Personal Narrative: My Journey To Somalia

There is an ancient African adage that states “If you wish to move mountains tomorrow, you must start by lifting stones today”. As a first generation immigrant to the United States and reminiscent of countless other immigrants who have come before me, moving to a new country literally means starting your life all over again from scratch, but symbolically it signifies a rebirth of oneself and a chance to metamorphose into whatever new creature you aspire to be. Some of the challenges I faced included culture shock, language barriers, financial barriers, but the utmost significant one was the education barrier. I quickly realized that if I could bridge the education gap I would be able to overcome all the other barriers. For myself, having an education epitomized my assimilation into my new life by enabling me to chase my dreams and realize my unique American dream.

In 2011, my parents and I came to America. The choice that my parents made had benefited my academic career. I have a better education here and schools in America helped me become a better 2learner. Education is an important part of one’s life. Without a good education, not everyone can achieve their lifelong goals that want to achieve someday. When I was living in India it was much more different studying there. The teachers in India, would not be as tough as the teachers here. Some teachers do not give any effort in wanting to help their students succeed. Eventually, my parents decided to come to America, to get a good career and help me succeed . When I came to America, it was an escape from the education that I was having before.

I was born in a small ranch in Mexico, and raised in Oregon .My first year and a half I grew up with only my mother and grandmother, my father in the US trying to raise enough money to send to my mom and me . I came to the United States with my mom at the time in only understood Spanish. The Spanish language stayed with me up until I was 3 , I was the only child but my older cousins taught me a new foreign language. From the moment I learned to speak English to almost 14 years later, being a year away fro graduation its been a big struggle. Fighting against the "I cant's" and "failure" it's been a bumpy ride. Something that has really shaped my life is, as I grew up I didn't quite understand the meaning of immigrant, my 7 year old mind didn't

I was told, at the age of thirteen, that the U.S. was the land of opportunities. My parents came here from Peru, so we could pursue the American dream. Despite the challenges encountered, while incorporating into a new society, my parents constantly encouraged me to overcome any difficulties. They taught me the value of hard work, which is necessary to achieve my goals. Watching my parents work long hours in menial labor jobs for the past 11 years, has inspired me to strive for a professional education.

My parents are Hmong refugees that immigrated to the United States after the Vietnam War in the 1970s in search of a better life. In their eyes, America is the land of the free and where dreams can become reality. In Laos, my parents lived an agrarian lifestyle with very little education. Despite their lack of education, they realized that education held the key to success. Throughout my life, my parents emphasized the importance of education and did their best to guide my siblings and me. This was not an easy task for my parents because of the cultural adjustment that they experienced, but they managed to instill in me invaluable character qualities such as patience, perseverance, hard work, sacrifice and courage. I am the third youngest out of twelve children, and I will be the first to receive a Graduates degree.

Over the years you’ll learn hatred is not born within you, but adapted. You would want to take the pressure that evolves with others, unfortunately without a doubt you are going to meet an obstacle that could potentially take you within the waves. If the obstacle were to overcome you may be broken down into depression or perhaps you won’t resist and conquer with aggression. Peace isn’t given, nor is it easily obtained. Peace still hasn’t shown its existence to the world, but it’s yet to come and show its tranquility that is beyond the capacity of our imagination. As I have fallen, failure has shown its superiority against me, despite my efforts towards the world I yet still can not find the way to build the Utopia everyone could desired and

I am a first generation Chinese American and to go to college. My parents immigrated here from Vietnam for my brother and I, they both came here working low wage jobs with very little school education. Back in Vietnam, when education wasn’t accessible to everyone, my dad dropped out of school in fifth grade and my mom dropped out in ninth to work for the family. Because they weren’t able to achieve the American dream for themselves, they decided to give my brother and I the best chance to have it for ourselves.

