Built on Non-Conformity

One of the most powerful forces in my life that made me who I am is my desire to be unique. My culture around me always affected me, just like they affect every human being. But I was affected in the polar opposite of what the culture usually intended.

Most this desire was on my own accord. I didn't like conforming and I didn't like being told what to do. My mother was always worried about why I was such a strange child. I would rather be alone then join the Girl Scout Troop, cause I didn't want to do what everybody else was doing. She thought that I NEEDED to conform to my culture in order to survive. And so through out my life she tried convincing me to do my hair into cute styles, wearing cute outfits to school, wearing make up. And over and over again I would refuse. I had a strong identity and I didn't need the identity of the culture to be somebody, I was already me.

I would listen to everybody, like any other observant child. And learn what was the "normal" way of doing things, and then I would make sure that I would not do them. I would hear about "stupid teenagers" and how they are crazy and don't think because of peer pressure. And so when I grew up, I had a list of things I would NOT do just because I didn't want to be stereotypical. My teachers noticed this, and always commented saying

I was a lot more mature then my age.

It was the highest form of compliment.

Even though alot of this drive was part of my character, my dad influenced more and more of my identity as I grew up. I can still remember vividly a night when I was in fifth grade, riding in my dad's car as he took me up to work with him to finish up a lab experiement he was doing. He was explaining to me why Fraternities and Sororities were stupid. He explained that you were literally "buying your friends" and you had to do all this stupid stuff in order for them to accept you. I was appalled by the thought of having friends that were not actually friends because they didn't really care about who you were. This conversation had a lasting imprint on my life and my desisions because as I came to the University of Minnesota nothing disgusted me more then the Sororities and Fraternities, and when the members were trying to convert me?

Seriously?

Most of my desions and ideas always have to go through my "conformity filter" that decides whether or not it is popular and whether or not it is reasonable for me to do it.

I do not expose myself constantly to things that would argue me into conformity.

I do not own a television (I have not had one in my house since I was in 6th grade) I do not keep up with television series, celebrities, magazines, or popular culture.

I put a lot of effort into living and thinking in ways that I decide is natural and what I want, without people telling me what that is.

The Asian Work Ethic

I'd love to go into the fact of how the Hmong culture has molded me into who I am, but I think I'll just define things in a more concrete way to avoid exposing how much I actually dislike the Hmong society because of how conservative and patriarchal it is.

As lovely as it may sound, chores have a huge toll on my history. Today, I actually called and asked my mom how old I was when I started washing dishes and she told me I was four years old. (Can you believe that? Most four year olds are just starting to read....Sounds sort of sweat shop-ish, but I swear it wasn't that bad!) I remember pushing a metal folding chair towards the sink in order to be able to reach the faucet. Interestingly enough, I learned a lot of my common sense from washing dishes as well as many aspects of my perfectionist attitude when it comes to cleaning now because my mom would yell at me for oily spots that I missed or if I didn't wipe off the sink and toss the garbage that collected into the sink by the strainers.

Every year, my mom would complain about acre prices, yet we'd have a garden. My mom and I would always wake up at about 4AM, pack our lunch/dinner, hats, and hoes, and drive to the garden to weed it. I remember when the plants would start sprouting and I'd ask her to tell me what was/wasn't a weed. Gardening with my mom really defined my work ethic, which was "work more than your butt off until the end". I remember constantly thinking "I have to work harder so that I can get more done than mom, so she doesn't have to work as hard" and "I can't take a break yet, because mom hasn't". No matter how much I dreaded going to the garden, year after year, week after week, I continued to go for my mom's sake and for my own. Might I add that it was a godsend when my mom and my aunt pitched in to buy a tiller.

It really didn't hit that I was a hard worker until I was about 10 years old. Every Sunday was laundry day and usually I had my family with me, but for some reason [that I can't remember], my mom needed me to do the laundry by myself. You might be thinking it couldn't of been that bad, but doing laundry at the laundromat for a family of 8 equated to 1 hour of washing and approximately 3 hours of drying and folding. Well, I was at the end of my last load when my mom showed up and saw how far I had gotten; I could honestly say, I think she was pleasantly surprised, but even more-so when a random older (like grandma old) Hmong lady came up to her and told her how hard of a worker and how good of a daughter I was. They exchanged a couple words and I could hear my mom complimenting me to the lady and all I did inside was jump for joy. Slightly clique to of been jumping for joy from a parent's approval, but it happened and I was proud.

