How Diversity Changed My Life

The world that I come from is ever-changing and constantly interrupted. Growing up, I lived in Santee, California which is known for being a primarily white town that used to be home to a few white supremacist groups. My brother and I were frequently targeted because we were middle eastern minorities in a school that had very little diversity. My older brother used to come home suspended from high school for having conflicts and fights that had to do with his race.
Our entire family was traumatized when he came home one night exclaiming that his African American friend had been stabbed at a party by someone who was offended by the fact that a black American would come to a majority white party. Due to the racial tension around me in elementary school, I was in a continual pursuit to act, speak, and look “white.”
In seventh grade my family moved from Santee to Lemon Grove, …show more content…
Junior year of high school was one of the most challenging years of my life. My father was diagnosed with stage four cancer in both his stomach and his lungs. Therefore, he was unable to work. My mother worked multiple jobs along with having the full time task of taking care of my father and the rest of our family. My parents transferred me back to the online charter school I had attended in ninth grade so I could complete my studies at home, relieving my mother of the struggle of driving me to school everyday. Returning to the online charter school was extremely difficult for me. At the time, I did not have a laptop and my family could not afford to buy me one that had all the functions I needed to complete my school work. I would spend my nights staying up until sunrise attempting to do my schoolwork on my brother’s iPad which was not capable of opening the applications I needed. I was extremely strained and behind at school, which was something that had never happened to me