Personal Narrative: My Trip To America

Expectations My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could be a engineer, or you could do something in the medical field such as a doctor. She believed you could do anything if you set your mind to it and worked hard. “You did it wrong, you aren't even trying, you're going to have to restart.” my mom said to me as I was redoing my math for the third time that day. “If you don't get the basics down tonight, you’ll have to do this tomorrow also.” My mom went to America because of the American dream and more opportunity She arrived in America at Oregon during 1991 after leaving Vietnam. After losing her brother and all of her family’s belongings, she had to start all over in America but it was only going to get better from there, because she was

So that was kind of how the daily routine went for all of elementary. Every day after school we sat down together and worked on the school work that would always be giving me trouble whether it was a spelling test or some math homework. Most conversations went like “Your brother Erik can do it just fine, why can't you?” or “Everyone else in class understands this just fine, so that means you aren’t trying enough.” Eventually things started to click it started slowly at first like “Wow Isaac you did ok on this spelling bee.” my mother would say or “You did most of this homework by yourself?” I gradually became independent enough to do work on my own and only with occasional help from my mother or Erik my brother. Finally about the time I started middle school my mother's expectations didn’t go lower it was that I was able to meet them easier. So now when it seems like my mom doesn't expect much it’s because we share the same expectations for me to be responsible and successful and it's not something that needs a constant reminder or outside help, because they match my own