The history of my name has somehow come to define me even though there barely a story to tell. I honestly believe (although they will not admit) that my parents did not understand the difference between a boy and girl's American name and planned on calling me William when I was born. I like to think that somehow a doctor

convinced them to write an "N" instead of an "M" because I was a girl, but I'll never know. I went from Kindergarten to Third grade being called Willie, which was fine..... and then you got to the stage where kids started noticing that only guys were called Willie and started calling me out on it.... even though the name Willie was a popular girl's name from 1880-1960 (according to some baby names website). From those days until my high school days, I cursed my real name, threw it into a box and insisted that everyone call me "Lee" which was my Hmong name. I've definitely become more confident now by letting people use my real name and have stopped having mental breakdowns every time someone calls me William, except for that cursed associate at Marshalls that asks who William is and if she can see my ID and then apologizes and asks if I was named after my father every time I get helped by her (it has happened three times now!!). -_- I might just have to head smash her a bit.

Despite my name part, I believe this is a grand narrative of what the Asian work ethic is, but more specifically what the oldest daughter from a Southeast Asian culture is supposed to be like.... or something to that extent...

Memories of my Grandpa

My grandfather died about five years before I was born, and since I am one of the youngest cousins in my family, I am one of the few who never met him. However, he has still has had a significant impact on my life. My grandparents bought the land for our cabin in 1960, the year my mother was born. The lot was on a small lake in Northwest Minnesota. My mother grew up spending her summers at this cabin, and my brother and I did as well. It was the place where we learned about nature, where we played with our cousins, and where we came together as a family. It’s the place where my family spread my grandfather’s ashes when he died.

Every weekend of every summer while I was growing up, we would go up to the cabin, and my grandma would always tell us about our grandpa. I think it was her way of coping with him being gone. She wanted his influence to live on in her grandchildren. My grandpa was a ‘wizz kid’ as my grandma says, he was very smart and went through school very quickly. He was the youngest and brightest in his class at medical school, and then went off to the Korean War to be a doctor for the soldiers. He came back, worked at the Mayo Clinic, and met my grandma, a nurse, and they got married and had four kids. My grandpa had extremely high expectations of all his kids, and my mom and her brothers and sister all have memories that mostly consist of trying to life up to his high standards for how they should perform in school, what jobs they should get etc.

My parents are not that way with me at all, and I think that was a conscious decision on their part. They want me to succeed in school, but they have never tried to tell me what I am ‘expected’ to do with my life. However, I don’t think anyone thinks of my grandpa in a negative way. He helped all my aunts and uncles get though school, and are a big reason why they have all been so successful in their lives.

I think that because I have never known my grandpa but heard so many stories about him during summers at the cabin, I have wanted to know more about him, and shaped an image of what he was like in my mind. This made me think about what we have been talking about in class, how history can be told from different perspectives, and be somewhat ‘untruthful’ without someone actually intending to lie. The image I have in my head of my grandpa is basically the perfect heroic soldier, who became a super successful doctor, an amazing dad, and a perfect husband. This image I have acquired from my grandma, who has told me stories of how amazing grandpa was. Although some of this might be glamorized because my grandma misses him and is trying to glorify his legacy for her grandchildren, the stories have held on in my mind. For the rest of our lives, that is how my cousins and I will think of our grandpa. We will think of him as a great man, in much the same way as the history books portray George Washington, or others as great men.

