Katelyn Vu

Hi, my name is Katelyn Vu and I'm a first year at MHTL. This narratives is going to be about my mom. My mom would always want the best for me and give me what she didn't have as child. So I'm very grateful to have a mother like her. :)

Life in Vietnam

My mom couldn't find any photo of her or her family In Vietnam, so I'm sorry about that. My mom was the youngest out of 9 siblings. My mom's life in Vietnam was very poor. Her family didn't have enough clothes, beds, toilets, and essential item to live a comfortable life.

Arriving to the U.S.

While on the journey to go the U.S., she stayed in the Philippines for 6 months to study english and learn about American's culture. Then she arrived to America in 1992 with her parents and two of the other younger siblings, the rest of her older siblings stayed behind till 8 years later.

When she set foot on the U.S., she was excited for a new life and freedom.

The Journey begins

Though my mom was excited, she still needed to provide for herself and her family. She worked part time jobs, such as working in a flea market on the weekend, and working in restaurants. She helped her parents pay rent and on top of that, she has school. To my surprised, she did really good in school, despite the language barriers, which was on her list of the hardest thing about living in America. She did really good that she got accepted to Berkeley, but sadly couldn't go because of how far it it. Instead she went to a community school, where she got a degree and now work as a Lab Assistant at Kaiser.

Love?

My parents meant through connections. My mom had a friend that just arrived to America and my dad's friend also knew that friend. So they meant up and guess my dad saw love that first sight.

They talked and talked till my dad asked my mom out, but got rejected. BUT. My dad asked again after another year and my mom accepted. They dated for 3 years and got married in 2000.

Four years later, she gave birth to me. But two years before that, she gave birth to my older brother. And some years later she gave birth to my two younger brothers. But we don't need to care about them.

Reflection

I'm just very happy and grateful that I got the chance to do this project. I learned a lot from my mom's past. Though it was awkward at first, I got more comfortable along the way. You see, my mom and I are very different. She likes to be clean, I like to be messy. I like to fool around, she likes to stay serious. And so on. Doing this project made me closer to her and helped me understand her better. And she also pushes me to do better in school because despite the language barrier, she worked very hard in school. I want to work hard like her too. She sacrifice so much of her time and mind to push her family up from the fog and to the light.

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