Personal Narrative: Driving Up To Portland

It was April of 1999. My family was at home. Children were running outside. The asphalt was burning. Cars rolled up to the entrance of the apartments and BANG. I grew up in Stockton, California. Surprisingly, as a minority, I wasn’t really a minority. There were, in fact, a large and diverse population of Asian-Americans. But, Stockton is not the ideal place to live. It was hot and dry, almost to the point of a drought. Stockton was also ranked as the one of the top 5 most dangerous cities in California. So, having a nice and safe family is kind of difficult. Eventually, my family decided to move to Crescent City, California when my dad retired. It was a world of difference. There were trees, plentiful water, and a nice cool temperature. This

Me and my family decided to move to Oregon all the way from New England I decided to keep a journal for the adventure we have to pack before we leave though my 18 year old son Bernard told us to bring his xylophone and I Charles Marvin Ives wanted to bring an anvil in case I need to fix or make anything with metal or use our spare parts we brought even though I have no experience as a blacksmith because I'm a farmer. My wife Samantha Packed the bacon, salt, and whiskey and we all had to lift the water keg. I decided to bring my shovels and hammer and some salt for the bacon. We're bringing pots and other cooking utensils as well. My oldest son, Carl who's 20 years old thought it was a good idea to bring a plow. We will also need some firewood

It had finally arrived. Moving day. I was finally leaving my home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after five short years and a sort of gloom lingered in the air. Although many teenagers would be excited to reunite with their family, friends, and childhood home, I, however, was frightened of the future. I woke up that morning and just laid there and listened to the sound of the rain pittering against the roof and windows, pattering against the surrounding forest in which I shared many memories. After what felt like centuries of just listening and reflecting, I got up and looked out the window. I looked at my neighbor's house across the field of grass which separated our houses and at the kids who had become like my siblings. I looked at the ice

I come from the small town of Caribou, Maine. “Why so far north?” You might ask. Well, my father took a job as meteorologist for NOAA in Caribou following his retirement from the Air Force after 20 years of service. I moved to Maine in August of 2008, exactly 9 years ago; however, Maine is the 4th location I’ve lived in after Virginia (my birthplace), Alabama, and North Carolina.

Leaving my home in Hawaii and moving to Oregon was one of the hardest things for me to do. Maybe I would have felt better about it if my parents had asked me for my opinion before picking up our lives and moving to some place I had never even heard of before. I know I shouldn’t have cared that much. After all, I was only a 1st grader and even now my parents don’t consider how I’d feel before making decisions, so why would they then? At the end of 2007, I said goodbye to my best friends for the last time and left for Oregon.

I find myself looking over my shoulder every time I step outside my front door. Violence has opened my eyes and destroyed my dreams of peace. When I first moved to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico, I moved into a neighborhood that was full of gangs and drugs. Philadelphia represented a new start, a chance for me to breathe again. I had experienced a tragic shooting right before my ten year old eyes in Puerto Rico; my mom’s best friend was killed, while the murderer calmly walked away. We escaped to Philadelphia, and I thought my days of witnessing horrific violence were over. However, my dreams were shattered like gunshots in the night. One day, while I was napping, I was awoken by a series of deafening pops. As soon as I heard them, I dropped

Driving up to Cooperstown through the gates, I was excited to see the variety of different license plates. Nevada, Texas, North and South Carolina, New York, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia and many more filled up the parking lots. While driving through and getting directed to my barrack I saw tons and tons of kids. After settling in, my team and I walked around in awe listening to boys from other parts of the country talking. Most of the time I would laugh to myself because of the accents the southerners had. When it came to playing, the moment I stepped onto the field I felt like I was a professional. The grass so cleanly cut and the dirt so perfectly grated. The sun beating on my neck and the beautiful summer breeze made perfect baseball weather.