History Until Now

I grew up with a mother and a father, as well as a sister. I had a happy childhood, where my mother nor my father were too strict or lenient with me. Most of the memories I have as a child are of me playing in our sand box, making castles and rivers. I also liked to watch the ants, I was mesmerized by them.Me any my sister always got along pretty well, and it's apparent she looks up to me. I remember when we were kids and she slid my heavy metal tonka trunk right into my knee. It started bleeding everywhere and I still have a scar from it. My mom always encouraged me to do what I felt was right and wanted to do. For the most part I wanted to live up to my parents expectations. I had a pretty tame childhood, the worst being a broken bone or two and some immature mischief at school. For most of my life, until I was a junior in high school, I wore glasses. This really made me not feel as confident as I should have been. It didn't help that I'm not very coordinated or good at sports. I also didn't really watch sports either, so I couldn't relate to many kids talking about football. My dad still played catch with me, but he mostly got me into golfing when I was younger. This greatly influenced me, as it taught me to be calm and think about thinks before I begin them. In high school I got good grades and had a small group of friends, but was never considered popular or outspoken in any way. It wasn't until senior year when I started to come out of my shell. I got contacts, so I was feeling a lot more confident which ultimately shaped how I feel about myself today. Then that summer my father died during an accident in the yard. He was using a weed puller when lightning hit the tree, went through the ground, into the weed puller then into him. He was revived on the scene and kept alive for a few weeks til they said it was hopeless and pulled the plug. This event changed my life more than anything in my childhood. It changed the way I see the world and feel about things. Now I feel like I'm obligated to be the person my dad wanted me to.

My childhook was and normal and quite happy. I remember the family vacations and time spent with my family. The things that shaped me the most have been my education, friends, and my father's passing.

My mom's grand narratives shaped my life...

The reason why my life turned out the way it did? That’s not a simple question, probably not even for the most ‘simple-life’ person because there’s so many things that contribute to who you are and why you live the way you do.

I suppose the first thing I should say is that my mom has a lot to do with the way I grew up and the way I live now. One could say that her life wasn’t the easiest but then I would be lying if I said that she had a ‘normal life’, the one where she graduated from high school and college, got married, had kids, and is still in love with the same guy. Oh and they live in a nice big house and are too-happy-to-be-true…come to think of it the ‘American Dream’ and the ‘Perfect life’ is a grand narrative that hardly exists anymore…

Anyway my mom’s mom took care of her but left her, her sister, and her brother alone to take care of themselves when my mom was 11. Apparently grandma didn’t want to take care of them anymore…but she came back at a later time, course, my mom had to grow up and take care of her sister and brother. Once things had settled down, my mom met my dad and started to have kids when she was 15 and didn’t stop til she was 19 maybe 20 years old. By the time she was my age (I’m 19 but soon to be 20) she had 4 kids and a couple years later had 1 more. But my youngest brother died so she only has us 4 now. My brother is the oldest at 20, then me at 19, then my sister at 18, then my youngest sister at 17, then my youngest brother if he were here would be 15 I think. Anyway, one thing I’m proud to say is that we all have the same dad, which not a lot of native american women can claim nowadays, which is sad. Then my dad left and we moved to New York where she raised us on a single income at my grandmas house. Story of a low-class indian huh?

I guess you could also say that grand narratives had shaped my life as well since my mom lived a stereotypical one, the story about colored women who’s men leave them as soon as they have kids and the mama’s are left to raise/carry-on with the babies the dad left behind, who work 2 jobs to make ends meet, and are perpetually poor no matter what. Also the story about women who live on the rez are destined to drop out of high school, have babies, end up being young grandmothers, work on the rez their whole life, who are alcoholics and drug addicts…my mom might be an alcoholic but she did the best she could in raising us better than she was so we didn’t have to live the grand narratives she had to live through.

All the time she was telling me and my brother and sisters to not have babies before we were ready, to get an education, to live life, and to get out ‘there’ and see the world, basically just do the stuff she never did because she had to stop her life when she had us. Sure our skin color and class had everything to do with our life, but I’m here right? I’m almost 20 years old and I don’t have any kids, I live on the rez, I graduated high school with honors (I was the salutatorian), and now I’m in college 1000 miles away from home but I feel pretty damn good. My sisters and brother don’t have kids either, neither do my auntie’s boys, and neither does my uncle’s girls.

My life is very different from my mom’s, it might fit into the few and far between ‘success’ stories of native americans. My whole view of the world is and can be seen through my mother’s eyes, I’m just now starting to see the world through my eyes. So here I am, not living the grand narrative about native american women…I’m not sure what to call that exactly…I live in Steamburg, NY, on the edge of the Seneca Nation of Indians Reservation. Onondowaga’ni’ah.

