Essay: Growing Up In El Valley

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Thanks to my parents migrating from Mexico to the U.S., I had the opportunity to be raised in South Texas or, as locals call it, “el valley”. Growing up in el valley is different than growing up anywhere else in America. The community is made up of primarily Hispanic Spanish-speakers who live in lower-class neighborhoods. At an early age most children from the area, including myself, are taught a skill that is valuable in today’s society, which is being bilingual. I recall going to school where I spoke English and then going home where I spoke Spanish. This balance in language is what allowed me to develop this skill which has added a lot of value to my school, jobs, and social life. To demonstrate, while working at Doctors Hospital at Renaissance …show more content…
is that soccer is the most popular sport. Seeing everyone watch and play soccer made me fall in love with it. I have played in little leagues, middle school, high school, city leagues, and college intramurals. Besides being fun, soccer has taught me many life lessons. Two of these lessons are perseverance and teamwork. Soccer is a tough sport with many challenges such as losing a game, being benched, missing a goal that cost the team the game, and playing ninety minutes without any breaks. These challenges can destroy your confidence and make you want to quit. But by not quitting you learn to cope with the challenges, allowing you to persevere through a game or season. Besides perseverance, soccer teaches teamwork. Each player has a role to play so trusting my teammates to do their jobs is crucial. If there is no trust, then you will not be able to communicate well and will lose games. I am a competitive person and losing is not an option for me. The lessons I have learned from the sport have impacted me yesterday, today, and will tomorrow. I know that in the future I will be working with different coworkers, different classmates, and different individuals no matter where I go. But, by being able to trust these people and communicating with them well, we will be able to complete any task that is given to

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