Unocumented Immigrant: Personal Narrative Analysis

My mother is an immigrant. A hardworking, pious woman who moved to a foreign country in order to raise her children and offer them everything she could. After her first three children, my mother grew accustomed to her feeling of loneliness. She was often left alone with three young children, dealing with their constant bickering and nagging. On top of that she had limited communication with others, due to a language barrier, no car and no friends in this new world. She struggled with her decision to stop working and put her schooling on pause. She struggled with injuries from childbearing. She struggled with her marriage, a marriage that took place between two very young lovers blind of reality, and shocked when hit with it. She often engaged

My family came here for a better life like most immigrants. I didn’t know what culture was, even though my mother mentioned it sometimes. I didn’t know what race was, what America was, life and pretty much just how life works. I’ve been in America for almost fourteen years, switched schools eleven times and can’t count the amount of time I’ve moved apartment homes. I have even been religious, private, public, and charter schools.

Ever since I was young, I knew that my mother did not have it easy when she came to America. She was a strong single mother, who could not speak English, living in a foreign land. Knowing that my mother had sacrificed everything she had in hope of establishing a better future and life for me, I had to repay her.

Greetings Scholarship Committee, I am Ruby Thompson, and I am asking for your consideration for the Courage to Grow Scholarship. I am a senior enrolled. in Bluefield College and hopefully my last semester. I currently have a 3.69 gpa, and I am a Human Service major. I have worked very hard to excel to this level.

I am a first-generation Hispanic-American. Being born and spending my childhood in south Florida made my Hispanic culture so accessible that I would think in Spanish instead of English. In my home, Spanish was the first language spoken since my father and mother are from Panama and Peru respectively, and most of my family did not speak English. I was so immersed in my family’s culture that I even learned the “Peruvian dance”-Marinera. I loved walking into my home and smelling the fresh Peruvian dish my mom was cooking. That was all about to change. In 2009, Florida was struggling with unemployment and real estate issues. We moved to a small town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania called Cranberry Township. We moved because my father’s job transferred

My parents are immigrants. My father came to the United States in 1967, when he was 5 years old. My mother came in 1997, at 18 years old. My father, although Cuban through and through, is not the typical Hispanic immigrant that people expect.

It is difficult to calculate how greatly the status of being undocumented has impacted my life. I was ten years old when my family and I immigrated to the United States. My parents have worked multiple jobs so my siblings and I could have a chance at a better future than they did. Even after thirteen years in the U.S. – I still overhear my parents’ conversations about deportations.

I am a hard worker, I understand college is my opportunity in life, and I will not waste the opportunity. The scholarship will go to good use in helping me achieve my

It took me so long to try and find where I fit and belong. I now know that my identity is something unique and individual and any person growing up, with or without immigrant parents, struggle to find

Books opened my eyes to enthralling revelations at a young age. They gave me solace in my times of worry and melancholy. Especially where the lost protagonist overcame her obstacles and fought her fears. I could always relate to such struggles. I understood what it meant to feel diminutive and powerless. But I couldn 't relate anymore when the character would transform into something unique. Defying the odds. As a child, I had struggled to believe in myself and capabilities.

Growing up in an immigrant household in America, was difficult. I didn’t live, I learned to adapt. I learned to adapt to the fact that I did not look like any of my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that my hair texture would never be like any of my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that I was not as financially well off as my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that unlike other people who have families of four, I had a family of seven and numerous amounts of close relatives. That my parents, although lived in America for quite sometimes grew up in Nigeria, so English was not their first language so I adapted and changed myself in order to fit into societal standards. I learned to understand and interpret my parents’ native Igbo dialect but left that part of myself at home so that people will view me as the perfect American citizen.

I already know I will need to be paying for the majority of my college tuition, which is why I have worked so hard and had a job since I was 16. I know many students around my financial status whose parents are paying for all of their college, but for my family this isn’t the case. The tuition will fall mainly on my shoulders, and I believe I deserve this scholarship to help me pay for

In 2009, the U.S. Census gathered that there were over thirty-three million second-generation immigrants living in America. America is a melting pot, and in this melting pot, it isn’t uncommon for these children, myself included, to lose sight of what our lives could be–and the struggles that our parents faced to ensure that we have more opportunities than they had. As I write this essay, I’m stressing over the things any other American high school sophomore faces– grades, social drama and statuses, and my follower count on Twitter and Instagram. These “problems,” if even that, are minute to what others our age face around the world. Young adults in Sudan are starving, and young adults in Syria live in the middle of a war zone. As far away They raised two kids: my 19-year-old brother, who is currently a freshman at the University of Georgia, and myself. Thanks to their hard work, I’m able to worry about the things I do. Never have I worried about not having food on my plate, about being denied my education, or being forced to leave everything I know and abandon my dreams. It’s easy to forget what my parents have done for me, for the opportunities and doors they have opened for me. There’s no way to understand your life–the privileges you hold–without understanding the past. You must be thankful for all the things your loved ones have done for you, and I’m sure that I am. I can’t imagine my life if I were in my parents’ shoes, if I faced the struggles and hardships they did, and I know I wouldn’t have the courage to be as decisive as they were and are. Their perseverance and determination make me content with my life now, knowing that it could be much worse. Their experiences motivate me to capitalize on what they gave me–to become something. I want to be sure that my parents know I’m thankful and know that I will work hard to become what they didn’t have the opportunity to. 11th Grade Columbus High School Anjali Patel 5th

Immigration is a very broad topic, taking into consideration all of the emotional aspects it also provokes for the group of minorities that fall into this category in the United States. Although America is the home of a range of diversity, many still wish that their hopes of completing their “American dream” does not end soon. The Deferred Act for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is shortly coming to a complete end. This privilege of having the act gives many the opportunity to be considered a citizen and have most of the benefits that this act offers. But there are still immigrants, like Jose Antonio Vargas, out there who “even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own.”

I was born in Southern Los Angeles and lived in a conserved community of predominantly hispanic immigrants seeking socioeconomic prosperity for their families and an adequate education for their children. My family was a part of this community and as such, I was always met with a high standard for education and was taught to fully appreciate the benefits that followed it. I would constantly be reminded of these benefits when I would continuously witness not only my own family struggle, but when neighbors and friends also struggled to provide essential payments for their utilities, food, or rent. These financial struggles stubbornly persisted to haunt my family and in 2008 we were in no position to maintain our home and consequently lost it. This drastically strained family