Rockin' the Suburbs

Life in the suburbs was everything I knew before I came to the U. I was born and raised in Bloomington, MN. I lived on the west side. West Bloomington is similar to a lot of the suburbs on television, like The Wonder Years. Kids in West Bloomington have two loving parents with three cats or dogs, and four television sets in their homes. They go to a nationally ranked Blue Ribbon high school and take AP classes and get good grades in them. They get in trouble, but only small amounts of trouble that blow over after a week or two. They’re involved in several extracurricular activities. They graduate high school and go on to a Minnesota college. The largest majority of kids from my high school come to the University of Minnesota.

Here I am, at the University of Minnesota, living the grand narrative of West Bloomington life.

I’ve never had any true adversity to face in my life, save for the minor fact of being a misunderstood Jew in a sea of Protestants. Even at that, I never felt truly alienated or disenfranchised. I was just a regular kid from a regular school and a regular family in the suburbs. This is obviously a generalization of suburban life, some kids had issues at my school, people did drugs, some people didn’t graduate, but all in all, there is an overarching trend that kids from my town get their lives together and are successful someday. Kids who don’t go to college after high school are rare in West Bloomington. I see over 50 of my former classmates around campus on a regular basis. Sometimes it reminds me of how formulaic my life thus far has been.

So far, I’ve chosen to follow the grand narrative set out for me. It’s a part of who I am. I think that part of the reason that so many people from my high school go to the University of Minnesota is because it’s an awesome school that is in a reasonable price range for the upper middle class. Maybe the reason that this is the grand narrative of my area is that it works out well for them. The students that come out of Jefferson High School, who then go to the University of Minnesota, generally go on to getting decent midlevel jobs at Minnesota companies. They get married and have families and generally chose to live in one of the suburbs of Minneapolis. Generally, they seem happy. They get to live close to where they grew up, where their families are, where their history is. Generally, I can say that this grand narrative is something that I look forward to maybe one day fulfilling. Honestly, there are much worse places I could end up.

Me and my brother

In China, because of the "one child policy" most family only have one child. But luckily in my family, we have two children, my brother and I. It is not because we broke the law to have two children, it is because my brother and I are twins. Since I have a twin brother that others don't have, this made my life very different from other kids in China.

The good things of having a twin brother is that I always have a company. We go to school together, we eat together, we do our homework together, etc. Basically we do lots of things together, no matter is good or bad. Because our parents always provide the same thing for us. Same school, same cloth, same toys etc. We are so close because we have everything in common. Also, we share our thought and ideas together. If something happened to one of us, the first person we will look for help is each other. We will ask each others' opinion, and try to solve the problem together. We are each other's best friend.

However, having a twin brother is not always good. We fight a lot, we argue a lot. I lost two tooth, because we fight. Also, we get compare to each other a lot! In school, teacher will compare our study. If I'm doing bad, then the teacher will say, how come you are older but you not better than your younger brother? If my brother is doing bad, then the teacher will say, look up to your brother! Our classmate also like to compare my brother and I. They usually compare us with who has better looking, who is nicer etc. Even though I very much hate these compartments, but they made us improve. Because we have always been reminded that we have a compotator.

My life will be very different if I don't have a twin brother. Having a twin brother taught me lots of things. It taught me to take more responsibility, it taught me how to take care of other people, and it taught me how to respect other people. In short, having a twin brother is like to have a best friend and a worst enemy together. Sometimes it brings you joy, but sometimes it brings you suffer.

We Are the Products

My parents have played perhaps the biggest role in who I am today. When I was little, my mom always let the independent side of me run and explore. She let me be a kid, without worry and let me learn from my surroundings. When my shy, quiet self came to visit, which was very often, she would nurture and encourage me to try new things and to not fear failure. She was and is always there and always understanding. Through my mother's kind actions toward others, and all of this, I have learned to be very accepting of differences and very open to different ideas and backgrounds. Her compassion shown every day has been instilled in me. Many of the things I believe and want to do with my life today seem to stem from this. Many clubs I have been in and loved deal with compassion towards others such as International Outreach Clubs and the like. I feel this influence also has a lot to do with why I was so interested in taking cultural studies. This curiousness about the world around me which was encouraged from a young age made me want to continue to learn about differences in the world and why we differ.

