COLLEGE FOR ALL

I came from Mexico when I was 5 years old. I’m the oldest out of 3 daughters. My mother is a single mother and my dad left me when i was 4 and my little sister was 2. Mom was a young teen when she had me. She was 15 years old when she got pregnant and 16 when she had me and 18 when she had my little sister. She has been a single mom ever since the day my little sister was born and started working ever since i was 4 years old. I had to raise my sister alone with some family help but it was hard to not have mommy by my side. Shes the person that inspires me to study and be some one in life. I’ll give her back all the love and things she gave me by being successful in life.

    The mayor issue I’ve had in life is not having my dads support. That has affected my little sister and me in so many ways growing up without a dad was hard but we succeed through it. Mom always told me to never give up think farther of what I want in life and success be the best on what I want. To learn how to forgive to be able to be forgiven.

    In life I’ve had many new opportunities. Opportunities that have helped me out through the learning about life. One big opportunity was coming to the USA 8 years ago. This opportunity has helped me with my education and has helped my mother with saving up money for my sisters and my future. The second big opportunity was in the 6th grade I was flunking in the summer and I went to boot camp. This experience helped me in many ways because as soon as i got to the 7th grade i was interviewed by the Today Show. They asked me about my life and how I went from a 0.50 to a 3.00 GPA. These 2 big opportunities have helped me understand that I’m capable of succeeding on what i want if i set my mind to a goal and follow the steps in an organized way.

    An issue that is confronting my family and community is the lack of money, jobs, and education. We have many different programs that help us out but there’s a lot of segregation and unfairness against color people and Latinos in general (immigrants). The lack of money has been an issue in my family and my community because it has led teens to give up their education and join gangs, do drugs, or just drop out and not care about what’s happening in the outside world. Teens don’t think about what to do about this so they take the easiest path and give up on their dreams.

This issue is affecting my family in many ways. I’m leaving to Mexico after graduating from middle school. This decision was taken by my mother because of the lack of money and the gang violence there is here. This is affecting my education in many ways because it is much easier for me to drop out up there because you have to pay every month and every test you take. Mom will have to work everyday day and night like she used to do before coming here. I’m loosing one year of school because of this decision that has been taken because of the lack of jobs and money there is.

    Gang violence is also affecting my community. The rank of deaths because of gang violence has been growing since 2001. Many teens are joining gangs so the lack of money isn’t an issue in their lives any more. They decide to join gangs to be able to protect themselves from all the outside issues not knowing that they are actually affecting their lives more and more everyday. These teens take the easiest paths not knowing that it’s kill or get killed out there. They loose their lives in the streets and they never knew what they wanted. They followed the wrong path and instead of being 6 feet above others they’re 6 feet underground.