Writing Mentor Quote– Kaiulani Perez

“You are your own person and with whatever you choose to do, I will support you because I know life can be hard.” My dad said these words to me during my senior year of high school, when I was crying on my couch during college application season. I did not know what school to apply for or if I would even get in and even though I was not terrible at School. I felt a lot of pressure to pick a college to go to. My older sister is a straight, A+ valedictorian… I was not. My sister, being five years older than me, she had already graduated before I started senior year and was going into her first year of grad school. Throughout my life I always felt like I was getting compared to her and all the academic achievements she accomplished. When it was time to start applying to college I was scared, and I didn’t know how to compete with going to a school that I thought would be equivalent to my sister. This caused me to be stressed and overwhelmed while going throughout the college process.  

My dad was born and raised in Panama and came to the United States when he was around 10 years old. When he came to the US, he only spoke Spanish and had to learn English while being in school. He was bullied and made fun of for not knowing how to speak English, which caused him to resent school at an early age. When it came time for him to start high school, he took this as an opportunity to learn all the information that he could. He started college but could not finish it because his life got in the way but took all the education he got and turned it into success. He understood the overwhelming feeling that I was going through when I had to apply and start thinking about how the rest of my life was going to look. I told him I didn’t know how to compete with my sister and her academic achievements, and he reassured me that we are two different people, and he did not care where I went to school, but he knew that education was an important and powerful thing. He said, “life can be hard, but I was a 10-year-old only speaking Spanish in a middle school… it gets better”. All the words my dad says do stick with me because I know that growing up could not have been easy. Now that I am starting my first year of college, he continues to reassure me that he understands and supports me, and I use that to motivate me to keep trying my best.