Having to travel back and forth between my parents also had an impact on who I am today. Many kids, including me, have to go back and forth between two parents' houses. This can be very hard for some. When I was little, I had the hardest time with this. I cried because I missed the other parent and when it was time to switch houses, I felt like my time was cut short. The differences in rules also made me really take into account the way I act as an individual and how different people can subcosciously change the way I act. When I was with my mom she would say, "quit talking like that you sound like your dad" and my dad would say, "that's something your mom would do" in his annoyed tone. This all made me really think about the way I come across when talking to people and I believe it may be a big contributing factor to why I seem to overanalyze many conversations.

My parents really shaped my world. What they didn't teach me, I learned from reactions evoked from my environment. These reactions led me to these ideas of 'right' vs 'wrong,' shaping the way I feel about the world today. Even the way in which I am writing these words on this page are a direct result of who I have 'learned' to become. We are truly products of our environments and I, as well as everyone else in this world demonstrate this everyday.

Sisterly Love

Ever since my sister and I were little girls we were always two polar opposites. We are the best of friends and get along better than ever but I was always looking for statistical knowledge and theorems and my sister was always adventuring to discover why humans and animals are the way they are. My sister used to pretend she was a dog for a period of time and crawl around on the ground and even drink out of the dog bowl. She also used to take eggs from our fridge and hide them under her bed in our room without telling anyone so that we wouldn't hurt the baby chicks that WOULD hatch someday out of those exact eggs. While my sister loved animals and the outdoors, I loved to build puzzles and read and learn new things in different ways to test my intelligence. I grew a love for math and chemistry, even joined the math team, while she grew a love for animals and sports. Looking back on when we were just kids, I can see almost exactly how we became who we are today. I was the un-athletic sister who wanted to study html and javascript and take tutorials on how to master photoshop, while Taylor, my little sis, was fishing with dad and shooting pucks in the garage. Today, I am studying Operations Management and Supply Chains while she is studying Biology to be a Cardiologist. Isn't it odd how playing with minnows and building puzzles could be such a strong determinant of who we would wanted to become when we grew up? This could even mean that the 'Grand Narrative' of a reptile loving, fish kissing child usually results in the doctors we know and respect today in the medical field or the puzzle building, rubix cube playing kid who loves to read their chemistry books results in the engineers and scientists we see today. What a small coincidence.

My Small School

From second grade to eighth grade I went to a small charter school where my graduating class was 24 people. The school was also environmentally-chartered where the school focused on sustainability, conservation and community service. I think going to this school shaped who I am because most people cannot say they have had the same experience. I also met people at this school that I am still friends with and teachers that greatly influenced who I am today. I think this school really shaped who I am because I spent 7 years there with the same people. I had such a small class I was able to get to know everyone really well.

Some of things I think I got from my school are acceptance and environmental responsibility, I also think that the people I became close with their shaped me to be who I am today. At my school acceptance was very important I think that has made me a very open-minded person. I also think that learning to be environmentally smart has shaped who I am because I think I more conscious of the impact I'm having on the environment.

Family

As much as I hate to admit it, my family has had a huge influence on the person I am today. I have pretty much become the adult they wanted me to become. My brother and I were both raised with the belief that happiness is important, but academic and career successes are pretty dang close. I succeeded, he did not.  My brother and I have never been close, or even on comfortable speaking terms. A lack of family connectedness caused me to develop close friendships to fill the gap. I now love meeting new people and making friends at unexpected times, and consider some of my oldest friends to be my family.

My parents were always strong believers in talking to little kids as if they could communicate on the same level as adults. They let me ramble on about whatever random tangents and responded with interest. I grew up hearing and telling long, exciting stories about average days in an average middle class family in Minnesota. Anything small event could be turned into a loud adventure for the whole family. Besides talking, my mother was adamant about me and my brother becoming good readers. I hated my first grade teacher (she bullied and ostracized me in school) so I hated reading. My mom found that completely unacceptable. She forced me day after day to painstakingly go through picture books until I began to read on my own. I hated it, fighting every day to be able to quit. Eventually, she won.

My parents’ encouragement caused me to develop a love for language that has stuck with me my whole life. I’m on my way to getting a Communication studies major with a possible minor in theater. I’ve been writing short stories since I was in grade school and I still read in my spare time. My environment growing up has shaped a lot of my personality and habits. I connect with people more easily because my family was not very close, which will be extremely important for my career, whatever it may be. I’m not sure if I would still be as interested in language and communication had I not been encouraged to speak so much as a child.