NOTE TO READER: This is an "About Me" essay. It was nominated for an award for my communications class this year. Everything said in this paper is part of my life. Get to know me through this essay.
Introduction
When asked who I am, what is my response? I may give answers as to what kind of profession I am involved in, what kind of things I enjoy to do, what my favorite food is, where I come from, what I stand for, name, age, choices I’ve made in my life that made me who I am, and who I am striving to be. Unravel who I am based on my picture, and see how all those things that describe who I am, connect to the image.
The Beginning
My name is Laura Azahar, and I am a 19 year old college student at the University of Kentucky. I was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, and moved to the United Sates at the age of nine, about one month before my 10th birthday. My parents wanted a better life for my brother and I, which we were not going to achieve staying in such a small country like El Salvador, with its limited resources. I had never thought of another place as my home, I liked where I lived, the friends I had, and all the family that I adored were in El Salvador. Add to the whole equation that I did not spoke a word of English, although I had been going to an academy to learn English.
When we arrived in Houston, Texas, my dad was waiting for my mom, brother (Kevin), and me, at the gate, this was before 9/11 when non-passengers could await their loved ones by the gates. So we embarked on a journey of 22 hours to get to Louisville, KY. I had heard of this place because my mother had attended the University of Louisville, with a scholarship in the late 1980’s. I had never really imagined the place, so it was all a brand new to me. We ended up staying at the house of the daughter of my parents’ wedding god-parents, Amy. Amy had two kids, Josh who was three years older than me, and Ceara who was only six months younger than me. Ceara and I were attending the same grade level, but I was not going to go to the same school as her.
Role Models
I had to attend an elementary school in downtown, where they offered English as a Second Language (ESL), my school’s name was Lincoln Elementary. I had heard of President Lincoln, because he had been the president to “end” slavery, and for me he was an idol that I looked up to, he held a persona that I desire to have some day, a leader, and a man of vision to make a better world. Also he had been born in Kentucky, I felt sort of proud to live in the same state that the greatest president to ever hold office, so in other words Lincoln was very popular and put Kentucky in a map for me. In school I had a very nice English teacher, Mrs. Warner, and I got really good grades in school as soon as I learned the language, which was pretty quickly, because I was speaking and sort of writing it in just three months. To demonstrate how good of a student I was, I got Student of the Month for September, pretty much the first month of school. My parents were proud of that I even had my picture in the main hall at school. I liked school, although I was a very quiet girl, and timid, so therefore I had a few friends. As you would imagine I should be missing all my friends from El Salvador, but I wasn’t, I was missing my family, especially my bisabuela or great-grandmother, Mamaconcha.
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| Mamaconcha. Spring break 2009, El Salvador. |
Concepción Alfaro de Azahar, or Mamaconcha like everyone in our family calls her, is the person I love most in this world. Although, you’re not supposed to have favorites in families, I do, because I can’t deny that I have deep affection and admiration for my bisabuela. She is my father’s grandmother, and Mamaconcha and my great-grandfather, Juan Azahar, raised my father, his brother, and his sister, because their mother was never around, and my grandfather was too busy keeping up with multiple other families. Therefore, Mamaconcha and Juan raised them, with limited money resources, but with a firm hand, because they wanted their “kids” to succeed. Also my great-grandparents never had an education, but they did not need diplomas to know what the right way to raise their children is. My dad and my uncle have done very well for themselves, my aunt however, passed away in a car accident, but for her years of life she had a family, and was a happy, so their hard work made them who they are today, and who she was. As Mamaconcha took care of my dad, she took care of me, she babysat me when my parents were out working. We used to spend most of our time praying together. She is a big Catholic, she never misses her Sunday mass no matter how sick or weakly she is she attends church, or she listens to mass on the radio. By the age that I was speaking, about three or four, I knew all the prayers in the religion, I even knew how to recite a whole rosary. On this picture of her she doesn’t have on her rosary, but she wears it around her neck most of the time.
