as if she were to still be alive. That is one of the biggest struggles I have overcome.
All my life, language has been one of the factors that has built a brick wall in front of me, but after years of going to school, pratice, and acheivement; I am now able to knock that wall down and speak, conversate, and understand freely. Other than my knowledge being a source of struggle in my life, there were other factors that were already inside my home that I did not know of which could have broken up my future I have been creating. One is when I was around 5 years of age, my parents had many arguments to the extent that they were about to declare divorce to one another. I was glad they did not do so because they saw us still young and developing.
There are also times when my responsibility became a source of struggle in my life. I, being the oldest and only daughter in a Hmong family is expected to do all the housework with my mother. Luckily, in elementary, I only had enough homework to keep myself company and I was still able to help my mother in housework, but I was needed in many other things such as interpreting for my parents and homework help for my siblings. These things increased when my maternal relatives came to the U.S.A in 2005. They needed me in babysitting because they have work in the weekends and they needed my help for interpretations too. This took a lot of time from my doing homework and this was in the time frame when I was in the shift of being a junior high student to a high school student. As I have been repeatedly told in the past that high school is going to be a struggle, I was prepared for it, but the bigger change was going to a small junior high school to a huge high school like Central High School was mind blowing to me. These tasks I had at home kept me from playing the sport I loved. Now I have overcome all that because I have become much better in time managing.
Overall, my life has been filled with many obstacles, but the bigger prize from that all is that I have come through every big and small one of them all. What I have done to overcome my lack in knowledge, was believing in myself and fighting through it with a hard head and the greatest uneducated parents ever. I have killed the fact of depression in my life because I have overcome that and I will not let that bring me down the next time it tries to spring around my corner. I have proved all those who looked down on me as wrong, and that I am of their equal by being passionate to my own knowledge. I have overcome so much that if it were to be written all down, it would take no more than the word, "determination" to describe. This is what and who I am, so college will not be feared, college will only fear me. I am ready to make anything possible in my bright future my parents came to America to forge.
