luvicemocha
Dec 29, 2011
Undergraduate / 'Mexican culture' - Yale/ Harvard supplement [15]
Promp: Write about something you haven't already in your applicataion
On a warm, sunny morning, at six AM to be exact, I found myself in dark clothing at a funeral home. I had not slept for twenty four hours and I felt all cried out. Of course, this assumption was proven wrong just minutes later. I felt trapped in a nightmare that would not end. Only twenty two hours earlier, I was on my way out to plan my last homecoming dance. Just before I left, the phone rang and everything changed. I picked up and heard one hysteric aunt screaming, "Do you know what happened to my dad?" over and over again. I tried to calm her down to find out what she meant but my mind jumped to the worst conclusion. In spite of this, I tried to stay positive until she said, "He died, my dad is death". I started calling my mom and told her; she could not believe she refused to believe it. I could not understand why she denied it; at that moment it just seemed like a fact. Yet later, when I found myself in front of the corpse, I couldn't believe it either. My cousins and I discussed how none of it seemed real. Everything was happening too fast, and it seem impossible to us, that the source of so many childhood memories, the person responsible for many happy times. The person took us to the movies, the beach, the arcade was gone. Just like that, without a warning just gone. Even though he got drunk all the time, even if he only wanted things his way, and even if he continually showed his disappointment on how Americanized my siblings and I were becoming, I still loved him.
My grandpa's, or how we used to call him "Tata", death was a tragic, yet it allowed me to discover a lot about myself. I discovered that one's identity can change in just mere seconds, one second I was a girl with four grandparents and the next I was a girl with only three. At the beginning of the summer, I assumed I was the oldest daughter of both of my parents but then I discover I was never the oldest. I found out that my dad had had a daughter before he married my mom whom I had have not yet met. I realize that my identity is defined by many things out of my control. Who I am can change in just seconds from new information I gather or from an unexpected event. Although there are things which are out of my control, there are still some which I can control. For example my ethnicity, a few years ago I was Mexican but know I am Mexican American. Although, I cannot control where I was born or where I live, I can control which parts of each culture define me. I can take the self discipline and dreams from the America culture, and combine this with the family focus from the Mexican culture. This task is not always easy and many times I find myself being more like one culture than the other depending on the situation. Like the days I'm so wrapped up in homework and do not even say hi to my parent. Yet, through the years I have come to master this better. I am very proud of what my culture has help me become.
Promp: Write about something you haven't already in your applicataion
On a warm, sunny morning, at six AM to be exact, I found myself in dark clothing at a funeral home. I had not slept for twenty four hours and I felt all cried out. Of course, this assumption was proven wrong just minutes later. I felt trapped in a nightmare that would not end. Only twenty two hours earlier, I was on my way out to plan my last homecoming dance. Just before I left, the phone rang and everything changed. I picked up and heard one hysteric aunt screaming, "Do you know what happened to my dad?" over and over again. I tried to calm her down to find out what she meant but my mind jumped to the worst conclusion. In spite of this, I tried to stay positive until she said, "He died, my dad is death". I started calling my mom and told her; she could not believe she refused to believe it. I could not understand why she denied it; at that moment it just seemed like a fact. Yet later, when I found myself in front of the corpse, I couldn't believe it either. My cousins and I discussed how none of it seemed real. Everything was happening too fast, and it seem impossible to us, that the source of so many childhood memories, the person responsible for many happy times. The person took us to the movies, the beach, the arcade was gone. Just like that, without a warning just gone. Even though he got drunk all the time, even if he only wanted things his way, and even if he continually showed his disappointment on how Americanized my siblings and I were becoming, I still loved him.
My grandpa's, or how we used to call him "Tata", death was a tragic, yet it allowed me to discover a lot about myself. I discovered that one's identity can change in just mere seconds, one second I was a girl with four grandparents and the next I was a girl with only three. At the beginning of the summer, I assumed I was the oldest daughter of both of my parents but then I discover I was never the oldest. I found out that my dad had had a daughter before he married my mom whom I had have not yet met. I realize that my identity is defined by many things out of my control. Who I am can change in just seconds from new information I gather or from an unexpected event. Although there are things which are out of my control, there are still some which I can control. For example my ethnicity, a few years ago I was Mexican but know I am Mexican American. Although, I cannot control where I was born or where I live, I can control which parts of each culture define me. I can take the self discipline and dreams from the America culture, and combine this with the family focus from the Mexican culture. This task is not always easy and many times I find myself being more like one culture than the other depending on the situation. Like the days I'm so wrapped up in homework and do not even say hi to my parent. Yet, through the years I have come to master this better. I am very proud of what my culture has help me become.
