Playwright: My American Dream

My family and I came to America in the year 2003, and those few years afterward made me realized the tremendous amount of love my parents had for us. Although I was only three, I saw how my father worked long hours trying to keep a young family of five comfortable and safe. He taught me the importance of hard work and endurance. My mother taught me the importance of education. We came to America because due to her receiving a student visa to complete her Masters in Christian Theology and Social Work. She would come back to from long classes and pick us up from daycare. Although she was tired, she made sure that her family was fed and well. As soon as everyone was well, she would finish her homework. Her desk and computer were located in my

Growing up with my father Scott, mother XXXX, and my beautiful sister Paige, I find it easy to reminisce of the happy times we shared together. However, not matter how dearly I pray of ignorance, I can’t erase what has happened from my mind. When I was rather young, my mother was deported back to the UK from which of where she is originally from, due to drug addiction issues. Experiencing the matter from first hand, watching my mother fall, grasping with all her life to find herself inside, whilst clamoring for her next high, tears me up inside to this day. The day she left us was the day I felt that my family couldn’t cope without her. I could never believe that my father could do for us what my mother was able to do. My suspicions to begin with were indeed correct, as we endured homeless shelters. Being in and out of homeless shelters ruined not only my family life, but also my social life. Having to explain to your young friends that you don’t really have a home, is a something I would never wish upon my bitterest of

The following months a winter, cold and gloomy, surrounded the house. My grandmother came to stay with us since my father had fallen into depression and needed help taking care of my sister and I. When my grandmother went grocery shopping my sister would struggle with homework without my grandmother’s help. One day when my grandmother left to go grocery shopping my sister approached me, which was unusual of her since its very rare for her to come to me. Her dark brown hair and big eyes reminded me of my self when I was younger. “I’m hungry” she complained, a question she’s never asked me. My father sleeping and my grandmother away, I was the only one left to take care of her and that terrified me. I had never cared for or known how to care for someone else. All I knew was how to evaluate whether or not someone was caring for another correctly.

My family immigrated to the United States roughly four years ago from Vietnam. We came over here nearly empty handed with barely knew any English. The first two years we had to stay with my uncle and were being mistreated terribly by him. Therefore, my dad, our family’s main source of income, had to work really hard from early morning to late night to save up for a house. My mom decided to stay home to take care of us along with catering food in order to help out with our income.

I was four years old when my parents decided to move from Mexico to the United States. We did not travel far from our hometown Mexicali, Baja California to Palm Springs, California, however, I understood the move was harsh on my parents. They had a stable life in Mexico. They were college honor graduates working in their desired work fields, but they did not settle. Instead, they sought more in a foreign country with minimal financial support and understanding of the American lifestyle. I did not realize how powerful my parent’s strength and ambitions for success was until my father lost his job. My dad was not home and would not be for a year. I was fourteen when my dad lost his job which caused him to return to Mexico for employment. Immediately,

We walk back to the shelters to get some sleep, and I sit there awake for a minute until my father falls asleep. In the morning when I awake, my father is very sick, so I take him to the doctor. The doctor rejects to help because he is a surgeon. I take my father back to the shelter to let him rest some more. I leave him to go outside to get more coffee. I think back to all the things me and my father have been through. Losing my mother and sister will always reply through my head, remembering them holding hands and moving off to the left, and my father holding onto my hand, and we walking away from them. The last thing I got to do was just look into there eyes and turn and walk away. Once I got back I found my father not there. I knew where he had gone, they had taken him to the furnace. I dropped to the floor wanting to cry, wanting to have a fit like a normal teenager. Deep into his feelings he thought “Free at last.” He was free to only think about surviving, and not to worry about anyone but himself. I will miss my father. I love him. I will never forget how much he did for me, he is the reason why I am still

My first memory was sitting in my dads old, gray pickup staring at the stars as he drove the highways back home. Tired from a day of stressful travel, when in previous hours I was on a leash led by my mom in the airport. My dad has always created a sanctuary everywhere he went, which was a vital skill growing up with a homeless father. My parents began their long unpleasant divorce when I was two, whereas my dad was gifted a restraining order entering the house. I didn’t see him for months until he was granted permission to pick me up from preschool with a bottle of chocolate milk in his warm hands. Their divorce created a hole in everyone’s lives that each of us tried to fill separately. Mom was never home, working three jobs, going to school full time, and filling that hole with cigarettes, beer, and boyfriends. My sister filled it with endless sleepovers and friends, while I had three friends that I never saw outside of school.

