Professor Jennifer Sears-Pigliucci
jsears@citytech.cuny.edu
Office: Namm Building, Room 503
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Ursula C. Schwerin Library
New York City College of Technology, C.U.N.Y
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Acknowledgments
This course is based on the following course(s):
Octavia Nicely’s essay “I want to be just that or even better” tells us a lot about Octavia’s mother’s life like that her father died when she was just nine years old, that she was one of six children, that she was born in, and lived most of her young life in Jamaica were she was a good student in school until she was banned from going to school at sixteen years old after she became pregnant. After Octavia’s mother was banned from going to school, she made the tough decision to leave baby Octavia with her grandmother and immigrate to the United States. She had a rough time at first, but in 2011 she was able to find a place of her own, and Octavia was able to immigrate to be with her. Octavia’s mother was eventually able to graduate from College, and become a registered nurse. Octavia says that when she was younger she didn’t value an education very much, but now does, and she gets a lot of her inspiration from her mother.
Two sentences that I liked reading were “She was raised in a 3rd world country where poverty was high as well as crime and violence. The school system was and still is pretty great.” I think the words used in these sentences paint you a good picture of the beginning of the essay’s setting.
One question that I have about the story is what was life in Jamaica like for Octavia before she immigrated to the United States to be with her mother?
1 Octavia story was about the life of her mother it talks about in very good details of the struggles her mother went through living in a third world country like Jamaican where property was very high and how she tried to support herself while trying to get an education.
2 I don’t have a section I liked all of this because it showed despite her mother going through all of these hardships she still kept going to better her life and the life of her children.
3 What kept your mother going after all of this? were there times where she wanted to give up?
with all honesty I kept my mother going. the thought of her having a child back home that she wants to be with gave her the strength and motivation to keep going each day.