The Smart Man

Ho Chi Minh, an ordinary city known by every American for the role it played in the Vietnam War. You are probably thinking “Here we go again, another cliché immigrant essay,” and having to read these essays a million times, you most likely are familiar with the outline of how these stories play out. They usually start with a devastating beginning of how the applicant got ripped away from their county, then they tell you about the difficult process of getting to America, and end with how the move changed them in a significant way.

Not only are you responsible for reading all these repetitive essays but also determining whether they are extraordinary enough to get into the school of their dreams in 700 words or so? Well here goes nothing. 

             

Hi there. My name is Nhu Hoang. One day, my incredibly independent mother decided that our family should move to the United States because she sees a brighter future for me and my sister there. My 10 year old self could not care less about the “endless opportunities” that America could provide, but more about leaving behind my dad, my goldfish, and my cactus instead. Those were the things that gave me a sense of home and stability, and the thought of leaving everything that I knew and loved scares me till this day.

Fast forward to my first day of middle school, the day I realized that wearing all pink is not as cool here as it is in Vietnam, that if you are in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) you are considered not smart enough, and everyone will turn around and pierce through you with their judging eyes, every time the teacher takes attendance, if your name isn’t Ashley or Brigit.

I came home that day, face covered in tears, blaming my mother for anything and everything. She calmly sat me down on our flattened bean bag chair, said to me “A smart man once said that it is not the most intellectual nor the strongest that survives, it’s the one that is most adaptable to change” and hands me a few of those Barnes and Nobles vocabulary and grammar books. 

Those books and my ESOL class became my best friends for the next few months as I struggle less and less in school. It gets frustrating being behind no matter how many nights I stay up studying but the saying by the smart man, which I later figured out was Charles Darwin, kept me going. Math became easier after I learned how to say the numbers and operations, same goes for science then followed by other subjects as well. I was fluent within the next year.

“Hey mom,” I said into my phone. “You won’t believe what I got on my AP English essay. An A! Ms. Shipp also said she can’t believe that I wasn’t born here and I speak like a native speaker! Okay got to go. Love you.”

XiMuoi