He Left It All Behind For Us by Tram

He Left It All Behind For Us by Tram - October 2019 Scholarship Essay

I entered the American school system with just the understanding of "No" to disagree and "Yes" to agree. The day before heading into second grade, my dad, who was going with me to the first day of school in America, pulled me over. He told me a phrase, that until this day, I still remember every single word of. In his mother tongue of Vietnamese, he said, "You have to focus on school, that's all I can give you now. Mom and I left everything back in Vietnam. This is all we can give you." The best father figure I could ask for, my dad, became number one supporter in school.

My dad was born in 1976, when Vietnam was in the worst state as a nation after the Vietnam War. Majority of the population was poor and living in poverty more than ever. He went to school until high school and stopped. My dad self-taught himself everything throughout his school years and as he was growing up, he was a self innovation. Life at home wasn't the greatest. For example, before the school day, my dad would have to take the family’s cows to graze and bring them back home. Right after school ended, he would do the same and studied while the cows grazed until nightfall. He was never the top of his class because his parents didn’t finish school either and didn't have anyone to ask for help. Although my dad was under those circumstances, he always worked hard to learn and gain knowledge.

When I entered school in America, I knew that education was the only thing I could hold onto to give myself a brighter future. My family worked hard in Vietnam, but we weren’t successful and rich like other families. In 2010 when my family moved to America, we had something more precious than those rich families in Vietnam. We had an opportunity, I had an opportunity. I worked hard to learn English to translate for my parents and became fluent in four years. I left my life in Vietnam, took that precious opportunity of the American dream, and ran with it.

Now, I am currently ranked first of my class and is the junior class president. Those titles makes me proud, but they are not that important to me. Rather than spending so much time gazing at my successes, I learned that it is more important to spend more time with the people who have encouraged me and been the driving force for my successes. My dad, the man that I admire every single day, inspired me as a person and as a student at school. I wish to learn from him more and innovate myself the way he did.