Undergraduate / "My Alien Family"- UC prompt feedback [7]

Topic Number 1: Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

My family's values of security and want for a better life for me in turn made them force what path they thought would give me the most security which to them equals happiness. Like all good families, they wanted me to learn from their mistakes and live a better life than they did, and they felt that the only way to do that was by joining the military or going to college. My family was always very close, which was a blessing and a curse. In one sense having a stable family made me value family, loyalty, responsibility, and religion, making easy for me to be morally correct. In another sense, there was a fine line between being close to me and sheltering me. Being so close to my family made me not need independence, it made me gullible, it made me easily influenced by their opinions and it made me miss out on life lessons that would've made me a stronger person. Although I love my family, I felt like I was stranded on an Island with a boat, but I could never leave the island because I was too scared to leave the island or even learn how to row a boat, I was stuck in a rut because I didn't know I had the choice to leave. Eventually as I grew older, that "boat" began to look more appealing to me because the world seemed to show me that I had more than one path to take, something my family couldn't give me.

My family values culture so much that they would rather be foreign "aliens" to everyone else, as long as they have each other. I slowly began developing an opinion of my own, and I slowly began to transform from an alien to an American. Even though I tried to stay as close to them as possible by learning their language and eating their food, it was not enough to close the gap between us as I grew older. Problems began to arise between the "aliens" and me, we couldn't relate to each other. When I wished for independence, they would argue with "If we were in the Philippines then. . ." or a story form their childhood that couldn't relate to my sisters and me. I would respond by saying "We aren't in the Philippines anymore! So that doesn't count!" They would be hurt because they couldn't relate tom me, and they had no way of dealing with American problems through Filipino means.

Eventually, the influence of my family had grown so heavy, that it made me try my hardest to avoid them altogether. I disliked going to see them or visiting them, I felt the only way to be the person I wanted to be was to cut my family off altogether and family problems had slowly made my family drift apart even further. However, in the last year my grandmother and cousin, who were like my second mother and brother to me, were hospitalized due to severe illnesses. My cousin suffered from a stroke and a coma which left him partially paralyzed and my grandmother was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer. I felt ashamed for the way I treated my family, I felt ashamed for my pride, and I felt ashamed that the only way I could realize this was if something threatened to take my family away. I became depressed and emotionally drained from trying to hide the fact that I was constantly crying from my family and from sucking up all the tears and putting on a false happy face during the numerous hospital visits. I felt unhappy with myself until I noticed how close my family once again, how much we still loved each other, which was a feeling I have forgotten for a long time.

Even though I wish that I could've been taught this lesson under less tragic circumstances, I have learned that no matter what my family will always be my family, and that no matter how hard I tried I would always be an "alien." I cannot change them and I find myself unable to fit into the perfect mold they shaped for me, but they still have a big influence on who I become. I realized that I have the ability to make my own dreams and aspirations like becoming a doctor, a teacher, or an artist, but I am also blessed to have such a close family to raise me to value love and respect for one another. So if your college would grant this Filipino-American admission, it would make me happy that I could pursue my own dream; a dream that I unknowingly built with my family.