College Personal Statement
I submitted this essay as my personal statement for UC college applications and a shorter variant of the essay in my application to MIT. The ideas for the essay originated from a junior year English essay on someone within my personal circle of influence who has affected my life.
A voice announced the next name on the microphone: Chun Sing Chu. A man arose from his seat and walked proudly toward the end of the football field to receive his San Francisco State University diploma, graduating from college a second time. I glanced at my mother and noticed the tears in her eyes as she watched her baby brother, the sole member of her family with a college education, receive a document that would bring him one step closer to the American dream.
Immigrating from Hong Kong with only a suitcase of clothing and his diploma from Hong Kong Polytechnic Institute, my uncle had entered into corporate America at age twenty-eight searching for a sound, full-time job. Misled by the fallacy that his years of studies combined with his experience as a computer technician would procure a position at a computer company, his mind had instead been flooded with disillusionment as employer after employer shunned his un-American diploma from a little-known university. And yet, my uncle had somehow unsheathed a sense of determination to push himself onward to obtain an American diploma. Juggling an unfluent, second language and a part-time job to pay rent and tuition, he had managed to survive the endless droning of college teachers as his class covered the same material that he had covered at Hong Kong Poly.
Now that my uncle graduated magna cum laude from an American university, he could finally cease to be a spectator of American dreams. My uncle became the first individual in my close family to join an American conglomerate rather than a family business. Hired by the software corporation Nohau with an initial salary of over fifty thousand dollars, my uncle fulfilled his dream of economic success.
Despite the demands of his job, my uncle still set aside time every weekend to have dim sum with his sister's family. As we chewed on chicken feet and har gow (shrimp dumplings), my uncle would unveil tales about his workplace, and from these stories sprouted my fascination with his computer firm and with computer engineering. Each detail about a new software development, about the free massages that the company provided for its employees, and about the celebration of a coworker's birthday described a world unlike the run-down and graffiti-covered Chinatown where my parents worked.
When my uncle unexpectedly carried a computer into my house one day, the exhilaration that surged through my mind drowned out his explanation concerning how his company had discarded the obsolete machine. Whenever I telephoned him at night because either my printer had depleted its ink supply or because my computer had crashed, he did not hesitate to drive to my house and remedy the problem.
Alas, economic success and an occasional meal of dim sum do not fulfill every component of the American dream. At thirty-seven, my uncle remains unmarried and resides with his mother in a small apartment near Chinatown, doubtlessly consequences of an amalgam of causes, one of which is the Chinese culture's traditional stress on familial piety. To move elsewhere would necessitate either leaving his mother behind or taking her away from the familiar settings of a Chinese-speaking environment. My uncle's repulsive habit of smoking does not ameliorate the situation either; instead, the fumes that remain in his white Toyota only drive away any of the potential wives that the women in my family have endeavored to set up with him.
When I look into my uncle's face, I see the eyes of a man who identifies with my status as a first-generation immigrant, and whose idealism, though a little weary after his initial crucible, still provides an undying motivation to manage his everyday conflicts. I see a face whose smile hides a reserved personality and a smoker's breath. I see the heart of a man who, like me, juggles the cultural conflicts of living in two worlds as a Chinese American. My uncle might not be perfect, but whenever I struggle, the success that he has achieved confers upon me a living reminder that I too can overcome adversity and attain the American dream through his example of hard work and perseverance.