First draft.I don't know if the content is too sensitive or cynical for the Common?
Hope anyone can give me some suggestion and grammar correction.
Thank you in advance!
Staying in modern apartments, wearing fashionable clothes, going to so-called aristocrat school, I had never connected my lineage with the word 'migrant workers' until one day my grandmother referred to family history at dinner. Both my grandparents were first generation migrant workers to Shanghai and had experienced a tough life to settle here. I didn't fully understand what 'tough' really meant when I was only six years old. As a city girl, the past eleven years in Shanghai helped me understand the underlying meaning of 'tough' is the suffering from inequality, prejudice.
The Chinese definition of migrant worker is people in impoverished rural regions who search for work in the more prosperous coastal regions. Most of them are among twenty to fifty who used to be the main labor force in the countryside. To quest for a better life, they choose to separate from their children and parents, heading to a strange city to make a new living.
Even though the word 'migrant worker' sounds neutral, in fact it is a word filled with regionalism. To city dwellers, it is the synonym of 'country bumpkin'. Every time when I take the subway, I see people's disgusted facial expression when there are migrant workers standing near them. Migrant workers are simply labeled with dirty and shabby. Every time the Spring Festival is approaching, the problem of wage arrears for migrant rural workers can be seen everywhere on the newspaper. Migrant workers have been a vulnerable group in the city. Every time before the first day of new semester, some migrant workers sell their blood to earn the tuition of the local school. Migrant workers' poor wages can't afford the high expense in the city. The cases above are only the epitomes of inequality and prejudice between city people and migrant workers.
City people look upon these workers and regard them as people of lower social rank. But are we really better than they are? It's true that they are doing most of so-called servile work, earning most modest slavery and making a hard living, but without these workers, our city will not be able to work anymore. Just imagine! Construction sites will be forced to stop. Factories will pause in operation. Streets will be piled with garbage. We regard ourselves prevail over migrant workers, but ironically, we depend so badly on them that without these "bumpkins", we city dwellers' life will fall into extreme chaos. As the saying goes, 'it takes all kinds to make the world', every one of us functions as a part of the society. Without any of these parts, the society will cease developing, just as a machine with one spare taken away.
If everyone is equally important, then why should we, and how could we discriminate any other people? Why can't we treat them in a fair way regardless of their family background and ecdemic accent? Why can't we give more understand and respect to migrant workers who have dedicated themselves to the development of our city? While migrant workers suffered from the biases in the city, their family also bear the weight of separatness and worries.
Last year in October, I went to the countryside to do farming service. It's my first time to see the homeland of most migrant workers. While I enjoyed the fresh air and picturesque surrounding with chipmunks skipping in unison with the melody of nature, I touched the true side of the arduous life led by migrant workers' parents and children. I learnt the basic farming skills from an old farmer who stayed with his wife and grandson. All his sons and daughters had gone to work on the construction site of Shanghai and only came back at spring festival.
The first time I stepped into his house, I suddenly understood what did 'the utterly destitude' mean. I worked on the cornfield with him every day and lived at their house. The old farmer told me all the cornfields he owned could make 800 dollars annually if there was no terrible weather condition. Every day after work I prepared dinner with the old farmer's wife and chattered with her about daily chores. She carried the photo of his sons and daughters everywhere she went. She told me she really missed her children and worried about their life in this international city. Since all her sons and daughters haven't received any higher education due to the poor condition at home, they could only find some servile work in the city.
Her seven-year-old grandson always played with me at night. When one day I asked what his dream was, he said every word with firm that he dreamed of becoming a white collar in modern office building and bought a big house in Shanghai for his grandparents. His grandfather heard our conversation and chimed in that he would never let his grandson become a farmer again. All he wished was his grandson could get into a university in Shanghai and become a true Shanghainess. I mused when I heard his wish. The three generation all longed to become a Shanghainess, an identity that I born with. I understood his hope that his grandson would not be discriminated if he become a Shanghainess in the future.
That night, I had a sweet dream when sleeping in the timeworn bed at the old farmer's house. I had a dream that all of us will one day live in the city where people will not be judged by where they are from or how they are dressed but by the content of their character. I had a dream that my loving city will become the paradise where people can find equality and no discrimination. I had a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, the crooked places will be made straight, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together!
Too much about migrant workers and the family you stayed with. Nowhere near enough about you, the person the application officers want to learn about. So, cut material about the former to make room for more about the latter, then add more about you.
I agree. While the story is compelling, you must remember the purpose, which is to tell the admissions committee about yourself.
I like the beginning as well as your observations of migrant workers in the city. The essay does begin to drag when you get to the country. Prune that down to its essentials. The $800 is a good detail -- keep that. But get rid of some of the extras.
Also, your last line is just too high-flown for my tastes. Better to talk concretely about how you might contribute to the changes needed to make life less miserable for migrant workers.
