I Am Born On The Island Of Jamaica, West Indies By Jean Banthorne And Ralston Reid

Being a daughter of immigrant parents has never been easy here in America. Both my parents worked excessively hard to be financially stable. Unfortunately at the age of ten my life changed. I learned that my parents no longer loved each other. The arguing and fighting my parents had, only damaged me emotionally. I was too young to grasp the idea that my parents were separating which become one of the hardest times for my mom to maintain my siblings and I. Shortly after, I began attending church and fell in love with the idea of getting closer to God. Luckily, my life took an enormous turn the moment I gave my life to Christ. God has opened numerous opportunities for my education. I am proud of all the accomplishments I have achieved in high

I am an 18-year-old student currently residing in Indiana. I’ve been living here with my family for the past eleven or so years, ever since we moved in 2004 from California, my birthplace. My parents both originate from Central America. My mother is from El Salvador and my father is from Mexico, so I’m a mix of Salvadorian, Mexican, and American. I was homeschooled by my parents for most of my adolescent life, mainly by my mother during my infant years. As I grew up my father took charge of my education from kindergarten to middle school. When it came time for highschool, I decided to attend a public school. My first endeavour in the public education system was with an online school known as INCA(Indiana Connection Academy). I eventually found

I was born May, 30th 1989 at Wadley Medical in Texarkana, Ar. I was born to Kym Crispino from Queens, NY and William Lee of Hot Springs, Ar. My parents were young when they had me. We were very poor at times, but they always made sure I had what I needed. I was an only child, but grew up around plenty of cousins. I have lived in Texarkana my entire life. My parents split up when I was twelve, and my mother and I moved out into the country on a dead-end street with no children in the area, I became very sheltered and a little socially awkward.

My schooling began in Cali, Colombia. At the age of two, my mother matriculated me at local nursery because she worked in the daytime. When I was four, my mother enrolled me in a non-religious private pre-school. The school was known for having a strong program in math and literacy. In my country, education is mandatory until middle school. My homeland uses an alphabet and similar to English it goes from left to right. In pre-school, I remember singing the national anthem every morning. I would stand up alongside of many other students and with our hand across our chest we would sing the entire national anthem. I also remember doing a lot of hands-on activities like counting the elements of each set and making a line to the corresponding number

During the fall semester of my junior year, my Aerospace Engineering teacher had a sign outside of his door about a program at NASA for high school juniors. Since I was interested in engineering, specifically Aerospace and NASA I decided to apply. So that night at the end of September I came home and filled out the application and wrote the essay and letters to my state representatives. I had told my parents at that point and they were excited and of course hoped I made it. I thought, “There are thousands applying and I won’t make it.”. Little did I know how wrong that thought was. When I received an email from NASA it stated Congratulations and that was when I was like: “WOW!”. I was shocked to say the least, but proud that I had made it into this prestigious program at NASA, that has now changed my life.

I was born on February 14, 1993 in the city of La Vega, Dominican Republic. I came to New York at the age of 10. The fact that my first language is Spanish placed me at a disadvantage from the minute I stepped a foot in the United States since even at the airport I was not able to communicate with the agent. My biggest struggle was school since the class was taught in English only and most of my classmates only spoke English. Despite my efforts to give it my all to learn the language and adapt to the customs of this unfamiliar place, it seemed to be a challenge I would never overcome. Since my parents and close family members mostly spoke Spanish as well, they could not help me, they only encouraged me to study and read a lot so that I would learn the language faster. I wanted to fit in with kids of my age and to understand when

I was born in Craven Community Hospital in New Bern North Carolina on Thursday, May 23,1991. Craven Community Hospital is the only hospital in New Bern, both of my parents born in the same hospital. New Bern is a very small city in North Carolina many people have never heard of it, a lot of my family on both sides still live there. Like most cities in North Carolina, they are retirement cities, everything moves slow down there and there isn’t much for young people to do. Due to this, my parents moved from New Bern when I was about six months old, we moved to Maryland with my grandmother, my mom’s mother. We lived with her until my parents were able to get their own place. My grandmother loved that we had

