My Experience As An Immigrant

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Worlds away from the lone-star State, a prominent Texas barbeque restaurant in my native Vietnam attracted customers who coveted its delicious recipes and at-home service. “Texas Barbeque,” was far more than a restaurant, however, but a magical place that captured my heart and the very setting of my childhood. Years before, the thriving restaurant served as the home of my grandparents’, where I learned to walk, utter my first words, and romanticized about a career in law and policy. I emulated my grandfather, the Vice Minister of Healthcare in Vietnam, and envisioned following in his heroic footsteps. The majestic home was rewarded to my grandfather as an acknowledgement of his gallant efforts against the French imperialists, and subsequently,…show more content…
My disappointing performance during my sophomore year at BU came at a surprise to my father, who sacrificed in order to provide me with an education few people in my country received. No office space was set aside for me, only a place in factory along with the hundreds of blue-collar laborers who used good, old-fashioned hand great day in and day out. “You will start here and earn your way up,” my father ordered, and left me as i shook hands with many of my new peers. Nobody, besides the manager, was aware that my father owned the company, so I was viewed as just another worker. I worked with mixing and processing chemicals, a repetitive and rote role that was worlds away from the life I grew accustomed to in Boston. I rose at 7 am every day, even on some weekends, and left at 5 pm. The work was grueling, particularly because it involved no thought or intellectual output, and I soon discovered that my father assigned me to this role as punishment for my less-than-stellar performance at BU. Furthermore, after weeks on the job, I learned that my father would not simply award me with a good job because I was his son, particularly after a mediocre academic year in University. This continued performance would only earn a position as a factory worker, and nothing…show more content…
“Why?!,” came out of my mouth as both a question and exclamatory statement. My father advised that it was the last thing anybody wanted to do, and revealed that his company was not performing well in the spiraling economy. This was news to everybody, and it became clear that my father wanted to shield this information from my sisters and I because he did not want to distract us from our studies. Selling the beloved home, he and my grandmother shared, would be the only means he could pay for our college studies. It was a gut-wrenching realization, and a decision that tore at my father. I wished I could drop out of school and work in order to pay for the home, but also felt a strong sense of shame that I did not study and work as hard at

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