Free Custom «Korean Immigrant» Essay Paper

An individual’s perspectives, philosophies, actions, thoughts and ideas will eventually determine his or her culture and the norms of their society. These diverse cultures breed diverse social, political and economic shifts (Gannon, 2004). There is one question, which is usually very difficult to answer, when asked in any forum. It is always very difficult to describe one as an individual has got several attributes and personalities, which would otherwise make the question very cumbersome. Indeed, most individuals end up leaving or omitting some of the vital information that they would have otherwise given out. Personally, when faced with such questions, then, I would begin by asserting that I am Min Lee, a Korean by birth. This is coupled with dual citizenship of the United States.

I was born in the Korean Republic at a dairy farm in the town, called Buyeo. In this dairy farm, we had some few dairy cattle and my parents supplied the milk obtained from the cattle to a nearby dairy factory. It did provide a lot, but this was not enough to keep us going for the better part of our life. During this period, there were rumors that there were better jobs and living conditions in the US and, therefore, my parents decided to migrate to the United States (Sin, 1999). When we moved to the US, I was only six years old and was still in my first grade of school. While in the US, we settled in Troy area. My parents rented an apartment in this place.

 

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I engaged in various school activities. These included: swimming, field and track events and the cross country. Indeed, participating in the cross country made me famous since I managed to defeat a student with an Ethiopian origin during our inter schools competition. The Ethiopians are well known for their prowess in the long distance races, especially the cross country events. The fact that I managed to defeat this student from the land of the mighty marathon runners gave me lots of recognition. I received many commendations from the school authority since I did perform exemplary well in a number of rows.

When I left Korea, I had learnt some basic skills that I could use in personal defense. These were mandatory prerequisites in my home country as I had to learn some basic Karate skills. This made most students sort for my services, when it came to the issue of defending the students. I became a very famous individual in the school as most students sort my services to protect them from the rogues and bullies of the society (Sohn, 2006). In a positive manner, this fact made the school administration employ me as a life guard in the work study program. This program continued to the senior school, where the same followed suit. This early employment taught to understand the value of money in the society. With the employment, I managed to study all through the school since I could now pay my fees promptly.

With the encouragement I gained from this program, I managed to work hard and secured a place in the School of Nursing, where I took a nursing course under full scholarship due to my good reputation in the previous schools. After attaining my certificate, I secured a job at the Spectrum Health, which is a local hospital. Alongside my employment, I enrolled for a degree course at the St. Andrews University, where I studied a Medical Assistant course. This is a course unique to the American Medical field. I could use part of my salary to pay for my tuition fees.

Brief background information about my parents reveals that they were abject paupers who lived from hand to mouth. The parents hardly managed a professional qualification. This implies that they had very limited skills to afford management of the dairy farm they had in the Korean Republic. When they came to the US, they decided to start a dry cleaning business. This collapsed within a minute since they had no relevant skills to run the business. Indeed, they had very minimal if not any financial knowledge that they could use in the management and the operations of the firm. This prompted them to travel back to the Korean Republic to try and fulfill their life goals (Tsuya et al., 2004).

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This issue strengthened my value for education as I viewed their setback as a result of lack of proper education. This was enhanced by the fact that my home background culture also hastened the importance of education to an individual and the entire society. Indeed, we believed that education is the key to life. However, with all these positive developments, the intrigues and pain of missing my job, family, environment and friends still haunted me greatly.