Personal Narrative

Arriving to the United States, to be more precise Houston, Texas. Big, green house with only three rooms for two family’s. The people there were amazing in a day they donated food and supplies enough to survive for a week. My parents struggled to starting us off. We barely had anything. We were a big family with needs. And slowly but surely we had start to adapt. Only 3 minute showers. If

Everyday gets harder and harder to survive. The storms are getting worse. They make my husband's farm all dry. It’s very hard to find food when we can’t grow our food either. The stock market just crashed a few years ago and everything is just getting worse. Everyone in our little town in Kansas is struggling it's not just our family. Last week the dust got so bad outside we were trapped inside our house for almost two days. The wind would be so strong and the heat would also be so bad it would burn our skin if we went outside. I know the whole town is struggling even though I haven’t been outside for a few weeks. We lost all our chickens from the wind. I wonder if anyone else has lost any of their animals too? If my family was strong enough

Everything that my family has provided just makes realize even more of how fortunate I am. In Peru, I lived in a small neighborhood full of poverty and despair. I went to a small private school that was two blocks away from my house. I was raised by my mother for eleven years of my life while my father was here in America working really hard to sustain us. Moreover, my life in Peru wasn't the greatest because of the circumstances I was living in but I was happy and very lucky to have what I

Sitting in a hospital waiting room, alone, afraid; and waiting for the news; would she be ok? Would she even survive? My nerves were out of control; my heart was beating through my chest, you could literally see it thumping through my top. The beads of sweat racing down my forehead, as if I was in the middle of the Safari dessert. I have been an athlete my entire life, yet I have never felt so physically drained. I look around, my eyes opening, then closing; as if I am coming in and out of consciousness, then suddenly echoed words begin to ring around my ear drums….” Sir…...sir, can you hear me? Sir please, we need to know what happened. We need to know what happened to her. Maybe my motionless state showed my

Beyond discovering my direction for my life through the adoption of my brother, I found the country where I want to live out my mission. This summer I will have the opportunity of visiting my hopefully future home for the fourth time to help those with physical and spiritual needs, continue to build friendships with the Hondurans, and teach art to school-aged children.

In 2008, the recession hit hard in St. George, Utah, which caused my father to be laid-off and become unemployed for two years. With the urging of a friend, my dad packed up his tools and drove to Williston, North Dakota with no job and no place to live. He took a leap of faith to save our family, and the day he arrived, he found a job and a place to live. Having him leave me was heartbreaking. He went from being there daily to quarterly. He is my hero because he made the biggest sacrifice of his life. He moved fourteen hours away to work twelve hours a day and seven days a week to support us.

Were I to name one thing unique about me, it would be that I’m one of the only people I know who can say from experience which is more difficult; writing a personal essay or surviving a life-or-death, take-no-prisoners spy shootout, complete with a crowd of bad guys, laser guns, and of course, a hero and a sidekick. I’m the sidekick.

We moved from Mexico to the U.S. when I was six. Moving to a new country meant starting from scratch. We slept in hotels for the first couple of weeks until mom was able to find a job. Being an immigrant who didn’t speak English made it extremely hard to find a job. She was hired to pick up strawberries for $7.50 an hour. With this wage, we weren’t able to afford a home, so we rented a room. The room was small so my brother, mom, and I shared a bed.

I was not an intentionally bigoted twelve-year-old. I was raised in an affluent suburban community where the vast majority of people are white. The 100% white private nursery school which I attended was chosen by my parents largely due to its proximity to our home. My public elementary school was about 70% white as it was populated with students who resided nearby. Finally, the private middle school which I attended, located almost an hour from my home, provided me with exposure to the most diverse student body of my youth as it was comprised of about 65% Caucasian children. What each of these formative academic experiences shared in common was both that their student bodies were disproportionately Caucasian, as well as that their senior administrators

My parents tried to provide us with everything, but with such little income it was difficult to have basic necessities such as food and shelter. We would set up a tent or sleep in our car most nights and then we would move to the next farm that had crops ready to harvest. My parents worked as migrant farmers and we moved to wherever the crops were ready. My parents worked long hours under the hot California sun and they never once complained. Daniel and I spent the long days fantasizing about a future where we were no longer struggling and we imagined the day when we could finally call a place home. We were exhausted of always moving around, but until my parents found a steady job we had to move around for

Before my arrival to the United States, I had been living with my aunt and uncle for about one year, that way, my parents could establish themselves in the U.S. before my sister and I arrived. A few months after I celebrated my seventh birthday, I moved from Ethiopia to the United States, so that I could be reunited with my parents. The excitement of being able to just hug my parents again eclipsed any fear I had about traveling half way across the world, away from anything I was previously familiar with. I knew my life was never going to be the same once again, and after 13 years of living here in the U.S. I can fully attest to that.

Because of economic reasons, it was not possible that all my family came to live here so I had to live with my relatives. At the beginning it was not really hard but after a while it really started to hurt. Every day I woke up and asked God if all that sacrifice and pain was worth. I only wished everything to be as it was before. One day I was almost to give up, and I said it to my mom. She told me “Sometimes we don’t get what we wish because that isn’t what we need. Believe in yourself, you can do it!” Fortunately, it changed as well, and now we all are living together

My family and I came here with nothing. All we had was each other. We moved to a foreign country,

Once our stay had worn out at the ranch we moved to an adjacent city to try and find another place to stay. This did not work out in the beginning and we ended up staying a one room motel for the next month or so while my father attempted to find employment. During this time, I met a man that still sticks in my memories to this day. He was the principal of the school that I was attending at the time and helped our family on numerous different occasions; he did more for us in that time then our own father did. This brought to my attention that there are many wonderful people in the world that will do nearly anything to help others. Eventually my father did find employment and we managed to move into a nearby

Out of the nowhere, a few days before Christmas, my husband was jobless. While nostalgic holiday music bombarded the airwaves and frenzied shoppers and travelers jostled to check off their lists, my family watched in longing and dismay. We were told our last paycheck was due mid-January, then we were on our own. Our collective angst intensified since soon after that paycheck hit the bank, our car crashed, taking it off the road for months to come. As a result, we were stranded in the suburbs with no transportation and without a job to alleviate the situation. Fortunately, we were rescued by kindhearted friends who stuck with us throughout the crisis.