Personal Narrative: My First Generation American

Being a first generation American, the eldest of four children, and the first to attend college in my family; There is a lot of pressure on me to succeed and to pave a road where my siblings can follow in my footsteps. Both my parents were in Cambodia when the communist were in power, my dad ran away as a refugee and eventually through the American embassy, got to come to America. He came here speaking no english and with absolutely nothing in his pockets. He told me that a man had to give him ten dollars to buy shoes at the airport because he was boarding the plane without any shoes. Growing up, my parents knew what it was like to be hungry, scared for their life, and to not having anything. When it comes to my siblings and I, my parents work long and hard to provide for us what they never had growing up. They want us to get a good education so we can go into a field where they know they wouldn’t have to worry about us financially and whether we would have dinner on the table that night. I appreciate everything my parents have done and are continuing to do for me everyday. Going off to college out of state was a big decision …show more content…
Even struggling financially, my parents kept it a secret and sent me to a private high school. My dad told me that mid-way through my freshmen year, he was contemplating on drawing me out of private education to public education because he couldn’t find a way to pay for my education anymore; He stuck it out for one more month and that was when he bought a small convenience store and became self employed with my mom again. From there, they worked hard and used the money they earned to pay bills and pay for my tuition. It was only until a year after when he told me about this incident because at the time, he did not want me to