Undergraduate / "adopted...attempted to connect to my roots" UC #2 [3]

So I have too many ideas for this prompt, but due to time constraints I chose this one...it feels a bit shallow to me, but what can I do at this point?

thanks for any help you can give!

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#2
Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

I was adopted as an infant, and was never able to meet my birth-mother before she passed away. The only hint of my birth-father that she admitted to my adoptive mother and her own aunt was that he had been half-Korean. My childhood and teenage years were filled with emotional struggles that were related to the identity crises that I was left with - who am I? The only connection I have at all is with my birth-mother, in that we both have an uncannily similar paranoia about the Wendy's Restaurant chain - neither of us trusts a square burger. But as she didn't tell my birth-father about me, I have no connection to him, other than one word - Korean.

At first, I thought to embrace my mixed background, in order to have some form of identity, but in a mass of young people, being different can be a very bad thing. After telling some of my elementary school classmates about my father, I began to experience racially motivated bullying. Having added stress during a time when I was already suffering emotionally due to family problems, was not something I could handle at that time, and so I chose to discard my Korean roots, and to conform in order to protect myself.

During my late teens, I found myself wanting to fill that empty space that I held in my heart, for my birth-father. I began to read about Korean culture, I would try to find Korean foods, and I fell in love with traditional and modern Korean music. It wasn't until I graduated high school that I realized that I was no longer surrounded by people who would judge me, and I was finally able to let go of that fear.

One casual way I attempted to connect to my roots was through music and language. I decided to learn popular Korean songs, and record videos of myself performing them, which I would then post on YouTube. As I worked to improve my pronunciation and musical skills, the number of viewers increased to the thousands. Native Korean speakers began to complement me more and more on my hard work, and obvious love of the language.

One night, I was sent a link to a video, and what I found filled me with joy. The video was a segment of the Korean E! Entertainment News StarQ10 program, which was discussing the wave of international influence that one Korean music group was having via the internet, which was reflected by the many YouTube cover performances . The very first cover performance clip that they showed shocked me - it was from my performance of their latest hit single. I couldn't believe that what had begun as a casual language love affair had blossomed into something that a professional news network saw as worthy of airing. That brief moment on Korean television gave me a feeling of connection with this land that created a part of who I am.

Undergraduate / "mixed-Asian ethnicity...career goal with afterschool enrichment programs" UC #1 [4]

I can't believe I forgot to finish my personal statements! Any advice at this point would be a blessing!

#1
What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field - such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities - and what you have gained from your involvement.

If I am accepted into the University of California, I would like to focus on Asian American Studies. This area of study is very important to me, for both personal and professional reasons. As a person of mixed-Korean heritage, I feel that my education in matters concerning Asian and Asian American issues has been disturbingly lacking, only being able to find a handful courses on the subjects at the community college level, and I wish to empower myself and to help empower youth that struggle with the same lack of information within the Asian American community. Professionally, I believe that this subject of study would aide my career goal of working with afterschool enrichment programs, catered towards at-risk youth in the Oakland community. I would like to use my Asian American Studies education to supplement the information that is available to youth of all ethnic backgrounds, through enrichment programs and workshops, because I believe that Asian Americans have contributed enough to the United States that they should be given more than a paragraph in a middle school textbook.

Being an adopted child with mixed-Asian ethnicity has been a challenge for me, ever since elementary school, when I was told that the birthfather I would never meet had been mixed-Korean. Unfortunately, the level of racism and insensitivity of my young classmates when I decided to share that information was unbearable, leading me to essentially "throw away" this part of my identity in an effort to protect myself, until I was several years into my college education. It was then that my discovery of Asian American Studies empowered me to embrace not only my Asian side, but also my European blood as well. My negative and positive experiences have helped me relate to and advise youth who are being bullied and feel disempowered, which is an asset in my volunteering work.

I have been volunteering with various programs, even before high school, and I have found that helping others is the one thing that can always bring me joy, no matter what life has thrown at me. Programs that are centered around children have been the most gratifying, including the year that I spent at the Oakland Ice Center, teaching disabled children the basics of Figure Skating, while helping them practice building interpersonal relationships with other children. I was also able to be a part of the first generation of the Oakland Children's Hospital's fund-raising youth volunteer group for their first year, which was a great learning experience. Currently, I am exceptionally proud to be a volunteer intern with the QUEST branch of OASES at Cleveland Elementary School, which is an afterschool enrichment program that utilizes workshops and tutoring to improve the educational experience for over 100 Oakland youth.

Through my volunteering experiences, I have gained a much needed sense of self-worth, and a desire to live life so that I can be a part of something that will positively impact lives. I have gained a wonderful social circle within the Oakland community, due to my interest in non-profit work, which has helped to build my contacts for the future, and also helped to enrich my immediate life with positive interpersonal relationships with people that nurture my new goals and do not judge my dark past as more than a learning experience needed to become the happy, motivated and proud person I am today.