My African American Heritage

As I sat nervously in the back seat of our Toyota Highlander, I looked down to my brand new Reeboks. It was the first day of 2nd grade, and I was on my way to a new school. I was going from a class of students of Jamaican, Indian, and Dominican heritage to a school that was a mere 5% African American. It was an absolute shock to me.
I knew I was different, and that fact hung like a cloud over my time at school. My classmates were proud of their European heritages and their families. They spoke of their parents’ established, white collar careers, while my father was a clerk at the local grocery store chain, and newspaper delivery man in the early mornings. They spoke of their family legacies, and their family trees reaching into the 1600s. I was the grandchild of an woman who had come to America without much assurance that she could establish a better future for her children. They spoke of their parents’ college educations and travels all over the world. My father had finished high school in
Haiti, and my mother was attending a local college at the time. There was nothing that I was as proud to share. “My mommy goes to FAU!” I would say every time the university was mentioned. Even then, I knew what a feat it was for my mother to be a first generation college student.
Outside of school, I would spend the majority of my afternoons and weekends at my grandmother’s house, trailing behind her as she cooked my favorite Haitian foods, as she gardened Haitian lalo and tea leaves for every ailment, and cared for my baby sister that crawled around the house speaking things that only she understood.
At Grandma’s house, Creole was the only language we could speak. Never having the opportunity to go to school herself, she still taught me how to count in Creole and instilled in me the value of education. As we waited for either my mother or my father to get off of work, she told me stories from her poverty stricken times in Haiti, and I formulated my aspirations for the future. Aspirations were her efforts to come to America were worthwhile, and I could proudly overcome the clutches of poverty through education. It was in her home that I decided that my future would be the future that she imagined for her children and the children of her
children.
On Saturdays, my mother, sister, and I would go to the hospital for my sister’s speech therapy. At the age of 5, she had the vocabulary of a two year old, and still sported Pampers diapers. “What’s wrong with your sister?” other children would ask. Our pediatrician could not figure out was the issue was, nor did they want to believe there was an issue. No one but a close few understood her situation. I quickly became my sister’s keeper, determined to protect her. With that, her illness spurred my interest in medicine. Having experienced this firsthand, I want to assist those that experience likewise situations in the future.
At home in my family’s two bedroom apartment, my father was commonly found snoring lazily on the couch after years of working the night shift. My uncle, who also lived with us throughout my younger school years, worked twelve hour shifts at the medical center as a nurse. I learned that even if it meant losing precious sleep, one must work hard.
These factors in my childhood, and so many more, instilled within me resilience, determination, and perseverance. From a young age, I matured quickly, ready to face any obstacle that came my way. My culture and my family prepared a foundation for me, academics allowed me to flourish. Being part of low-income family was not a predicament, but rather a motivation to advance.