When I think back to who most influenced and inspired me to become the person I am today, the first person that comes to mind is my mother, Yun Chen.

In 2005, my mother and my father immigrated with little 5-year old me to the United States in hopes of giving me the opportunities towards a brighter future. My mother, despite having her whole life ahead of her, decided to leave everything behind to start over in a foreign country. At the time, my mother had just been promoted at the hospital she worked at and was a well-respected nurse with many years of experience under her belt. Upon coming to the United States, however, she was unable to practice as a nurse in New York with her Chinese nursing license despite her expertise in the field. As a result, my mother had to virtually start her nursing career again from scratch by earning a new license. At the time, my mother didn’t speak much English so having to relearn all the nursing material that she once knew like the back of her hand in a different language was extremely difficult for her. I remember coming home from school to see her hunched over the desk of our little one-room apartment with a thick NCLEX prep book laid out in front of her filled with countless post-it notes, highlights, and scribbled translations. Next to her would be a little Chinese-English dictionary, thoroughly worn out from having been flipped through countless times whenever my mother encountered words she didn’t understand. Besides taking a small break to make dinner, my mother would study tirelessly week after week, while simultaneously taking English lessons during the day and being pregnant with my younger sister, until the wee hours of the night. Even now, one of my most prominent memories as a child was falling asleep to the dim orange glow of our rusted table lamp and the faint sound of flipping pages.

Fast forward more than 15 years later, my mother is now a fully registered nurse working at a local nursing home where she’s worked for over 10 years now. She is what inspires me to face challenges with bravery and emerge from hardship stronger than before. My mother is one of the most compassionate and hardworking people I know. On days when she would come home exhausted from work, she would always take the time to listen to my worries about the littlest things. Even on her off-days, she would always be willing to cover a shift if someone called in sick, exclaiming “my patients need me!”I often compare her spirit to that of an ocean; with a heart equally vast and gentle as it is strong and unrestrained. Someday, I aspire to be someone just like her.