Being uprooted in childhood was a key formative experience. Born in Vietnam, I was adopted by my grandmother and sponsored to immigrate to the US when I was eight. After four months in a refugee camp in Thailand, I resettled in California. For the next eight years, I was raised by my grandmother in a Vietnamese ghetto in San Jose.
My grandmother, a recent immigrant with a third-grade education surviving on welfare, was disconnected from American life. As a result, my friends were my compass in adjusting to a new culture. From navigating adolescence to applying for college, I was able to piggyback on their support systems and knowledge—an experience that not only instilled in me a strong sense of community but taught me how to engage and relate to people.
When the government reduced my grandmother’s housing stipend, I
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I matriculated on a full-scholarship, double-majored in Economics and Business while working part-time at an investment bank to pay my bills and gain work experience. The obstacles I faced growing up and at Berkeley instilled in me the tenacious work ethic I have today.
The circumstances that shaped my strengths have also been a source of weakness. For example, my drive to succeed makes me impatient of those who do not share my motivation. I am learning to be more patient, recognizing that not everyone feels the same pressure to succeed or even has the same definition of success. For some, success is defined more by balanced family-life than career mobility. Today, I remain equally driven but have learned not to project my personal priorities onto others.
Professionally, my data-orientation sometimes leaves me reluctant to make decisions in situations of uncertainty. When I first started working at PNC, I had a difficult time articulating my evaluation of management and investment theses of acquisition targets because often times, exhaustive due-diligence is performed
Sara says, "I remember once asking my dad if he felt like he belonged in America. He said he didn't know. He said he always felt like an outsider, like he was always observing but never really participating" (Saedi 4). This demonstrates how difficult cultural assimilation can be for some people, particularly those who have strong ties to their cultural heritage. Sara's father's experience demonstrates how cultural assimilation is a difficult process, with individuals facing unique challenges based on their cultural background and personal
I was born in America and have grown up in America my entire life. I have never experienced anything similar to what the characters went through in the book, The Book of the Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez. Therefore, I found this book to be very interesting and eye opening. The characters had to pack up all their belongings, leave their comfortable life, and leave family and friends behind to move to a new country. This journey came with lots of challenges.
My mother was born and raised in Carrefour, Haiti. She came to the United States to live with her father. While living here she learned how to mature on her own, drive on her own, and learned how to cook because at the age of 17 years old, she was living on her own because of family issues. Growing up I was close to my dad, but my mother demonstrated to me how to be a leader and how to be independent.
Former U.S. National Security Advisor, Colin Powell, once said, “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work”. Michael Jordan put in a great amount of effort and practice every day to become a famous basketball player. Tim Cook always worked harder than everyone else to become Apple’s CEO. Howard Schultz put in extra time and work to become the Starbucks CEO. Hard work and determination always lead to success.
I have lived in two different worlds. The duality of the immigrant experience is a battle that every first-generation child has to wage. As I conquered my language barrier, a whole new world full of traditions and customs opened up. Seeking acceptance from my peers, it was hard not to adopt their culture and ignore my own in the process. However, abandonment was not an option in a family with a strong cultural identity.
They helped them find employment and provided a place to live until the newly arrived could stand on their own. Also, they introduced them to the area’s social and religious institutions established by earlier immigrants in order to preserve Arab identity and culture. Relatives live together in the same neighborhood and sometimes in the same household. They often work and socialize together, making it easier to preserve the culture and traditions that are so important to them. As a result, the wellbeing of the community and that of the family are stressed over that of the individual.
As a child of immigrant parents, my formative years in elementary and middle school were shaped by two important factors: the environment in which I lived and my background. My parents worked hard to settle into a new life in a foreign country to provide better opportunities for our family. This meant that we had to be flexible about where we lived due to relocating for jobs, and fluid about our ideas of culture. I recall the daunting nature of moving to a new city, twice, as a child. The prospect of leaving everything that was familiar to me and forming new friendships in an unfamiliar environment was a challenge.
For a nine-year-old who wants nothing more than to make her mother proud this was exciting. In the beginning, we can see her excitement and desire, “in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so.” (Tan). However, as we follow the story we see her excitement quickly fade to sorrow and anger. The high expectations immigrant families place on their children is still a very relevant social issue and can be witnessed throughout the United States.
Statistics show that over 11.5 million immigrants migrate to The United States in search of a better life for themselves and their children. Yet, throughout the course of the years, a negative stigma has been associated with the arrival of immigrants in The United States. They have been discriminated against and have been labeled with abasing words. However, the majority of people fail to realize that the individuals who risked their lives coming here, the ones who left their family and friends behind are the most hard-working and persistent people I have come to know because these individuals are my parents. My parents left El Salvador and immigrated to a new country in hopes of a better academic future for me.
As a child growing up in an Asian household, I quickly became aware of how different my parents’ style of teaching was when compared to my other friends in elementary school. I remember feeling very surprised to hear how lenient most of my friend’s families were. I could never dream of even asking my parents at that age if I was allowed to stay over at a friend’s house. Everything, for me, revolved around doing chores and getting good grades. It was also strange for me to see how close and warm my friends’ families were together; where there were dedicated nights for board games or nights where they would watch TV together.
Firoozeh writes about her life as an Iranian immigrant to America. Her family is treated with kindness by neighbors when they come to live in America and get lost on their way home from school: “…the woman and her daughter walked us all the way to our front porch and even helped my mother unlock the unfamiliar door,” (Dumas, 7). Firoozeh and her mother are not discriminated against because they are immigrants who don’t speak English, the Americans help them despite their differences. Had the neighbors not been helpful and patient, Firoozeh’s journey home would have been somewhat traumatic and daunting. While this a rather specific isolated example, it can serve as an analogy for all immigrants’ experience.
Immigrants that are new to the American society are often so used to their own culture that it is difficult for them to accept and adapt to the American culture. The language that is spoken, as well as the various holidays and traditions that Americans entertain themselves with, aren’t what most immigrants would deem a neccessity for their life to move on. Nonetheless, they still have to be accustomed to these things if they have any chance of suceeding in a land where knowledge is key. The story “My Favorite Chaperone” written by Jean Davies Okimoto, follows the life of a young girl who along with her brother Nurzhan, her mother known as mama, and her father whom she refers to as Papi have immigrated to the United States from Kazakhstan, through a dating magazine. Throughout the story each family member faces problems that causes them to realize just how different their life is know that they’ve immigrated..
This Contemporary Realistic Fiction analysis will be over the books Salt in His Shoes and Firebird. In Deloris Jordan and Roslyn Jordan’s book, Salt in His Shoes, Michael dreams to be taller so he will be a better basketball player. At this point in Michael’s life, he is the youngest and smallest of his brothers and neighborhood friends. It takes place in Michael’s home and neighborhood basketball court. His mother tells him the way to get taller is to put salt in his shoes and pray every night.
Personal Statement I come from a large family with relatives from a little ranch in Chihuahua, Mexico. Many of which have never made it past grade school. Mainly due to their mother, my grandma, she had fallen very ill. Due to her condition and lack of money my aunts and uncles dropped out of school to work and help pay for her medication and medical expenses. The older siblings had to take care of the younger siblings.
Coming from a low income family, living in a small town in India, I learned early on about struggling and surviving those struggles. I watched my parents working day and night to provide for electricity, pay for our monthly school fees so my sister and I can have a better education, and for the future they wished upon for their children. To further enhance this vision, my father decided for the family and I to immigrate to the US. Everything was different in the sense that I changed schools, learned a new language, had to make new friends, and learned the different culture. I had to adapt to a whole new world, which was a little difficult at 6 years old