This first piece is an essay I wrote for my AP English Writing and Composition class during my Junior year of high school. It’s one of my most memorable and cherished assignments. We were assigned it after reading a sample “definition essay” by a writer with a disability who defined herself as “crippled.” She didn’t use the term to put herself down, but rather as a realistic approach for self-empowerment. This is what I meant to do with the word “deprived.”
“Definition Essay” from AP English 3, September 27th,
2009:
I call myself deprived. I do not
care how harsh the word may seem, or about people’s reactions. It entitles them
to the truth. Some claim that I’m exaggerating or pretending by using this
term, but unfortunately, I’m not.
I have always been an
under-represented and underprivileged person, struggling to obtain the very
things I require for survival. I live without the luxuries of a car, the
internet, air conditioning, cable, a microwave, etc. Besides these, basic
necessities are had to come by. These sorts of things are taken for granted by
most others. I have to do without them. I differ from the norm because they
possess many items that I simply cannot afford. There are so many opportunities
that I have missed out on and so many things that I have never been exposed to
that regular people have. For instance, I’ve never been to a beach, aquarium,
or zoo in my entire life. This forces you to lose interest in such places
because you start to feel as if you’ll never receive the chance to go anywhere,
ever. Strangely, it sometimes affects me in a positive way because it makes me
more independent. But at what price?
Society refers to people like me as
“lower middle class.” But that is just a euphemism for the “working poor.” Or,
the “working poor” can just be a fancier phrase for “those who are immensely
poverty stricken.” What about a household where there isn’t any income at all?
Where everything is supplied for by the government and therefore limited?
That’s what I come from. Maybe I am blessed to not be in the same situation as
a homeless man or a starving child in Africa. Thank God for that. But does that
really make me any luckier? Not necessarily, because you cannot compare the
pain that hardships may inflict upon a person. I may not be in their places
exactly, but I am one step away, on the verge of falling into a similar
situation. I live with the constant fear of whether or not I’ll be going home
to a cooked meal or crumbs from leftovers. Whether or not I’ll be going to a
grocery store for food, or a local food bank. If one bill is too high or if the
rent goes up, I might just be on the street. What if the landlord decides to
sell the house? Then I’ll be homeless for sure. Hopefully, none of that will
happen. But I always have to be prepared for it if it does.
By stating that I am deprived, I do
not wish to be pitied, just considered. I want “normal” people to at least
acknowledge how far I’ve come and to be aware of how hard I’ve had to fight for
the many things I do have. I can’t even feel comfortable enough to ask someone
for something without feeling the guilt, shame, or embarrassment of being
deprived. I wouldn’t want one to think I was begging or insisting. Perhaps I’ve
been blessed, in a weird way. I make up for the lack of money for living
expenses by dedicating myself to the intelligence, talents, and skills I have.
Maybe being deprived now is a lesson I must learn so that it will aid me in
future experiences. But none the less, that doesn’t change what I’ve been
through or what I’m currently facing today. I’m still under-represented and
underprivileged teenager who’s not finished fighting. Don’t take me for granted.
Before I graduated from high
school in 2011, I applied to several colleges with hopes of getting into my
dream school, UCLA.
Personal Statement for UCLA, 2010:
I was derived from an emotionally abusive background,
where my mother was over-protective, paranoid, aggressive, unsupportive, and
verbally abusive. I lived with her along with my physically/verbally abusive
uncle and my ill, vulgar grandmother. They raised me in a three bedroom house
that was paid for by government housing and they each had either welfare or
SSI. I was mistreated often, I didn’t have much freedom or many privileges, and
I didn’t have enough money to afford necessities. (i.e. food, toiletries , the
internet, school supplies, etc.) My only source of transportation was a bike or
the option of walking. Because of this environment, it was hard for me to focus
on school work, and I was often depressed. At the age of 15, I grew very tired
of my life, so I contacted social services. After 3 months of investigating my
living conditions, they observed that it was unsuitable and removed me from the
home. I’ve been in foster care since.
Initially, I had no problem with the
placement. I enjoyed my new found freedom that allowed me to spend time with my
close relatives and friends, the encouragement and support I was given to
attend college and participate in extracurricular activities, the home cooked
meals served for dinner every evening, having access to the internet from home,
receiving a bus pass, and the money they provided me with that enabled me to finally
afford necessities. I had never had any of these things, and it was refreshing
to acquire them for the first time. However, I was overwhelmed with
appointments and meetings that I constantly had to attend with social workers,
counselors, and therapists. I had to juggle all of these along with my
homework, after school activities, chores, and social life. Though my life is
better now, I always have this busy schedule. It makes me tired and stressed
often, and I may not always be able to perform at my best, but I make an effort
none the less and I am still able to manage because I recognize that this is the
most convenient situation that I can currently be in.
