Its 4:30 in the afternoon and I see my dad come in the front door he’s exhausted from back breaking hard day at work. That’s when my mind goes to work and tells me I have to do this. I was born in Chicago and moved to Oak Lawn in the sixth grade I was just the typical kid going to school every day to talk to friend and do schoolwork. My dad inspired me to be the hardworking person that I am today. And listening to my family’s complaints about how important it is for me to go to school and how hard it was for them to live without ever going to school or having any type of an education made me want to be the best that I can be.
Being first generation in the United States you always hear your other family members talk about bad memories and hard times they went through as children or when they were my age. I was at my uncle’s house one day for a party my cousins and I we were all sitting at the table outside on the patio having dinner. For most of the time I was just hurrying up to eat because my cousins and I were going to go somewhere. My uncle ended up not letting us use the car so we just sat there and listened to our other family members talk. They lectured us and told us how important it was for us to go to school. My grandpa started to talk and said that when he was younger he didn’t really care for school because he didn’t know what it was and said besides that I had to work from seven to seven everyday and I only made about twenty five cents a day. He said if you don’t want to have to get up every day and worry about how you’re going to pay for living costs go to school and get yourself a decent education and follow a career path that’s going to pay off and give you a decent living. Next my great grandma went on about how hard it was for her to provide for her children whether it was food, clothes, or spending time with them. They all told me the same thing so I went along with it and just said yes. That night we left and my brother was talking about Xbox and I was still thinking about what the family had talked about it. I had all the resources that they didn’t have I had no excuse. I told my self that I was going to live the life they never had and make them proud.

Since I could remember my dad has always been the person that was there to take care of me and get me out of any trouble I got into. He has also been the one that made me the hard working person I am today. One day me and my dad we were coming home from Georgia because we had gone to visit my uncle for the most part of the trip back home I was listening to music and sleeping while my dad would just drive. So we were in Tennessee when I woke up and my dad just started talking to me. He was telling told me a story about when he was my age I was twelve at the time. He switched the conversation and started telling me how I should act with other people he told me to be respectful to anyone older than me and that all I needed to be successful was to respect others and try my best at school every day. He told me you don’t want to end up with a full time job at a factory that’s not going to pay you good. He set himself as the example to me and said I want you to be better than me. That’s why I’m trying to give you all the opportunities and the life that I never even dreamed of having. Next he said, so take advantage of the resources you have and try and become anything you want to be. At the end he just said “remember not to ever take laugh at anybody who doesn’t have anything that you don’t have to be able to succeed, instead help them out if you can”. That’s why I’m the hard working person that I am today.
All in all, being inspired by my dad, and listening to my family’s sad memories and them saying they never went to school also inspired me. From that moment on I told myself that I had to work hard at my education because my future depended on it. I’ve learned that my education is the success in my future. Knowing that nobody in my family had the chance to a full education or not an education at all has made me grateful and even more determined to work to my full extent. What makes me different from others is that I believe that I have more support from my family because other people that do come from families with an education are probably not pushed or supported as much as I am.