I did miss her a lot at first when we moved here, because she was the closest person to me from day one to age nine. My strongest wish is to be strong like her, and so devoted to something so faithfully like she is to Catholicism. She has had the strength to survive many stages of this world, living through two World Wars, that did not affect El Salvador as much, but a Civil War in the 1980’s, the change of technology, she has seen some of her kids grow older and become successful, as well as watched some fall down the stairs and corrupt their lives, by alcohol, or drugs. Being as experienced as her and to have the courage to survive everything that life has thrown at her is admirable. To be as old as she is and withstand illnesses, and still wake up every morning and thank God for all the good things in life, and pray for all those in need, to me is the most exceptional, extraordinary person that I hope to become one day, just waking up with the desire to live another day, and tell God how much I appreciate life. Most people never appreciate what they have, until it’s gone, but even then some still never say thank you to anyone for their triumphs, possessions, or even the people that love them. I think that’s another thing I learned from her at very early age, is to appreciate everything I have, and everyone in my life, as well as to care for others.
A Different World
The first time I got to go back to El Salvador was the summer of 2004, three years after moving to the U.S. It was sort of weird going back, because living in such a big country, going back to the smallest country of the America’s, was shocking in a way, because everything looked ten times smaller than what I had stored in my mind. I saw my bisabuela that year, and she was doing well, but then again, she is always doing well. Like the country, she looked smaller, shorter, she was about my height, 5’2”. The next time we went was four years later, and again after long periods of time your mind seems to not quite remember things how they truly are, however one that remained the same, was Mamaconcha. Of course her hearing had gone vanished a little, but the image of who she is remained the same. Less than a year later we went to El Salvador for my grand-parents, from my mother’s side, 50th wedding anniversary. April 2009 was when the picture was taken. We took Mamaconcha out to go around a nice town not too far away from Santa Ana, and we took her to the very nice restaurant where the picture was taken. We had just ordered our lunch, all five of us got different kinds of food only known in El Salvador. That’s my favorite kind of food, food from El Salvador, as well as my mother’s. We had a great time at the restaurant, because all the time that can be spend with this amazing woman, is time that means a lot to the four of us.
Who I was when came to the United States, was a person that was shy to meet new people, and a “goody goody,” which did not help much meeting people either, because they thought I was some sort of a teacher’s pet. There were kids in that school, however, that were from all different places of the world, like Bosnia, or other Latin American countries, even people from the Middle East. All those cultures put together people did not judge because you were different, or where you came from, because we were all the same in that we were different. Blending in culture wise, was easy, socially it was a different story. As I moved to a school without the ESL program, I saw more Caucasian people, and African-Americans, but mainly my school during 5th grade was mainly white, and that’s where some of my cultural features began to disappear. I enjoyed the “American Culture” more as I grew older and older, except for sports, because I still think soccer is the best sport around the world, not football or basketball or baseball. As time passed experiencing the “American Culture”, I began to dress like everyone else at school, adopted the pricey stores like Hollister and Abercrombie to look like the American kids in my school. The clothes I wore in El Salvador were either hand-me-downs, or clothes from unknown stores, no certain label or brand. The religion that my bisabuela, had preached to me had slowly gone away. I was like every other kid that went to church because they have to not because they wanted to. There was even that stage of life that I through, thinking that not caring about anything was the cool thing to do.
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| What my family would look like without my brother, Kevin. Spring break 2009, El Salvador. |
What Now?
As the college student I am now, I am appreciating my background and where I come from, I even try to go to church every Sunday now. I believe I am on the right track again to become the person I want to be, a person with leadership that cares about the world, and others. It is the inspiration of having Mamaconcha, in my mind more vividly now than ever, because I want to excel in what I do. I want to major in English, with minor in Spanish, my dream right now is to become an English teacher. My future dream is to work or volunteer for the United Nations, and go around the world to help those in need. Money is not the answer to being happy, and being successful at what I do, Mamaconcha, certainly did not need it, all I need is the positive consequences of my doings for a better world, like Lincoln envisioned.
Summary |
| My family as a whole. Without them I would not be who I am today. Spring break 2009, El Salvador. |
The picture does speak loudly to what I enjoy most in life, and how I got where I am now. It is the moment that my bisabuela, raised my father become who he is, the moment my parents met, the year my parents made the tough decision to leave everything behind for a shot at a better life, the scare of losing one of my best friends, to going back to El Salvador to be reminded where I come from, that makes me who I am, and pushes me to become who I want to be. No matter what I choose to do, I always have four incredible people to support me on whatever I choose to do. I choose to keep doing the right things, and whether that brings me easy or tough times. As Noel Weaver said, my choir director from high school: “Who you are is not defined by what happens to you in life, it’s what you choose to do with the things that happen that make you who you are.”
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