"Don't be scared when the plane goes uphill," my father said. "You will have a great future in America." At age seven, my family and I immigrated from a third-world country of Nepal to the Lone Star State of Texas. The assimilation process has drastically shaped my identity and perspective on life.
Nepal is a unique country and I have been lucky to experience its glamour; however, it is not the United States. The seven-year-old me at the time I boarded that airplane had only seen the pictures of what America appeared to be: a city full of skyscrapers and rich businessmen. To my surprise, the United States was more than tall buildings and rich men. On the first month of my residency in Texas, I learned various differences amongst Americans and Nepalese citizens. I made friends who not only looked different from me but also had different personalities. In Nepal, I was accustomed to tight school uniforms and beatings from teachers, so when I did not experience that, I kept thinking about what my father had told me on the plane ride from Nepal. Was I really to have a great future destined for me?
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Moreover, I now had a realization about my family's actual financial status; as immigrants, my parents were not wealthy. The financial problem became especially evident to me as other students would often joke about my inexpensive clothing and defame it for being from the "Dollar Store." I am grateful to have experienced this hardship because, at that early age, it gave me the motivation to achieve success and ensure my parents never live the life of poverty. From that moment on, I had told myself I was going to achieve the great future that was destined for