In the future, I look forward to
enrolling into college and hopefully pursuing a career in the fields of
writing, music, or fashion. Music, for me, has always served as a pleasant
distraction from the hectic world I live in. Writing has always been the way
that I express and release my deepest emotions by turning them into poems,
songs, or stories. And I am a firm believer in the phrase “when you look good,
you feel good”, which is why I’m so adamant about fashion. I dream of becoming
a singer with my own fashion line and an author who has published five books,
including a novel, a book of short stories, my autobiography, and a collection
of poetry. I plan to emancipate from the foster care system and live by myself
or with a close friend. The reason for this is the strict structure and routine
of my foster home, which is secure, but sometimes uncomfortable for me. I feel
that I will be happier as soon as I’m on my own and independent. The hardships
I have faced as a child and throughout my life have caused me to be a very
strong, dedicated individual. Though they were difficult to overcome and still
are, I am thankful for them in a way, because without them I would not be as
unique or powerful as I am today. I am glad that I have survived through them
and that I now can call myself a fighter who has witnessed a tremendous amount
of conflicts in my life and has still been able to benefit from them, which is
a statement that few are qualified to make.
Now that I’m officially at UCLA,
the struggles aren’t necessarily over, but life is a trillion times better.
However, I never lose sight of what I’ve come from and still take time to
reflect exactly where that is:
Journal Write for Introduction to
Sociology Course, October 29th, 2013:
Journal #5: The Poverty Line and Class Associations; How they affect
our lives.
After reading about
Karl Marx last week, I was rather surprised at learning about his personal life
with his wife and children and how they were impoverished.[1] I guess it makes a lot
of sense, after looking at his work with Socialism and his distinctions of the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat, that he would come from a lower working class background,
hoping to see political change and economic equality. Furthermore, after
reading David Newman’s Sociology Chapter 10, I thought a lot about my own
socioeconomic background and current class standing.[2]
According to Newman,
“In 2011, the official poverty line for a family of four –two parents and two
children – was an annual income of $22, 113.” (160) Then, looking from this to
Paul Fussel’s nine levels of American society, Destitute encompasses the
working and non-working poor, or in other words, those potentially receiving
public assistance.[3]
It was refreshing to hear the professor’s class background today in class, and
after reading these works, I had a better understanding of my own. I grew up in
a house with my mother, grandmother, and uncle. We rented the house and
received assistance from Housing and Urban Development (HUD) or otherwise known
as section 8. My uncle and mother did not have formal jobs, but my mother
received welfare and food stamps for having me as well as care providing funds
for taking care of my grandmother while my grandma received Social Security and
my uncle received Disability. At this time, each of them were receiving around
$800 a month (this includes the food stamps and other non-cash benefits), which
put us around $28,800 a year, just six thousand above the poverty line. But as
I reached my early teens and my grandmother passed away, we no longer received
her Social Security check and my mother’s care providing funds cut off, which put
us at around $16,800 a year, way below the poverty line. So it’s quite clear
that we were pretty much settled at Destitute, and my families mental health
statuses and eccentric behaviors didn’t help put us any higher on the social
ladder. As far as I was concerned, we were pretty poor. We often went to thrift
stores to buy clothing, took advantages of sales, bargains, and the clearance
section at most local retailers and made trips to food banks, churches, and
homeless shelters for extra food. To the outside world, strangers, or friends
that may have entered my house on occasion, we probably seemed well to do with
our furnishings, cleanliness and abundance of records, cds, computers and
bicycles, but most of those were hand-me-downs from old friends, relatives,
neighbors, or collected from yard sales. We were barely making it by each
month.
At the age of 15, I
was then put into foster care, which again, is yet another lower class setting.
However, I felt like I had hit the jackpot! Receiving a clothing allowance of
$50 a month along with $20 for miscellaneous purchases was well over what I was
used to, though it was quite a step down for a couple of my foster siblings who
came from wealthier homes and families. After realizing these class positions I
was derived from, I was then intrigued to read this, “Only 3% of students in
elite U.S. universities come from the poorest quarter of the population, and
only 10% come from the poorest half.” (Newman, 163) As UCLA is currently ranked
one of the best colleges in the world, I think I can declare myself as one of
those students who falls within the three percentile. Though it saddens me that
social mobility is infrequent because of the inequalities in our socioeconomic
system and that only a measly 3% of the poorest students get to go to elite universities,
I’m also extremely relieved and proud to know that I am one of the few who has
managed to move a little higher up within the class levels compared to where I
have originally come from.
[1]
References: Fred C. Pampel, Sociological
Lives and Ideas: An Introduction to the Classical Theorists. Worth Publishers, 2006. Ch. 1, “The Sources of Human Misery: Karl
Marx and the Centrality of Social Class”
[3] Paul Fussell, Class, ch. 2,
"An Anatomy of the Classes" Touchstone, 1992.
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