Reflective Essay: I Am Pursuing The American Dream

I was born and raised in Vietnam, an okay country to live. But to a major part of the population, from middle to upper class, it is not an ideal country to live in. I grew up with an American dream, not my dream but my family's dream. There are sayings that follow me throughout my growing up. My relatives often say, "Only go to America can make you happy, only go to America can give you good conditions to grow." In other words, if not the United States, then I cannot exist?

Back to myself, I was born and grew up in an unhappy family. So maybe my definition of happiness is simpler than my family. I'm introverted. I'm quiet. I enjoy life slowly. I like to observe society, the world around me more to see more value in life. I do not have to be American to make my life worthwhile. I do not pursue the American

However, the misperception about the relationship between the two countries and their people in their thinking has not been corrected, so they continue to have prejudice regard each other, still leading to the old path. When I get into college, once again, I learned the Chinese teacher. Again, I encountered prejudices between people and people. I remember my first test, I got a C. Not only me but almost all people in my class also got bad grades. Almost all students in the class are Asian. I am sad, but I understand the reason I got bad grades is that I try not hard enough. I do not react harshly to this, but my classmates have. All Asian students think that because she is Chinese teacher, she grades unfairly with other students. To Mexican students, I heard that they think Asian teachers are biased towards Asian students so it is understandable that they have bad grades. Those thoughts seem very normal, but they are prejudices. We have numerous prejudice in life that people do not even realize that our prejudices