My Experience In My Life

The area that she was living it was to expensive for them to afford the house. She could not afford with only one jobs. That is why she was looking for a second job. It was difficult to find a stable job. The jobs she got didn’t pay enough money.

She was left to fend for herself and got a job as a bartender and working at a pizza place to make ends meet. While delivering pizzas and bartending she began school at California State University in Northridge, but did not finish because she did not feel school was right for her. With her mom having her PhD in psychology and her dad being a lawyer, her news that she didn’t want to finish school did not go over well with them and they did not support her decision causing more issues between

After so many years of being subjected by other people, she finally took her life into her own hands and made an attempt to be happy.

She was born and raised in a poor home in Nicaragua. When she was young, a war broke out near the city she lived in and mentioned the difficulties her family has encountered throughout that time. Her father had taken part in this horrific war and her family, along with other families, faced great challenges. Because of the war, most of the homes and nearby stores had been destroyed or were being occupied by the soldiers as a place of refuge. By the time the war was finished the city was ruined the homes were falling apart as the bricks that made them up started to fall off one by one. So, In hopes for finding a safe and abundant home, her family moved to the United States. When she moved to Florida, she graduated High school and began attending a community college. Unfortunately, her family couldn’t afford for her to attend college for the full four years, so she was only able to attain her Associates degree in Accounting. This allowed her to have few job opportunities, nonetheless, with certain terms and conditions because of her

“My parents were very calm about it around me and my siblings, we just thought that that is how life was.” Her parents owned a potato farm so they had no issue trading them for clothes, shoes, and other goods. “We lived on one pair of shoes a year, which was ok because that’s all we needed. I never really thought it was a hard time until it was over, and we were so thankful for everything afterwards. It felt like we were livin large afterwards but we were just average.” She said she was a kid at the time

It was during those years that her world had seemed to be turned upside down. All her and her children's needs were the responsibility of her husband, now that he was out of the picture, she had to take on the role of sole provider for her family. "The toughest part was the feeling of hopelessness, "She starts. "Everything I knew, all the the things I had hoped for were gone. I had a feeling of embarrassment being back home, as if I had failed. Now my children were looking to me. I knew that something needed to be done. My parents were always the example of working hard, and that is when I began to take stock of my talents. Don't get me wrong, its not like I changed overnight, I had to do what I needed to do. I worked at least two to three jobs at a time to pay the bills and eventually saved up enough to move out of my parent's house... again," she smiles.

Racism had tainted her life from the very beginning. During her childhood she attended a one-room school for blacks only. She was only allowed to attend school for a short time due to the ailing health of

As a child she did poorly in school. “I have C’s and D’s in everything… The only B I had was in conduct, but I don’t remember being that stupid (Mirriam- Goldberg 5).” As a latina girl growing up on the southside of chicago, she knew she didn’t have much of a chance becoming something. “...they thought the best she could achieve in her life was to be married, have children, and run a cash register at a local supermarket (Mirriam- Goldberg 6).” She went on to prove them all wrong. Attending Loyola University in Chicago she studied english

When asked when it first hit her that she was on her own and was an adult. She said, “I first felt like an adult on the first day off college when my parents left. I felt like I had just been released into the wild and had to fight for myself. I learned a lot of life skills by myselfs. I was living by myself, defending for myself, cooking for myself, and just being alone”. This experience taught my mom to meet new people, teach herself life tricks, and helped down the road in

Her family had enough money to send her to school until the 8th grade; after that, they couldn’t afford it anymore. Her clothes were made from other shirts and pants being cut and sewed together. Her food was always potatoes and rice, nothing else; she was always searching for more things at dump yards. Some of her friends had it far worse than her, some didn’t even have a home. She never had any goals such as college, but it never stopped her from giving up.

Throughout her life she has dealt with many different struggles. Such as, “ I slept with my mother and father in one room and the other was for guests. We had no bathroom or kitchen

Marilyn Torres moved to the United States from Puerto Rico in 1962. She was a fish out of water. She didn’t know the language. Her teachers didn’t understand her. She didn’t want to be in school. Every day was an obstacle she had to overcome.

her parents had decided that it was time they moved. the neighborhood that was once very nice when her parents bought it had slowly deteriorated.

Mother: “She’s always getting into trouble. She’s frequently been arrested since she was 15. She’s done drugs and had multiple suicide attempts.”

“Tough times don’t last, tough people do” - Julian Edelman. Throughout life I have overcome obstacles that seemed almost impossible to conquer. Crying, fighting, searching for a way out of my life that has haunted me for eighteen years. I thought I would never live to see this age, but here I am today, standing tall and proud amongst others everyday. The lessons I have learned and experiences I have gone through have built my character, gave meaning to my visits back home, and have helped me find ways to keep myself busy with free time.