My names Linn and i’m 24 years old, this morning my husband gave me some horrible and good news. The bad news is that our family is going on the Oregon trail and that means we're leaving Illinois, where I grew up my whole life and our family dog, but the good news he said about going on the Oregon trail is that when we get to our destination we're gonna have a lot more farm land. Today we're gonna try and find a wagon. We went to our friends house to see if the have a wagon we can use and it happens that the do it's a Prairie Schooner and they gave it to us for a lower price than what they wanted it for. We hooked our horse up to the wagon and we were on our way back home. When we got home, we automatically started to pack. My husband James, who is 25 years old

For the past two years I have dedicated one Wednesday a month to going to Ronald McDonald House. While there, my peers and I would cook and serve a dinner for the families staying in the House. I loved the way it felt to give back to these families that had been going though such hard times with their children, so I decided to

As a teen, I had the opportunity to volunteer on a summer mission trip that focused on serving the homeless population in San Francisco. Stricken by poverty and drug addictions the Tenderloin District was unlike anything I had ever seen. Instead of passing judgment or feeling intimidated, I chose to serve these people with compassion and respect. What I experienced during this time was transformational and helped to direct me on a pathway towards service.

Over the last several thousand years, dozens of great civilizations have risen from nothing and fallen back into obscurity. Not all civilizations, however, leave a lasting mark on the world, especially not one so profound that influences the world as it exists today. One such civilization that has had a profound impact on daily modern lives was that of Ancient Egypt. Their systems of religion and technological innovation helped not only to leave a permanent impression on the world, but also served to mold both the civilizations that directly followed it as well as society today.

Riding along the Oregon Trail can be treacherous, risky, and at times perilous. Some aspects that make it so dangerous are: hunger, disease, suicide, a broken wagon, falling out of the wagon and getting run over by the wheels, Indians attacking, and … storms. Believe it or not , storms cause substantial amounts of trouble. I am fortunate enough to say, I, Dahlia Clark, lived to tell about it.

Another meaningful experience that sticks out to me is when I regularly volunteered at a children’s homeless shelter in Roxbury, Mass. for two years, and was reminded of the fact that the statistics we hear every day about homelessness are real people – not just numbers. Every child I played alongside,

Historians over the last century, while juxtaposing the mechanisms of colonialization for the three main colonial powers in the New World, have consistently portrayed France’s relationship with the indigenous population of New France as the most genial and cooperative. Unlike the Spanish invaders who enslaved large numbers of indigenous populations to fulfil brutal labor needs, or the English who established nearly instant hostile, and some would say genocidal relationships with locals at Roanoke, Jamestown, and Massachusetts Bay, “French-Native interactions are widely known for the cultural adaptations and creative innovations that facilitated trade, diplomacy, and kinship across large portions of North America (11).” Instead of challenging this view, Brett Rushforth in Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous and Atlantic Slaveries in New France argues that the enslavement of indigenous populations developed out of this adaptable relationship between the French colonists and their Indian allies residing in the Pays d’en Haut. The cultural, economic, and political pressures exerted by the French presence evolved the practices of traditional slave raiding and holding, which had long been conducted in the region prior to European arrival, into a system neither European nor indigenous. Bonds of Alliance highlights a topic largely ignored from surface studies of New France, specifically, the enslavement of Native people for French acquisition. Unfortunately, his obsessive

Last year during winter, my friend and I decided to spend our day in Chicago. It was a cold, brisk day and it started snowing. We had our warm coats on, yet we were still freezing. On our way to get to the train station, we saw a homeless man, he had no coat on and he was shaking from the cold. I looked at him, and suddenly I felt his pain. It was a strange moment and I wanted to feel the cold that he was feeling, I wanted to be in his shoes so I took my coat off and I offered it to him. My friend stopped me and he gave the homeless man his coat instead. In that moment, there was a smile on the old man’s face, he wore the coat immediately, and he gave us his blessings. After reading both, the article “ Baby in The Well”, and “ The Empathy Exams”, this occurrence immediately came to my mind. While reading about empathy, I felt déjà vu, and I remembered how I empathized with the homeless man by the train station. In the article,