By Huy Nguyen
My family of three and I started out with really almost nothing. My father, who was a Vietnamese refugee, somehow managed to get my mother, sister, and me to the United States from Saigon in September 1999. It was difficult when we first arrived, trying to be a financially stable family. My parents struggled with jobs to support our family. The new language was a barrier for my parents to get better jobs. American culture was a complete mystery. In fact it was a culture shock!
Huy and his mother at age 1
Growing up in San Gabriel Valley without any supervision made it difficult to stay away from trouble. My parents were always at work and I was hardly ever supervised. When my parents came home from work, they had no time for me, which left me unmotivated about my school work. I was basically on my own growing up as I had very few family members in the U.S. I was expected to do my work and manage in school by myself. I felt as if no one understood my predicament.
During my elementary years I did not care about school. I was always the kid who was put in the corner for talking too much. I just wanted to have fun. My parents were always afraid come parent-teacher conference time. As parents from a developing country, they did whatever they could to help with my schoolwork, even with very little knowledge of what I was studying. They struggled for money to place me in an after-school program. Every single year I had to attend summer school.
In spite of that, my real trouble started in middle school. During my 7th grade year at Garvey Intermediate, I thought to myself, “It is time to take school seriously.” But being placed in remedial classes made it difficult to take school seriously since I was around a bunch of troublemakers. Slowly I slacked off and soon I did not care about school.
As soon as I hit 8th grade I began to be a disobedient child, staying out late, not telling my parents where I was going or what I was doing. I was very selfish. During that time my parents didn’t exist to me. It is tough being an immigrant teenager because my parents did not understand American customs. I felt that my parents did not understand me or what I was going through.
I enrolled at San Gabriel High School to avoid my previous friends. At San Gabriel I really wanted to change and make up for all my bad grades during middle school. I joined a sport and tried to participate in school events. I really wanted to do well, but I still slacked off.
Then I moved to Mark Keppel High School second semester because my house was closer to Mark Keppel and it was easier for my mom. Mark Keppel was a new beginning for me. For the first couple months I really focused.
But soon I got carried away and started hanging out with my previous friends. I started to pay less attention in school and started focusing on my social life. I let go of all my morals and started participating in bad activities. I started ditching school, getting into dumb fights, and looking for trouble.
Read the full article in Alhambra Source by Huy Nguyen.
