Being born in the United States as a Hmong boy makes me Hmong American. I spent my entire childhood with an illiterate woman. While I was at school, she would be at home cooking and doing household chores. This woman was the person who raised and took care of me; this woman was my grandmother. My grandmother was the person who gave me the opportunities I have today. She left almost everything she had behind, family and possessions, and decided to immigrate to the United States during the Vietnam War.
At a young age I was obligated to go to school and enter educational system of the country. My grandmother, on the other hand, had no knowledge of the English language, so she took the opportunity to learn with me. When I was four years old, my grandmother and I attended a local community learning center, where I went to preschool and she learned the basics of English. Together, we became more educated and literate, knowing our ABC’s and 123’s.
After that year, I went into elementary school, where as my grandmother couldn’t follow, so she had to stay home. While I was learning more about the American culture and the English language, my grandmother was getting less educated and older. I felt a lot of sympathy for her and I wanted to share what I
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We still continued to talk and share information of life in the old days. By staying after school, I became more focused in clubs and in sports which helped me become more sociable than I was before. In my sophomore year, I met my English teacher who influenced me the most; she took me out of my comfort zone and challenged me. She encouraged me to not give up, to look at things differently than other people, and to contribute and not just observe. This helped me focus on one of my major goals, not to let my grandmother down, mainly after all the things she went through just for my