My family is from Cuba. Things were going well for them until the revolution and the new leadership under Fidel Castro. My grandparents sacrificed all they had to make enough money and stick it threw until there number was up. With freedom to leave their country, my grandparents, uncle, aunt and dad left all their belongings and arrived to the land of opportunity with nothing but a change of clothes.
Inspiring isn't it?
I am proud of this strong will my family had on both sides to not settle and yearn for prosperity. I am proud of the fellow immigrant families I know are naturalized citizens of America and went from nothing to success in a new country.
I feel like this spirit transcends and transforms through generations. I feel like I am going through the same uncharted territories.
Except by uncharted territories I mean college.
My father dropped out sophomore year, my mom went straight to work, my aunts took a few courses. My uncle was the only one to complete college and it took him some while. This trend continues down to my age group. Of my six older cousins, one has dropped out, one is somewhere in his studies, one is temporarily not in college because his career is doing well, one is a year older than me and on a path to graduation. I have only one cousin to have successfully finished college but not yet in med school as he had planned. I have a younger cousin who is a freshman in college.
I hate to blame any misfortunes I have on others but in some ways I feel slighted. Just like I did in high school, I have made some mistakes in college. Mistakes I made because of lack of guidance.
I wish sometimes I could have some piece of wisdom from my parents about how college GPA works, scholarships, scheduling aims, goals, things of that nature. Instead I feel like I must pioneer my way through and learn the hard way and impart some knowledge on to my sister so she can someday not feel as I do.
College is tricky. You think everything is okay and your main concern is adjusting and keeping yourself from being overwhelmed. You underestimate how grades do not come as easy as high school and what seems like an easy balance of affairs both academic, work and personal become a doomed domino tumble.
As a sophomore I feel as if I am in a hole trying desperately to pull my way out. I never had to work too extremely hard in high school because the set up and my own intelligence worked together and I graduated with second honors (second because of a scheduling mishap freshman year which would later cost me).
I am quite blind. I have somehow scheduled the proper amount of credits necessary, taken enough mass communication classes which puts me ahead and making decent grades this year. Sounds great right? Not enough. Because I didn't do so hot freshman year and accounting absolutely destroyed me, I have to fight so hard to get near the GPA necessary to even apply to the Manship School.
I have worked ever since I could, even before I could. I have done well in school. I worked for the University newspaper and news radio. I want a profession in Public Relations. I yearn for security, a family, a career, and happiness. I feel so far away from my goals because college seems like one huge maze I am in alone with a certain predestined fail looming on my shoulders.
In these times I need to remember my roots. I need to remember people made lives of nothing. Family members did what they had to do to live the life they wanted. They didn't stop for anything. This gives me strength to not stop before I am done with college.
I will pull up my GPA, I will make it into the Manship School. I will do better.
"' Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free'" -Emma Lazarus.
I believe in the American dream.