Interview with Playwright Vince Melochi. His play “Lions” was published by Samuel French in 2009 after a production at the Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble directed by Guillermo Cinfueges.

As a child growing up in a rather affluent area, I never took the time to stop and appreciate how hard both my parents have worked to give me a better life. My mom and dad both came from Iran to America with almost no money looking for a better life for their future. My mom, who had recently had my brother, decided it was best to stay at home and take care of him, while my dad juggled going to school and working two part-time jobs. My father continued this time demanding schedule up until I was 4 years old, in which he started working a single full time job committing up to 60 hours a week. Even with the time demanding job, my father still committed himself to try to come to dinner every night, take me to soccer practice, and to tuck me into

I grew up in a very poor neighborhood hood, so everyday for me was difficult not knowing if I will eat or sleep on the streets. I can remember the moment where my father abandoned my mother and I. I was very young at the time I had just turned 7 years old. My father and mother had a very unhappy relationship it was very easy to tell they were not happy. I remember it was a Monday, November 4, 2002 my mother was staying with my aunt because my aunt was diagnosed with cancer and my mother was helping her out. It was my birthday I was so excited that day because I was suppose to get a gift from my father. I woke up that morning ran quickly to his room to find him not there, I ran outside thinking he was fixing his car or just rebuilding the birdhouse

In order to pursue their American dream, my mother and father uprooted themselves at the age of 30 to replant in a foreign country, bringing with them as much of their homeland as they could carry in their luggage, values, and traditions. This new chapter of their lives opened with them working as dishwashers at a shifty restaurant before having me. From there, my father worked his way up by fixing everything ranging from dumpling assemblers to oil rigs while my mother

It had been two month since I decided to live with my dad after his divorce. Actually, I’d never want them to break apart. I loved both much. But, I didn’t know what on their mind. Parents sometimes were complicated just like childish. I inhaled deep breathe for many times and I really didn’t know for how many, and once again I saw my dad kept an eye one me. But I didn’t care, not really care. I hated this situation so much. I missed my mom.

My father grew up in a poverty stricken neighborhood with a non-existent mother who laid in bed all day and a sister who was blind. His grandmother, a major influence in his life, made him see his potential to overcome the situation he was in. My father remembers going over to their house to “get away from it all.”, but on his birthday, she was admitted into the hospital and later pronounced dead.

We are in a new era of theatre. As the times change, the technology grows, and people grow more and more educated, theatre is evolving. Modern critics suggest that playwrights Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill were the last great American playwrights, but that isn’t true. For their period, century, and time, they tackled the social issues between man and woman, and between the races and the classes. However, there are many great playwrights of this century, addressing those same issues. The stances are different now or more developed because people grew more as a whole.

The day I separated from my mother to live with my father in the United States marked the beginning of a downward spiral in my life, or so I thought. Coming from Vietnam at the age of seven, I experienced a cultural shock. For starters, I did not speak English, which made interacting with other children my age a difficult task. But to my advantage, speaking and knowing Vietnamese is an asset I have come to eventually appreciate. However, life at home and my relationship with my father or lack of one was hard for me to understand at such a young age as I was only reunited with him a week before I left Vietnam. I began to shield myself from this foreign world around me and found solace in our backyard swimming pool. I thought of my mother constantly. I always knew she was sick, but I never realized of what extent her illness had consumed her health.