My Story
My grandparents on my mother’s side were from Laos. They lived there until 1980 where they came to America. Back in Laos, my grandmother always mentioned the hard work they had to do. There was a lot of farming involved because that was how they survived. When they came to America, my mother, Maizoua, was still very young so she became accustomed to the American culture very quickly whereas my father, Yee, had a bit of a more difficult time. My father’s parents also came to America from Laos around the time my mother’s family did. He was almost ten years old when he came to America so he had to work harder to familiarize himself with America. After I was born, my father had a hard time helping me with schoolwork and such because he was still not use to America, but my mother was able to help me because she understood better than my father did.
I was born in Porterville, California on March 4th, 1994. I was only one year old when we moved to Oregon. My parents were still very young when we moved. My mother had just turned sixteen and my father was twenty-one years old. My mother went to high school in Oregon, but my father had to work instead of going to college. He had wanted to open up his own art studio because he’s a really good artist, but because of me, my father wasn’t able to do so. My sister Ashlyn was born in Portland, Oregon on August 30th, 1996. For a while, my sister and I had to be babysat by my parents’ friends because my mother was always at school and my father was always working.
After my mother graduated high school, my family and I moved to Pennsylvania in 1998. I had attended Kindergarten in Oregon and then first grade in Philadelphia. We lived with my father’s parents for a while because we couldn’t have afforded anything financially. Two years later, my sister Leah was born on October 11th, 2000 and just a year after, we moved to North Carolina. My family had hit a rough spot. We had financial problems, my parents were having difficulties because of my father’s infidelity, and my mother was yet again pregnant with my third sister, Kayla, who was born on April 9th, 2002. I was able to attend second grade in Pennsylvania but then I had to attend third grade in North Carolina. Eventually my father had to fulfill his punishment due to the infidelity dilemma. My mother took my sisters and me to Minnesota where her family had moved to.
My grandmother had to quit her job so she could watch over my sisters and me. For the first few years, we had to live with my grandmother and her family which included my three uncles and my grandfather. My grandmother had to quit her job to look after my sisters and I and my mother had to take a full time job to support all of us. I started fourth grade in Minnesota but then my family and I had to move back to North Carolina. My father was on probation and my mother had wanted us to live with him because she didn’t want my two younger sisters to live without him. I finished fourth grade in Minnesota and started fifth grade there. My father’s probation ended a year later and my mother took my sisters and me back to Minnesota where I have been living for the past six years. Even though I have lived in Minnesota for the past six years, I still have had to move and change schools. I had never been at a school for more than two years and even after high school, I will be attending a junior college and then transferring to a university. Hopefully, my two younger sisters will not have to move as much as I did.
My relationship with my sisters could be known as mother-like. My mother was rarely home due to work and then she started college in 2004. I had to be there for my sisters all the time. I cooked, I cleaned, and I helped them with their homework and so much more. Sometimes when I’m able to just be a sister, I take them out to the park or to the store and we would just do what sisters do. My sisters had learned to respect me and eventually it came to a point where they turned to me instead of my mother. My relationship with my mother and father is not as strong as my relationship with my sisters. They have not been involved much in my life and were barely there for any of my sport and school events.
My home became the schools I went to instead of the houses I moved into. At school I was more comfortable with the adults than with my parents and I was able to interact with the students and staff more. My favorite class when I was younger was math, but as I grew older I became more interested in writing. Creative Writing is a subject I enjoy very much and since I was twelve years old, any English literature class became my favorite class. Because of the lack of relationship with my parents, I turned to writing as my escape. At first I held a journal which became my diary. I vented everything I could into that first journal and eventually began writing poetry.
Ever since my discovery of writing, I haven’t been able to stop. Writing became a hobby of mine and eventually a goal. I wrote poetry, stories, and blogs and I hope to become a writer one day. I try to write at least once every day; whether it is a poem, the next part of my story, or a blog online. My love for writing eventually led me to meet my best friend, Christopher Jones. We were both in a writing club together and ever since then I would like to hang out with him after school, on the weekends, or whenever we can.
My goal after high school and after college is to become a middle school English teacher. I want to be able to help students get ready for not just high school but also for life. I want to be able to expand students’ minds and to let their imagination set them free. I want to become a teacher, because I want these children to be able to turn to someone they trust in their time of need and to teach them to turn to their writing. However, for as long as I can remember, my one main goal—the heart of my dreams—is to become a mother. As a mother I want to be able to give my children the comfort and love they need, I want them to have everything I couldn’t have and I want them to grow up happily. My goal as a mother is to be able to keep my family happy and I will only accomplish that when my children could look back and remember me and the good times they had growing up.
