False Consciousness

I was born and raised in the Bay Area, a popular region that screams diversity, privilege, and opportunity. When you live in the crosshairs of the Silicon Valley and San Francisco, it is only expected that you may know someone who knows a guy that worked for Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, and it is not all that bizarre to see naked people running around with rainbow flags. Neither of those expectations are reality for me, but it would also be false to say that the influence of our tech-savvy geniuses and free-spirited folk were nothing but stereotypes. These certain influences created a simple societal scheme for institutions like high school to promote. It is a simple idea that the history of an area influences its future societies. The society …show more content…
When my father disconnected himself permanently, I felt like the only one who was affected. It took a couple years to realize that my siblings and especially my mother were coping with equal loss- the same man left them as well. As I approached high school, I began to know of many peers who had single parents too. Seeing scholarships and programs made especially for single parented students with low income helped me see that there was actually a large percentage of kids who faced a similar challenge. According to the United States Census Bureau, more than 80% of single parent families are headed by single mothers. It is evident that my family situation is simply a social thing, a concept that I have been able to grasp just by growing up and socializing with others who understood. There is no way to isolate the cause of this staggering statistic, but it is easy for children to either condemn themselves or believe they are alone in their obstacle. Although children’s inexperienced thoughts do not completely exemplify false consciousness, one can assume that if left to flourish into adulthood, it very well may be the …show more content…
Grades, going to college, and being respectful were all important characteristics of the Asian culture. I knew many of my Asian friends who were put into SAT classes, piano lessons, and summer programs to make them the cream of the crop. My mother never pushed me like the other Asian parents did, but I knew her desires and intentions were the same. I attempted to take these Asian expectations from T.V and my peer’s parents and internalize them into my own behavior, but it only hit the surface. Seeing my mother work hard to financially support our family, however, was enough to push me all the way through. Even if I was not going to piano lessons or SAT classes, I knew I had it in me to pursue big things, which also meant attending UC