Education was the key to one’s social status and was revered as such. We live in the United States of America, the poster boy of socio-economic freedom and capitalism. Here, the idea is that anyone can work their way up from the lower to upper class; many call it “rags to riches.” One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, was famously able to do so and become one of the leaders of the “New World”. However, this class progression is conditional. Hard work is required. No one knows how many hours Franklin spent studying, learning, calculating, working before his success. As such, I aspire to similarly transcend my surroundings as a first-generation immigrant and become a successful individual. However, this requires determination and grit. It also requires a good education. Education is the key to socio-economic success and upward social mobility. It is the key to advancing one’s status in life and Dr. Wilson recognized this. He also recognized the lapse in the American education system when it came to understanding and appreciating the work of the African population now residing in America. Surely enough, his work would have been mentioned in a history book had this foul system of white-washing and mass-producing falsified and fabricated portions of our history been

Eighteen years ago my father and mother decided to leave everyone and everything they loved in Syria to immigrate to the United States. They were willing to give up everything in order to give my brothers and I a proper education. My father and mother knew nothing about the English language or culture and yet they were determined to give us a better life. My mother hasn’t had a chance to see her father, or mother in eighteen years because she wanted my brothers and I get a proper education in order to succeed in life. This great leap of faith my parents took is something that I will never take for granted.

As a baby, my mother immigrated to California from Mexico with her family. As you can probably guess, life as the fourth child of immigrant parents was difficult and paved with countless obstacles. Poverty always crept in the background and their foreign tongues could not always grasp the strange new English words. Despite these challenges, school offered a place to dream of more. Education beckoned with its visions of what life could be. Through these struggles, the biggest lesson that transmitted itself through the years was that through hard work and dedication, you can lift yourself up to wherever you want to be.

Knowing the struggles my ancestors have prevailed upon to provide me the opportunity to pursue my dreams is humbling. They’ve taught me that education is power. I was able to understand its magnitude by becoming an English teacher to students from a local underprivileged public school. I had been capable of reminding them that they are entitled to dream, simply by giving them the knowledge and opportunity to think outside of the box. As I move on to college, I hope to continue to empower individuals through education, providing them the opportunity that my great-grandmother wished for but did not have. Despite the tumultuous path to accepting and understanding myself, I know that college will be another colorful fragment to the patchwork of my

I was born and raised in Cuba. My sister and I were raised by a single mother. Since my mother does not have a high education level, I am the first person in my family with the opportunity of obtaining a bachelor degree and enter medical school. Consequently, she could only offer restricted support for my educational development. However, she always strived to support our family. Nevertheless, I began to work to provide for them as soon as I finished high school. Therefore, I could not attend to the university at that time. Soon after, I got married and had my first child. Then, I moved to the United States of America with my husband and child due to economic reasons and to pursue the American Dream at the age of 26. Then, I got pregnant with

My parents and I immigrated to America when I was three years old. Back then, I did not realize how dramatically this move would change the course of my life, all I wondered was why I couldn’t understand a word anyone spoke. With the support of my parents and teachers, I was able to quickly catch up to my peers both socially and academically. I was aware of the size and diversity of the world from a young age because I frequently travelled back to Russia to visit family. At school, I described the journey to my friends and we all became engrossed in learning about unfamiliar cultures and languages.

I was going to the fields to work the farms. It was like any other day. My wife had gone out to barter food for the family. I was a planter. I had been living in the middle part of Africa for as long as I could remember. I went out to the fields, with my hoe to start farming corn for the harvest. When I was done farming the corn, I continued my daily schedule of taking a bucket of water and going to the well. The water was to be filled up so my family and I could bathe later in the evening. When I was almost done filling up

Summer 2016 was the best summer with lots of memories. June started off with us going on a mission trip to Iquitos, Peru with our church youth group. Waking up in a hot and humid room to the sound of the roosters crowing reminded me that I wasn’t in the US any more. Floating 2 hours down the Amazon River to go to a little town to di-parasite and brush the teeth of little kids is something I will never forget. Our mode of transportation was either riding in the back of a truck or trying to fit 5 people into a 3 person motor taxi. The extremely hot and humid weather and mosquitos don’t bother you when serving and ministering to kids.