Life Is Not Easy Without Parents In My Life

My parents always wanted to give their children the life they never had. I am Mexican-American, both of my parents immigrated from Mexico to the U.S. before I was born. I have numerous relatives, including my older sister, who do not have the same opportunities I have to achieve success because they are undocumented. For them, college was only a dream that could never be attained. Being the first U.S. citizen out of my entire family affected the way I thought about life. It was expected that I would attend college because I was the only one who had access to all the resources granted to American citizens. Although, I agreed with my family, the pressure to succeed and be a role model to my younger siblings was overwhelming.

Ever since I was a young child, my parents always told me to try my best in school, they always told me this for the reason that they never had the opportunity to have a good job because they never finished school. This event is shaping me to care a lot regarding my education. In addition to that, another event that has shaped me to become the person I am today is that since my parents don’t have good paying jobs they have to work hard to take care of me and my siblings this event has caused me to become a hard working person and to seize all opportunities to live a good life because I don’t want to struggle like my parents.

Moving to the United States was a difficult experience for me. At first I felt like I had no family. I only had my daughter and my husband. But things have changed for

Moving far away from family and friends can be tough on a child at a young age. It has its pros and cons. One learns how to deal with moving away from the people they love and also learn how to deal with adjusting to new ways of life. Everything seems so different and at a young age one feels like they have just left the whole world behind them. That was an experience that changed my life as a person. It taught me how to deal with change and how to adjust. It developed me from a young boy into a mature young man.

A lot of children grow up without a parent in my case I didn’t really have either. When I was fifteen years old my mom and I were in a different place than where we are now. At the time she was working two jobs and was always gone. My sisters and I took care of ourselves. We learned how to be very independent, self-efficient, and responsible. There was this specific situation when she was dating this guy, and she gave my sisters and I a choice to either move in with her boyfriend and her or live on our own. My older sister and I decided to leave and live elsewhere. In this specific situation my actions disobeyed authority, but didn’t go against my own morals because I did it for all the right reasons for myself at the time.

Being the oldest, I grew up with many responsibilities. I have always been the one to set the example, create the right path, and be the role model for my younger siblings. My single mother worked day and sometimes even nights to provide us all with what we needed, never failing to keep a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs, so she along with my brother and sister became my motivation to become the best I can be. I knew schooling would be an issue for us economically; there was no way my mother could ever help me pay and there was no way I would allow her to overwork herself. So I made the decision to leave home at the age of seventeen and move to Oregon. Becoming a resident of Oregon allows me to afford schooling at a much better cost, even if it means being so far away. It is very difficult being distant from my family, but I am doing this for them. Finally, I reached the moment in my life where I saw what was most important to me and it was to be the best I can be for my family.

Over the previous years, I grew bored with routine. I didn’t involve myself with school activities and stayed home for most of my days. My parents rarely planned any activities for me and my sisters. I had stopped expecting them to involved themselves with my school life. I didn’t even mind when they wouldn’t come for my band concerts. It’s hard being a child of immigrant parents. There are situations they would never be able to understand. The sole advice they can give me is about hard work. They want to push me and my sisters to our limits so we could have the better life that they never had. From them, I learned life lessons of self-sacrifice and determination of making things work, despite the roadblocks and challenges.

I liked it better because he was closer to us. My second sister and I would switch back and forth between houses every week, until she decided to live at my mom’s full time. The only thing I didn’t like about it was when my dad went to work I would be home by myself with little to do. Life went on like that for awhile. My dad ended up meeting this woman and they started dating. I had mixed feelings about this subject. I was happy for him, but I was weary about it. I wasn’t sure what life would be like with this new adult in my life. I didn’t want someone trying to act like they were my parent. I wouldn’t stand for it. She was very nice. She had two sons, one still in high school and the other in college. She would come over and hangout with us. My sister would occasionally check on me and see how I was doing over there. I missed having my sister with me at my dad’s, but it wasn’t that

I am a breathtaking, stunning, and outstanding student. I am these things because I know that even before reading this essay, the first thing you read was my name. Most of the faculties that are reading this essay are probably thinking, “oh, it’s another Asian student whose name I’m not sure how to pronounce,” or “that sandwich for lunch was good, I should’ve taken another bite before I came here.” Before anything else, I am Hmong. It’s a subculture that is quite spread throughout Southeast Asia. I was born in Thailand and immigrated to the United States in October 2004. There are seven members in my father’s household. Having a Confucian ideology binded within me, I almost always put my family’s needs before my own. I would tell myself that if something does not benefit me, then I don’t need it. Then on, I hated going shopping like normal girls because I don’t want to burden my family with financial problems. If, however, I needed something, my mom would have already bought them for me. When my older sister entered her senior year in high school, I decided to do all the chores I could in the house. It was demanding and exhausting, but because I decided to do most of the chores, my sister finally had more time to herself and was

