A Very Personal Statement
Photos from my early childhood in Japan, thanks to my momma.
Okay, I’m going through the tedious task of writing a personal statement for [redacted]. I have been working on this thing for weeks. I thought I had it, and then I realized that I wasn’t writing for [redacted], but for myself. I’ve gotten into the habit of journaling and blogging. I’m a horrible blogger, in the sense that I don’t think of my audience when I write these things. So, this could be an admittance that I’m narcissistic. Yikes.
But here I am, sharing my very personal statement. Why? Because I’m a narcissist, and I'm also procrastinating on writing my next draft of my (professional) personal statement. Jokes aside, I’m sharing, because I think this provides a historical background on who I am and why I am this way. Please be kind.
I speak about this a lot, but I have spent my entire life trying to fit in. I was born in Japan, while my parents were born and raised in Bangladesh. I moved to another foreign country (the United States) when I was five years old. I began the process of assimilation in a kindergarten classroom. I am a third-culture kid in every sense of the phrase. I don’t quite belong, wherever I am.
My parents moved us to the United States, in pursuit of the American dream. I’ve spent the last two decades in pursuit of the American bargain. I often think of this statement Hillary Clinton made in her 2015 campaign announcement, “If you do your part you ought to be able to get ahead. And when everybody does their part, America gets ahead too.” It seems too simple. Work hard, do your part, and you’ll get ahead.
And so, I embarked on this mission, except I didn’t know how to choose a college or what major would be a good fit for me. I didn’t understand the workings of financial aid, or taxes, for that matter. I figured it out along the way and tried to piece my future together. It turns out, that I picked the wrong major and career path at 17. It only took two years to realize that mistake and change my major to political science.
After I changed my major, everything fell into place. An elective course led me to Washington, D.C., where I learned about the issue of childhood hunger. I never experienced food insecurity as a child, but the same cannot be said for my parents.
There is a theme about immigrant identity writing, we commodify our pain and hardship for the white gaze. We can exploit our stories to garner sympathy, knowing that trauma sells - our collective trauma sells. But, I don’t have a right to sell you my (or my parents’) pain and you shouldn’t want to buy it.
Although this story is personal to me, it feels like any other immigrant story. We came to this country, thinking that we had come to the land of opportunity. It never occurred to me that some opportunities were going to be harder for me to achieve because of the color of my skin, my socioeconomic status, or my sex. It seems simple, but I really believe that if you work hard, you should get a fair chance to get ahead. I now spend my time envisioning what radical inclusion could look like, what it would mean for everyone to belong in the systems they’re in.
My pain and oppression don’t drive me, my dreams do.
