AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Hi, my name is Chanh. I was born on October 11, 1988. I have two siblings; an older sister and a younger brother. My home town is Cai Be, Tieng Giang. I grew up there for the first seven years of my life. Then my family moved to America, in search of a better future. My parents understood that better education was the key to that future for their children and they were willing to give up their comfortable life for it. With that by December of 1995 I was freezing my butt off in Daily City, California.
I went to school at Brisbane Elementary School for second grade. It was not really school per se, more like a babysitting. Toward the end of that year I managed to pick up two words, “The End”. I was pretty proud of that accomplishment. After second grade, my family moved to San Francisco. There I attended Sheridan Elementary School. Going to another school so soon was really hard to adapt to. Friends were hard to come by because of the language barriers. Academically I was doing horrible because I had no interest in learning. Fortunately, being young I unconsciously picked up the language as time went on. It was not until around fourth grade that I had picked up enough words to communicate about basic things and a bit of writing. By fifth grade I was doing extremely, so well that I was one of the kids chosen to speak at our graduation. Everything seemed to be going great, but the problem was that I was slowly losing my Vietnamese language and identity. At that age I took those things for granted because I had no purpose for them. I was in America and this was going to be my new home, so why bother? This was my justification to avoid learning Vietnamese, but in my defense at that age I did not want to learn anything period and Vietnamese was no exception.
From sixth to eighth grade, I would say my middle school experience was the typical American experience. Although during this time, I was exposed to prejudice and stereotype to some extent. I was matured enough to tell that I was not being judged by my characteristics anymore, but more based on how I look and my racial background. I remembered the label for me back then was a “chinaman”. Guess kids back then were not too good at geography. I wasn’t either. Then when it came to sports like basketball and football I was being overlooked because I was not Black, Latino, or Filipino. I was especially annoyed at being tossed around like a burden when it came to picking teams for those sports. I know I was not that good, but sure was better than the chubby Filipino kid! It was not until 8th grade that the stereotypes broke down, because by then all the kids knew each other pretty well.
High school was a different experience, it was fun actually. School was easy as pie, which was a good thing because school was nowhere near the top of my priority list. Those years were all about finding what “herd” you belong to, superficial relationships, and learning what’s “cool” and what’s not. I definitely did not want to miss out on these vital life lessons. On a serious note, I did find my fellow sheep-mates. They are an awesome group of friends, practically my second family. By having such a good external supporting network, I matured pretty well and preserved much of my sanity.
After those good years of high school, shitty college came around and I went through another “phase”. Almost all of my friends were split up to different schools and so I lost that daily companionship. I ended up at UC Davis. The first year of college I felt really lonely and depressed. On top of that I was feeling overwhelmed by the future, school, and life in general. I had no passion, motivation, or purpose. I was pretty much just a loser waiting for each day to ends. It was not until the mid of my sophomore year that a very special person to me revitalized and renew my spirit. She gave me something that I had always been lacking; a purpose. She told me the type of person she thought I was and was going to be. Regardless if it is true or not I made it my goal to become this person. With a sense of purpose I saw life though a tunnel vision view, and at the end of that tunnel was everything that I wanted to be. In order to accomplish my goal, I knew I had to change my life. I took school more seriously and almost instantaneously my academics got back on track, it was actually way better than it was ever was before. This was such a boost to my sense of self and confidence that it affected every aspect of my life. I took better care of myself and gain a new self-worth, learned to appreciate the important things in life, especially things that I took for granted before, and simply just knowing how much control I have over my life. With the same mentally, I made it through junior year pretty well. The best academic year of my college experience so far. Some time during this time, I came to the realization that college life sucks and I want something that really was worth my time. I came across the study abroad program and decided that Viet Nam was the best choice. Being my birthplace it holds the most meaning to me and so if I was going to experience anything, then it would have the most, if not strongest, effects on me. Plus, as an economic major I know I will be getting the most bang for by buck!