Personal Narrative: Urban Promise Miami

I am one of the following students who had the chance to obtain the South Bay Promise Scholarship. I didn't know about the South Bay Promise, nor the First Year Experience. I am thankful for having such an amazing statistic’s teacher, Mr. Espinoza from Hawthorne High School. When he told the whole class about the opportunities here in El Camino College, I knew I had to apply because it would make different. If it wasn’t for him, a teacher so passionate on seeing his students not just graduate but to motivate them to go to an university or a college after, I would never be in the place that I am.

Starting my sophomore year I had always had a burning desire to beat Miami Trace more than any other school. I used to go to school with four people of their starting eleven, and they were not the most kind hearted when we left Fayette Christian School. They were bullies to my sister and I when they found out that my family and I had made the decision to leave the private school and start attending public school. At the time they were all a lot bigger than me so there was nothing I could do about it, but now because of soccer, there was. I looked at beating them on the field and outplaying them as my own way of getting back at them for all the hardships they put my family through. We had come out on top every time, except the last one.

When people ask me where I am from and I say Cleveland, they often react as if I had said “vanilla.” But if I say Believeland, they perk up and typically want to hear more.

I was 16 years old when i moved to Cleveland. I had moved from California, a place that everyone thinks of as a area of movie making, opportunities, rich people with fancy lamborghinis and ferraris, well it's nothing like that where i come from. Compton california, the place that you can see 14 year old gang members with guns, get shot just for wearing the wrong color, or just walking down the street like my mom. I never really meet my dad he got locked up when i was 3 on an assault charge so i had to move in with my grandparents in Cleveland.

Many people move around to different states throughout their life, and I have had the opportunity to live in what feels like two different worlds. I have spent most of my life in Bradenton, Florida, but at the age of ten I moved to the small town of Cleveland in the north east Georgia mountains. The two towns are completely different in my opinion and only someone who has lived there would completely understand what I mean when I say two different worlds. The weather, the people, and the different opportunities are just a few of the differences between the two towns.

The city of Chicago has been displayed as a dangerous city in which all residents are affiliated with drugs, gangs, and misconduct of firearms. Whether someone fits into this stereotype or not, is normally based on their surroundings and their interactions with others. Growing up in Gage Park, named one of the worst neighborhoods, falling into this stereotype and becoming affiliated with drugs, guns, and gangs, would not be too hard for someone to do. However, I have lived in Gage Park my whole life and have not fallen into the status quo. I have had family members and friends fall into this realm of unpleasantness and watching them become another wrong kind of statistic is upsetting. I have been faced with the decision of continuing to have

A product of Hamilton Park, the only planned African American residential community in Dallas, I grew up in a two-parent household. My mother died when I was 13 and I became a pregnant at the age of 16, a reality of many youth in today’s urban communities. In 1988 I found myself struggling - a single parent with a house note, new car, no education or promotable skill set and on disability for two years. The economic strain propelled me to consider college. I took one class, passed with an A, and knew this was what I needed to do. After going to school off and on for the next ten years, acquiring only 45 college credit hours, and passed over for several promotions – I enrolled at Dallas Baptist University in August 1999. As a full-time

Before coming to Miami, I used to live in a small city in Colombia called Barranquilla, where the weather is really hot like in Florida, but very humid. When the rain season comes, is when people usually get sick with the flu. As you see people sneezing, coughing, with high fever and headaches there is a pretty good chance to get infected too. September 2007 is a time that I will never forget because it changed my life forever. I have always worked as an esthetician, where to be in contact with people is part of my job. During that month the weather was really bad, there was a lot of rain and it was very windy. People were getting really sick with all kinds of symptoms related to the flu virus and I started feeling the same way too. Usually

New York is a state where there are big lights and lots of people and busy streets. I live in Brooklyn, New York and I was born here and I have lived here all my life. Personally, where I live I can walk to go get groceries that I need and everything is in walking distance. I take the public subway or the bus to get to school and there are many public schools here in Brooklyn, New York. There are delis and corner stores almost around every block. Here in Brooklyn, it is very noisy and busy. I am so used to the noise that I can sleep soundly even with all the noise that surrounds my house. Personally, I think that if I were not born here or was not a New Yorker, I would plan to move here when I get older.

I have written many essays since I was in middle school yet most of my writing was not that important besides for a grade. Yet there is one piece of writing I wrote that change my life and felt that it had an important impact to The City of Chicago. My teacher during that time wanted the class to enter in a citywide competition, which is called “Do The Write Thing”. It is a way for students to voice their opinions on how to stop the violence in Chicago. I wanted to help reduce the violence in Chicago since many youths are being killed in the streets every single day. In my paper, I mainly focused on three body paragraphs. The first one was why the violence in the city was increasing. The second one was some type of violence that I have witness in my own personal life. The final paragraph

I keep running from one to another. The rooms are big with white walls and ceilings. Here and there bright colors decorate the walls. Small groups of people converse over their opinions. Children reach out to touch and their mothers pull them in, smacking their hands and telling them no. I stop and spin around, trying to absorb everything around me. Then I stop and stare.

I did it. I moved to Miami. I let all of that shit that happened in Texas go. I no longer care what happens to Trevor. He can get out of jail, stay in jail, have ten kids with ten different women, and I wouldn't give a damn. That man almost drove me nuts with his antics, and I'm not going to waste any more of my time dwelling on him. He's not worth it. The further that I got away from Texas, I felt the chains that Trevor had on me breaking.

As the weather in the Mile High City grew worse, I was in a mood...but not the mood you would be if you won the lottery. It was perhaps a mood you would be in if you lost a championship game.I was moving...AGAIN! This was NOT exciting. I had to move from one side of America to the other side and back again.I had to move from New Jersey to Colorado and I was not happy. Obviously,I am not happy now!I had to lose all my friends, it was tragic. I didn’t want to pack everything again and go to the other side of America..Virginia Beach. This was so frustrating! I had to leave all my friends and teachers who encouraged me to do many things.It was also hard for my brother who had say good bye to his best friend and meet new friends.But,at the same

The biggest dream I had coming to college was succeeding in academics and building a social network. Coming from a hardworking Cuban family, my parents always emphasized the value of getting a higher education in order to succeed in this country. From countless lectures I would receive from my father, it was engraved into my head that I needed to push harder every step of the way so I can have a financially stable career and experience no troubles when it comes to paying bills. Miami is known as a party city, there are clubs being built at every corner and occasionally music festivals every month. The city always had major events happening, however I never envisioned my career taking off in this city. It was in California I saw myself building

Downtown Columbia is filled with restaurants, bars, and various cafes. Every turn leads to another street, another experience. Every corner is filled with the bustle of a restaurant or the night-life of a bar. Each person is on their own journey, their own walk. Every car is passing through or just stopping by. Each meal is a subjective experience, for every person, every mouth. Each bite, each sip, each breath is independent from the first. Each restaurant is different from the next, each culture is distinctive.