I was born in San Ignacio Town, Belize, a Third World filled with
contradictions: happiness, yet strife; charity, yet poverty; enchantment,
yet disenchanment. I am the fifth of seven children, and the first in my
family to attend college. My desire to acquire a formal education
came
from my father, a short, black man, who never finished high school, but
who nevertheless taught me that knowledge and education would free me from
the shackles of poverty. Through education and achievement, I strived to
repay the debt of gratitude owed to my parents, for the night shifts they
worked to pay for my schooling, and their admonishments of success in
school and faith in the Church.
I arrived in the United States in 1990, with dreams of continuing my
education, and was presented challenges of acculturation and different
customs, of course, but in ways wholly unexpected. In Belize, for
example,
I coped with a hearing disability that my town's doctor attempted to cure
with potions, and that had gradually forced me into a world of silence; in
the United States, the silence became accentuated by subtleties in
pronunciation, and only expensive hearing aids ultimately eased the
discomfort of my deaf ears.
In Belize, I never imagined that completing my education in the United
States would entail my juggling a full time school schedule with a forty
hour per week job; but that is precisely what has come to pass. Despite
the exhaustive nature of the path that I tread, I have learned that with
strength and resolve to persevere, that as my parents taught me, I can one
day even touch the stars.
And so I stand before the School of Engineering at the University of
California, Los Angeles, application and essay in hand, waiting for the
University's doors to open to me.
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