As a product of immigration, I was shaped by the unique benefits and challenges of spending my developmental years in multiple cultures. I was born in the rural province of Nueva Ecija, Philippines but spent most of my early childhood years in the country’s capital city of Manila. When I was six years old, my family moved to Singapore for several years before settling down in Guam by my ninth birthday, when my father contracted a job with an international hotel franchise. Learning to navigate the cultural discrepancies in my life soon became a norm, one that shaped my values and priorities. Through trial and error, I developed skills to adapt and succeed across cultural boundaries as I encountered new people ceaselessly through my travels.
While I capitalized on the benefits of and loved my nomadic life, I could not ignore the inevitable costs that accompanied my experiences. Some of the challenges included an acute lack of stabilization and the feeling that “home” was always elsewhere, which hindered a sense of belonging to any one location. For example, I hesitated to claim ownership of any of the countries I grew up in due to ethnic and cultural barriers, yet I also felt perceived as a foreigner every time I returned to my legal homeland in the Philippines. Throughout the years, my fluency in English masked my international upbringing and nomadic history, which produced a “hidden immigrant” mentality. Moreover, as a result of my family’s constant relocating, the transition to a new culture and cost of living proved to be very challenging. I knew from a young age that my parents would not be able to afford many things, let alone a college education for my siblings and me. The endlessly changing horizons in my life incurred bo...
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...ationships in out-of-school activities to promote positive youth development, respectively, are directly linked to my own areas of interest. Given the opportunity to work with the faculty whose work is so closely aligned to my own research ambitions, I will be able to create and refine truly meaningful and significant work.
With a doctoral degree from CU-Boulder, I intend to pursue a career of lifetime learning as a professor or a researcher. The excitement of making meaningful discoveries, gaining insight from existing knowledge, and conveying its significance to others propels me to continue my path in academia. I am convinced this is the path meant for me, and I am confident your school is the best place for me to work towards my goals. I sincerely hope to be given the opportunity to prove my commitment, drive, and determination as a student of your University
I thought it would be an interesting idea to enlighten and inform people about the Lao Iu Mein and our process of immigrating to the U.S. as well as the challenges we have to overcome. I interviewed my parents, Lao Iu Mein refugees who immigrated to the United States from Thailand. Through this interview, I had a chance to hear for the first time the story of my parents' struggles and experiences as they journeyed to a place where they became "aliens" and how that place is now the place they call "home."
abrupt uprooting of a citizen's identity and physical connection to their homeland leads to a
Thank you so much for interest in me as a candidate. I remain truly excited by Stanford, and I hope there is a chance to continue my work in your environment.
In doing so I will demonstrate the hardships that many individuals from diverse cultures face by choosing to take on a new identity in a new country. It is not easy leaving behind what is familiar and welcoming a new identity, having to build a new home. I take this subject very personally as my parents’ immigration process to Canada was one of hardship and joy, it also made them feel alienated at times. Through discovering Canada and the different cultures it holds they welcomed it and started a family in a new land. In doing so they experienced the accepting and amicable nature that Canada held in
I am not a child of immigrants, but maintaining one’s culture is a universal struggle in a land far from one’s ethnic origins. Lahiri suggests that without cultural connections such as family and friends, one’s culture can simply vanish if they are not in the land of ethnic origin. I have found this to be true within my own
Something that has always fascinated me is the confrontation with a completely different culture. We do not have to travel far to realize that people really lead different lives in other countries and that the saying "Home sweet home" often applies to most of us. What if we suddenly had to leave our homes and settle somewhere else, somewhere where other values and beliefs where common and where people spoke a different language? Would we still try to hang on to the 'old home' by speaking our mother tongue, practising our own religion and culture or would we give in to the new and exciting country and forget our past? And what would it be like for our children, and their children? In Identity Lessons - Contemporary Writing About Learning to Be American I found many different stories telling us what it is like to be "trapped" between two cultures. In this short essay I aim to show that belonging to two cultures can be very confusing.
