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AP Literature 2015 Survivor / Professional Netflix Binger / Matt Kanan is Cute
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D is for Different...and Darren
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Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
Huh...identity. Merriam-Webster defines identity as the qualities, beliefs, etc., that make a particular person or group different from others. Basically, what makes you, you. 650 words to paint a picture of who you are in a reader's mind. Quite the challenge, some might say impossible, but alas here's go nothing.
Obviously going into every minute detail about me, wouldn't be productive, space efficient, or all that interesting, so I'll just talk about one.
First, let me start out by stating. I'm Asian: full blown one-hundred percent Asian (just in case you weren't sure Sandro) and live in New Paltz, NY, with it's population of 6,924 people, 80.5% of which are white. So, being part of the 6%, I know about being different. I've had to live with being different my whole life.
Growing up, I had (well still have) two parents, born in Taiwan, who before coming here, only knew about America from what they had seen on TV and travel brochures. Ten years after arriving, they had me, and they raised me the best they could, in the way they knew how. I was an American child with an Asian upbringing. I ate different food from everyone else, I had different experiences, and my parents had no friends here so I grew up largely alone.
I lived in America without living "like an American." I always think back to once in seventh grade, when a classmate had to fix my pronunciation of "salmon," I'd been saying the silent L, much like my mother, for my entire life and had never known. At school, one of the only Asians in my grade, with the other two being adoptees, I faced my unique struggle with only my brother having experienced the same.
At the same time, I wasn't truly your normal Taiwanese kid either. While my parents spoke Mandarin at home, my language skills were nowhere near up to par. In Taiwan, I couldn't read anything with my knowledge of maybe twenty characters, and therefor lacked any ability to be independent there.
I was too American to be accepted in Taiwan, and too Asian to be accepted in America. I distinctly remember once, when I was very small, at Hasbrouck Park, when a grandmother quickly pulled her son away from me and left, giving me a look I didn't understand back then but recognize now, contempt. I remember the constant jokes at school, kids pulling back their eyes and sticking out their tongues at me. I remember the names that would come pouring out when kids ruthlessly called me "chink," not understanding the full implication of the horrible words they were saying.
I was very much alone in my little world of New Paltz. But that was hardly the end of my story. Things turned around. I found friends, people who would appreciate me. The cultural barrier shrunk more and more as I rapidly picked up customs, idioms, and other formalities. I grew as a person, as I learned how a bit of an ego and block the worst insults, and how self-worth was all that mattered.
Now my split-culture has become a part of me, my identity. Being different is just normal for me, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. I'm Taiwanese and American, and can have the best of both worlds.
Huh...identity. Merriam-Webster defines identity as the qualities, beliefs, etc., that make a particular person or group different from others. Basically, what makes you, you. 650 words to paint a picture of who you are in a reader's mind. Quite the challenge, some might say impossible, but alas here's go nothing.
Obviously going into every minute detail about me, wouldn't be productive, space efficient, or all that interesting, so I'll just talk about one.
First, let me start out by stating. I'm Asian: full blown one-hundred percent Asian (just in case you weren't sure Sandro) and live in New Paltz, NY, with it's population of 6,924 people, 80.5% of which are white. So, being part of the 6%, I know about being different. I've had to live with being different my whole life.
Growing up, I had (well still have) two parents, born in Taiwan, who before coming here, only knew about America from what they had seen on TV and travel brochures. Ten years after arriving, they had me, and they raised me the best they could, in the way they knew how. I was an American child with an Asian upbringing. I ate different food from everyone else, I had different experiences, and my parents had no friends here so I grew up largely alone.
I lived in America without living "like an American." I always think back to once in seventh grade, when a classmate had to fix my pronunciation of "salmon," I'd been saying the silent L, much like my mother, for my entire life and had never known. At school, one of the only Asians in my grade, with the other two being adoptees, I faced my unique struggle with only my brother having experienced the same.
At the same time, I wasn't truly your normal Taiwanese kid either. While my parents spoke Mandarin at home, my language skills were nowhere near up to par. In Taiwan, I couldn't read anything with my knowledge of maybe twenty characters, and therefor lacked any ability to be independent there.
I was too American to be accepted in Taiwan, and too Asian to be accepted in America. I distinctly remember once, when I was very small, at Hasbrouck Park, when a grandmother quickly pulled her son away from me and left, giving me a look I didn't understand back then but recognize now, contempt. I remember the constant jokes at school, kids pulling back their eyes and sticking out their tongues at me. I remember the names that would come pouring out when kids ruthlessly called me "chink," not understanding the full implication of the horrible words they were saying.
I was very much alone in my little world of New Paltz. But that was hardly the end of my story. Things turned around. I found friends, people who would appreciate me. The cultural barrier shrunk more and more as I rapidly picked up customs, idioms, and other formalities. I grew as a person, as I learned how a bit of an ego and block the worst insults, and how self-worth was all that mattered.
Now my split-culture has become a part of me, my identity. Being different is just normal for me, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. I'm Taiwanese and American, and can have the best of both worlds.
