Self Determination

“Reach for the stars and be the best that I can be,” is a motto that I adopted when entering the gate to “excellence and integrity,” at Millikan High School.  I have every intention to keep forth this motto through my senior year, through college, and, more importantly, through life.  Life for me is full of dreams and ambitions, however, my parents envisioned my future differently.

             Plans for my future were very simple, according to my parents.  I was to hurry and get through high school and find a job to help support my family, including my eight siblings.  It had to do with being a Cambodian immigrant and trying to survive in a competitive society.  But I rejected that future in my sophomore year, which became a year of disillusion for my parents.  It was the year when I paved my path to a better educated way of life.  It was also the year I begin taking part in the Long Beach City College Upward Bound Program and a year in which I became more active in school and around my community.  My schedule was too complicated, and I was too involved with matters outside of the family.  They were especially unhappy with the fact that I spent a whole summer with Upward Bound, experiencing and gaining knowledge of how college life would be like.  Of course, to my parents, it was a waste of a summer; they would have rather that I worked in a governmental summer youth program and earn an income to help support the family.  It was not that they were not proud of my ambitions and achievements, but simply that they had a standard of what was appropriate and sufficient for my life; going to school, taking care of siblings, and working.  However their expectations lack the time and education in which I need in order to succeed in the future.

             Unfortunately, their theory of survival is a theory of the past and I had left that theory for a pure American education.  To my parents’ dismay, the security of their world is simply not enough for me.  I have drawn my own map to my destiny, a journey which they consider risky and unfamiliar.  Hence, I was moving away from the security my parents defined.  At school I was encouraged to become a thoughtful individual for whom life meant more than mere good grades and citizenship.  I was taught values that were, in a way, the opposite of those my parents had instilled in me.

             Truly it has been a trouble some task for me to make these two counteracting impelling forces compatible.  It would be simple enough to renounce all of my parents expectations.  However, the idea of rebelling is not a sacrifice that I want to incur.  My parents have always worked hard to make sure that I have a sense of security and that I understand how important our Cambodian heritage is.  And I do know that my ancestry is important.  But I realize that it must be immensely frustrating for my parents to understand the new customs, beliefs, and ideas in America.  I recognize that aside from their worries of my becoming “too American,” they have always carried the pain and hope that I will become the best that I can be.  And through the power of their love and hard work, my hopes and self confidence in attaining my goal is at the peaking, like the Everest mountain.