I grew up on a farm about 3 hours north of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul. I grew up as the oldest of 9 children, making our house a very busy place. It is there that I attended school at Menahga Public Schools, about 15 miles from our home. I graduated with about 45 students in 2014. I attended Minnesota State Community and Technical College as a Post-Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO) student for my Junior and Senior Year, attaining an Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts, also in May of 2014. In the Fall of 2014, I attended the University of North Dakota (UND), looking to attain my Bachelors of Science. I attended UND for three years, graduating this spring with my Bachelors of Science. During my life I have held a variety of jobs, ranging from farmhand to

At the end of my Junior year I was inducted in the National Honor Society. Prior to my Junior year as I mentioned in my scholarship letter I without a doubt had no clue to what I wanted to do, after taking medical science, and nursing assistant I knew I wanted to either become an Occupational Therapist or a Pediatric Nurse. Before being a part of Honor Society I didn’t even know it existed, so it truly caught me by surprise. Since the beginning of my junior year I knew that I wanted to challenge myself in classes more than before, that was what I did. When I received the letter saying I was to be a part this high honor it felt like the work I had done all year was paying off. It pushed me to want to do more, so I did. I applied at the UW nurse

We were middle class, a very average family. The environment surrounding my family during that time was actually very civilized. Hardly no crime, amiable people and we got close with the neighbors and became very involved with their lives and they became involved in ours. I started attending Yeager Elementary. I really feel for that school because that is the place where I met most of the people I still talk to till this very day, it has a notable place in my heart, I can never forget my third through fifth grade years. I also started attending Tom Browne Middle School. Tom Browne was viewed as an average school, but, to some, it was a “low class”

From 9th grade to 10th grade, I attended a small, public choice school called Federal Way Public Academy. They accepted students on a lottery basis, and had a total student population of approximately 300 students, grades 6-10. It is a school that is very well known for it’s college-level academics, lack of music and physical education classes, and intense homework load. Regardless, I wanted to attend that school since I was in 5th grade, but wasn’t accepted until 9th. When 9th grade finally came, I met the group of people I would soon call family.

My childhood has revolved in the same area. Born on the 7th of the 7th month of the year 1997 at 7:37pm at a hospital seven minutes away from where my parents resided I never considered myself special in any way. The first years of my life were a blur of memories reinforced with photographic evidence whilst containing vivid recollections of key events. Like most, I cannot recall the first words I said, nor how I came to understand the languages spoken back home all I know is that words came.

July 26 2004 in Arlington Texas I was born. My parents Melvin and Maheshi Ruffin. My Dad born in Lake Charles , and my mom born in Sri Lanka. Growing up (1-3 years old) life wasn't like life was now we had a small house limited things so right now life was okay. I lived in a very strange neighborhood if I am remembering correctly, but when I say strange I'm talking about the people. In that neighborhood I don't remember the name so let's call it Cherrywood. The reason Cherrywood was so weird or strange was because of the people. The people in the neighborhood were so rude and strange when I at this I mean they would have Christmas decorations out in their lawn till summer, and if you were to offer to take them down they would snap at you so

My first day of school felt so strange as if I was banished to Mars. Or at least to some very far away place full of strangers where nobody speaks my language. Because indeed, nobody spoke my language on my first day of school. I was 6 years old and lost among people whom I couldn’t even talk to. How could this happen? I spent all of my childhood in Hungary, but it still felt like we just moved to another country right before me starting school. Although no such thing happened, I still blame everything on my parents.

Growing up in a country where educational preferences were given to boys, my father went against the society norms and encouraged me to get higher education. Along with his guidance and my thirst for knowledge I was accepted in engineering program. I was happily pursuing my degree, when suddenly all this came to halt; my father was seriously ill. He wanted me to get married before he leaves this world. Few weeks later, I met my husband, who at the time was visiting Pakistan for his cousin’s wedding and within months I was married. I came to United States with a hope of better future and dreams of finishing my education, but was unable to do so as I was expecting our first child and had no one to help us with the baby. I dedicated myself to raise our daughter, but deep down that feeling of emptiness lingered. Life kept moving forward, we moved a few times, gradually I started to adapt to being a stay home mother of two beautiful girls. Numerous times I brought home admission forms from CCBC but started to doubt myself if I was going to be able to do restart after such a big gap? I started volunteering at my daughter’s school and was soon hired as a teacher’s helper to assist with children with special needs. While working at school, I was again in an environment that reminded and encouraged me to fulfill my lost dreams. In 2012, I enrolled at CCBC with no career path in mind: I just wanted start again! Once I started I never looked back and I will continue to thrive.