Essay 3

Cv Wendy Hernandez Writing Component Robert Mendoza July 8 2013 As a young woman learning to adapt to the American cultural norms- it was difficult for me to balance the input I was getting at home, while receiving the society messages. At home all I heard from my parents was work help pay the bill, college is only for rich people and society was telling me to go college you can’t do anything without a college degree, something that was always on my mind. Growing up in America, the daughter of Salvadoran parents I never truly felt American or Salvadoran. My parents came to America illegally due to a war that terrorized El Salvador. My parents were seeking freedom to take full advantage of the true American dream. But there version of the American dream is to work and pay bills which doesn’t involve having a proper education. But my dream is to get a higher education not be struggling financially like my family and many other immigrant families. Like many other immigrants families my parents struggled to obtain a dissent job and to fit in the American society. Our society may consider the immigrant community as a low income, not worthy of going far in our education, a perception that made me feel a shame of my Hispanic heritage. I don’t want to be of shame of being low income I want to go more far in life than being considered low income I want to live to expand my education. As Malcolm X says in Coming to an Awareness of Language “to live to learn” I want to live to expand my education level to be thought as an intelligent person. Coming from an immigrant family has inspired me to help other families that were and are in the same situation as my family was in. My parents had to work from an early age and have always told me school isn’t going to take you anywhere and they didn’t think it was important to get an education. My oldest sister