What Education Means to Me

    Education is something that is very highly valued in my family. On my father’s side of the family, the older generations grew up down in the south. With all of them being Black in the south and growing up in poverty, it presented them with many challenges. In order to help pay the bills, the children, when of age and able, were expected to start working, no matter the size of the job. As a result, school was something that was put on the back burner. When my father’s parents finally migrated to the north for better opportunities for themselves and their family, they enforced the concept of going to school towards my father so that he wouldn’t have to face the hardships that they did when they didn’t have the education they deserved. My father and his siblings got to attend college, something his parents didn’t get the chance to do. When it came to my mother’s side of the family, her parents immigrated from Cuba to give her and my aunt a better life and so that my grandparents could have better jobs to send money to family back to their home country. They were unable to speak English when they arrived in the United States and that was due to the lack of education that they had access to back in Cuba because of their financial situation and the political climate of the country at the time. With my aunt and mom being able to go to school, they were able to learn English and help translate things such as legal documents or towards other people. With both sides of the family, education was seen almost as a privilege and blessing to be able to have. Because I am the second generation in my family to be able to go to school, I am expected to be able to succeed very highly because of said privilege. After all, it is not like I am facing the same struggles my older relatives did. At least, that is how they see it as.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Role Model

Image
       My earliest experiences of learning how to be literate always featured my grandfather, my biggest inspiration to become educated. Growing up, he never failed to amuse me with the stories of how he came to the United States and became the man he was now. He was an immigrant from 1960s Cuba where Fidel Castro just came into power. He didn’t want to be part of the political turmoil that was unraveling there, so he fled. When he arrived to the United States, he barely knew any english. However, after being embarrassed by his boss making fun of his lack of English skills, he bought himself an English to Spanish dictionary and learned English over night; that’s what he claims anyway. Still, that story inspired me as a child to further my education. Even with my frustration with my lisp, his encouragement helped me get through it.
Read more

Is Fast Food the New Tobacco?

Image
              In 1906, the Food and Drug Administration was established by the United States’ federal government (“A Brief History of the FDA,” n.d.). The purpose of this branch of the United States Department of Agriculture is to regulate the products that we consume, specifically food that we eat (Office of the Commissioner, 2022). They enforce inspections in the places that make the products that we consume and have even introduced the nutrition label one may see on the produce they buy. (Office of the Commissioner, 2022) (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, 2022). The whole premise of the nutrition label is to clearly tell the consumer what exactly they are putting into their bodies (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, 2022). This includes sugars, fats, sodium, and all the other factors that come with eating certain foods (Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, 2022). The Food and Drug Administration have made it essential that this is based on “scientifi
Read more

My Educational Setback

Image
  My biggest impact on my development would most definitely be my speech impediment. Ever since I was little, I have had a lisp. It gave me difficulty with my self confidence in reading since I was so sure I would mess up my words. If anyone had truly helped me with my self confidence, it would have been my father. He would help me sound out words whenever I had difficulty with them, so it gave me the courage I needed to speak freely.
Read more