I am an immigrant, which I sometimes view as a privilege and other times not so much. It felt wonderful when my relatives were kind to my family because we got our visas to come to the United States. I was born in Bangladesh in a small village in my tiny house. Not the typical story you hear from many of my peers. My birth is very important to me, not because I ever celebrated my birthday. It wasn’t until I came to the United States that I realized that people actually celebrates their birthdays, but I never argued about celebrating because I knew my parents were not aware of birthday parties and because we were always financially unstable. My desire to have a birthday party made me realize that my family was economically inferior.
Children living in two different cultures may find it very difficult by trying to please their parents at home while trying the please the outside world as well. Children living in two different cultures have problems finding their roots or have no sense of where do they really belong. Some children struggle to find a sense of belonging where usually they might find some people asking them where they come from, and this question make some of them really frustrated. These children sometimes can’t understand who they really are. It seems like they are doubled or playing a two faces game. Sun-Kyung Yi, in “An Immigrant’s Split Personality” said that after 16 years living in Canada, she finally discovered that it is difficult to be both Korean and Canadian depending who she is with. Furthermore, Sun-Kyung sais that she was known as Angela to the outside world but Sun-Kyung at home (Yi, 1992). Another big challenge that children may face is when they are trying to integrate themselves in a new culture. It is understandable that some children are able to integrate themselves quicker than others depending on the inequality between home and the outside cultures are. For instance, immigrant children are usually unable to fit in when they are with friends. They dress differently, their foods choices are different, and usually they listen to their own cultured musics than they do
...nclusion, the identity of bi-lingual, bi-cultural students is always in the process of continuous renegotiation. Identity formation for mobile students turns into a life-long task, never complete; at no moment of their life is their identity final. The varied answers given by respondents to questions asking about where they belonged suggest that ‘home’ is a shifting concept in a life of constant mobility. Those students who had moved only once or who had returned consistently to their base location found it relatively easy to describe ‘home’. As the number of moves mounted up, however, so it became more difficult to decide which place claimed their primary allegiance. Cultural identity is fluid and contingent in relation to historical and cultural circumstances. David Miliband, former British politician once said ‘History is information. Memory forms your identity.’
Today, in considering America’s rich immigrant history and hundreds of nationalities, which have come to the u.s. to see a new home, we are keenly aware of the hardships and rejection faced by newcomers as they attempted to assimilate into American culture. For countless immigrants, the struggle to arrive in America was rivaled only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the population.
Before I was five, I thought I was Chinese. However, I wondered why I couldn’t understand the Chinese patrons of Chinatown restaurants. Upon learning my true ethnicity, I pulled out a mammoth atlas we had under the bed. My father pointed to an “S”-shaped country bordering the ocean, below China. It was then that I learned my parents were refugees from Vietnam. “Boat people,” my mother, still struggling to grasp English back then, would hear kids whispering when she walked through the halls of her high school. Like many refugees, although my parents and their families weren’t wealthy when they came to America, they were willing to work hard, and like many Vietnamese parents, mine would tell me, “We want you to be success.”
I am fully aware that yours curriculum requires that I summon all my resources and I aver that I have the necessary commitment, intelligence and stamina to look forward to do it all. I believe that my experience of working on various projects coupled with my professional working ethics will not let your expectations down. I am convinced that my study at your department would be meaningful and rewarding experience to achieve my objective of life. I look forward to have a long and profitable association with your esteemed college. I especially thank you for giving me the opportunity to express about myself.
... challenging education. It has been my long cherished dream to become a researcher and eventually come out as a good Computer Science engineer, equipped enough to contribute to the larger community. To gain expertise, I wish to undertake my graduate study at your prestigious University. I feel invigorated looking at the program offered at your university, the way it is taught and several research options provided that enable a student to gain knowledge on the program to its fullest.
All the research work, training that I will acquire during this PhD program at UTEP will not only enhance my career opportunities, but will also maximize my potentials. I look forward to being a part of your department and hoping that this brief statement has given you an idea of my abilities and interests. I am very confident that if I get an opportunity to be a part of this eminent university, I am sure that my talents will be put to best use.
I would like to contribute to the research going on in your University to the best of my capacity and utilize the facilities in a responsible manner. I am confident that I can deliver and live up to my expectations with the best of conduct. Thanking for giving me an opportunity to apply to your prestigious university.