2002

Perhaps I should not be writing the following. It is quite easy for an “outsider” to believe that I am over dramatizing what it is that I have experienced in my life. I have only lived all of twenty-two years and I have kept these feelings and ideas to myself throughout that span. Yet I still feel compelled to tell what it is I feel. I ask not for sympathy or compassion…
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“Are you sure that child is yours?” said all of my dad’s friends and family. That was the famous question that my dad was asked at the time of my birth. Born on January 18th, 1981 at the Prashad Medical Hospital in Georgetown, Guyana, I weighed nine pounds, six ounces at twenty inches long. When I was born, my mom said that I was the fairest and whitest baby boy that she had ever seen in her entire life…
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Are you Puerto Rican or American? Hesitantly, I don’t know what to say when people ask me this question because I feel that I have to choose between the two ethnicities. Since I was born in the U.S., I am considered American. But, if I say I am American, I am asked about my origins. Thus, controversy evolves around inhabitants of Puerto Rico because they are considered Americans since Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States…
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Last night I had dinner with my cousins Nitza, Jenny and Lillian. Although we grew up together I always felt like an outsider… atleast that is how my uncle Manuel, Jenny’s father, always made me feel. I grew up thinking that I was his least favorite and I was probably right. I mean I am the daughter of a woman who became pregnant out of wedlock at the young age of nineteen…
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In writing these following pages, I know I am revealing a big secret, to my readers, of my life. It is a secret, which I have not even told my closest family members or friends. I used to just try and forget about my tragedies in my lifetime as they came along, but now I wish I had not. And instead, used them as inspiration rather than letting them bring me down…
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My life seems somewhat plain and simple compared to the entertainment stars we hear about every night on the news such as Jennifer Lopez, Halle Berry, and P. Diddy.  I have not experienced anything traumatic or spectacular in my life so far and I am not asking for sympathy.  I want to share an important issue that has been troubling me and probably many others as well…
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My life is somewhat ordinary compared to others such as Michael Jordan or Bill Gates.  I have not experienced anything greatly emotional or successful.  However, I am not here to talk about a life to be envied or pitied by anyone.  I only want to get off my chest something that has been troubling me for quite a while now…
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In writing this paper to my fellow friends and readers, I am explaining my life and beliefs that I have experienced and what might happen in the future.  I know that in explaining my story I am boiling in hot water and I feel the heat coming on to me because I’m telling the people of my surrounding area the truth that lies beneath all Americans…
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The following account recalls my personal encounters and experiences lived when coming to America.  Through this narrative I will describe the most pertinent instances that are floating in my mind.  It is hard for me to gather all of the events in my life and organize them into a logical sequence, as they somehow seem to have woven themselves together…
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1992 was the year where the U.S. armed forces attacked Iraq within Kuwaiti.     The Gulf War had started and some missiles reached Doha, Qatar; Qatar is a peninsula off Saudi Arabia’s eastern seaboard. My father knew that it was time to leave and find a more secure place to live.  He made the decision to come to the United States because he is a doctor and at the time there was a need for doctors in the U.S…
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