My parents came to the U.S. with nothing but the money in their pockets. We lived with my three aunts for a year, until my father could figure what to do. He decided to start a convenience store to try to provide for his family. He was not making as much as he was in Korea, but he had to make do with what he had. Due to this lack of income, I had to attend four different elementary schools: one in Korea, two in Baltimore County, and one in Howard County. Even though two of them were in Baltimore County, I still could not maintain my friendships because I could not drive, and my parents had to work all the

I would wake up at 3 in the morning to make food for my aunt, uncle, and cousins. Every morning after making food, I would then attend my class. Luckily for me, there was school. It was a good way to pass time during the day. After school, which would be around 4 p.m., I would carry gallons of water in wheelbarrow and gather some water for my family. There was no one to help me. Everything I did, was on my own. It was a struggle for me while growing up. I couldn’t ask for anything because it would be disrespectful, so I never bothered to ask them for something. They weren’t my parents. I was lucky enough for them to let me live with them. As an hmong orphan, no one really wants to love you, and they feel as if you are a burden. The only thing I had to offer to them was me, to be a slave. I worked hard to keep them satisfied. And it was fairly difficult. I’ve always wondered what my life would have been if I hadn’t left my parents and siblings back in

My dad has been working as a carpenter for eight straight years. My dad has worked on small simple things to structures like houses that could hurt him. My mother she works on different things for example gift baskets to as a waitress but she doesnt work often because she has to take care of my smaller siblings. Both of my parents have made a lot of sacrifices that i don’t know how i am going to pay them back. Most of the time i think to myself why do they do this how can the put up with us especially with me since i am like the black sheep of the family. Are we really that important to my parents and are we worth it?. My parents only reply with a “yes” and they tell me that when i have my own kids and family i will understand and know how it feels to rise four kids in and environment like this and the economic situation and if we didn't want to feel this much stress to work hard and get stable so we don't have to worry like they did. Even tho i might not know that yet or know what they really went through or how hard it was but i know that they had a hard time raising me and my three other siblings. We also lived in a small trailer yet i still don't know how she managed to fit all of us in that small trailer, get us ready for school, feed us, having us with really nice clothes i don’t know but they managed to and i appreciate it

Prior to moving to the United States, my life was less challenge and much easier. I was not an independent person. I did not know to do a lot of things in the past. For instance, I could not cook, I never took bus, I did not know where to get an ID or a driver license, and I was not sure where to fix my scooter if it was broken. I simply made a phone call to either my father or my mother, and they handled everything for me. I could have done all the above things, but I did not want to because it was nice to have my parents take care of me. Additionally, I often spent time with my family and friends. We planned cook-out dinners, baby showers

I began to help my mom around the house. I had to learn how to cook a proper meal when I was seven years old, do laundry among other things to give my mom some relief. One day, when I was nine years old, my grandmother shared the news of my father’s departure to the U.S and that he did so to give me a better chance. It was heavy news for me, and as an emotional child I cried with my grandma and felt sad that from now on I was not going to get the occasional visit from him. As a teenager in the process of growing into a man, you think you need a father figure, a man perspective, advice on things that life throw at you, it was clear that I didn’t have that anymore. I was fortunate to have my mother and my grandmother to teach me right and wrong; the rest was pretty much up to me.

Devastated, I ran to my room gushing my eyes out. All these emotions going through my head of how my life would be without my parents in the same room or even house. From what I remember it all started about mid-June, the weeks before that were crucial. My parents would always argue over how to deal with a situation between me and my brother, Skyler. They hardly spoke to one another, but when they did they would just start bickering. I remember, one night after dinner they both went into ''their'' room with the door locked yelling at one another. Skyler and I didn’t know what to do, so we went downstairs and tried to figure out what was going to happen. With a scared tone I asked if mom and dad were going to get a divorce?" He answered back '' No, they love each other, they wouldn’t do that to us." That following night, was a school night everything was quiet except for my crying. I couldn’t sleep; all I was thinking about how it's going to affect my family.