I found essay samples very helpful in inspiring and guiding me throughout my college essay writing experience. I just wanted give back by contributing mine.


My Common App Main Essay:

My most vivid childhood memory is of a Thai refugee shelter, where I spent two nights at the age of five. I recall rain droplets creating infinite indentations in the sandy dirt road outside of our straw hut; I hear the dizzying sounds of children crying and old men snoring; I smell the odor of sweat and human filth. I remember suffering from thirst.

I had spent the earlier part of my childhood in Refugee Camp 979A in Vietnam. As we prepared to leave for Thailand, my father told me that we were going to the "Beautiful Country," yet our Thai experience was infinitely harsher than anything from 979A. In Vietnam I had had friends, a home, and I had never been thirsty. My mother gave me rainwater that she had collected in a plastic bottle, and assured me that this wasn't America; this was Thailand, just somewhere we had wait until our plane arrived to take us away. My family and I waited two nights for the arrival of our airplane, spent a night in transit in Japan, and finally arrived in Los Angeles. Amidst the intertwining threads of memory I clearly recall being greeted there by the most beautiful sunset: a symbol of the end of an old life and the beginning of a new one.

My family had dreamed of migrating out of Asia for generations. During World War II, both of my grandfathers left China for Cambodia; later, my Cambodian-born parents fled to Vietnam during Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. After the Vietnam War, our family waited in a Vietnamese refugee camp for ten years, praying for permission to immigrate to America. After years of nerve-wracking interviews, rejections, appeals, and endless waiting, our family finally gained approval to immigrate to the U.S.

Our arrival was not the end of our journey, however, but only the beginning. We soon realized that our dreams of easy American prosperity were an illusion. With my father cooking six days a week in a Chinese restaurant, and my mother working as a waitress, I had to assume many household responsibilities at a young age. Since my parents couldn't speak English, I wrote checks to pay our bills, filled out doctors' forms, translated parent-teacher meetings, filed immigration forms, and discussed telephone and utility bills with representatives who struggled to take a little girl seriously. Later, I juggled school with cashiering, waitressing, and paying bills at our family restaurant.

Over the years, I have matured to develop appreciation and pride about my challenging childhood. I am inspired by my parents' determination and their lifetime of overcoming hardships, and recognize any challenge I face as one that can be overcome. My parents' tenacity and perseverance has given me the opportunity to come to America, where I have developed an insatiable drive for wisdom and success. To carry on my family's dreams, I intend to make the most of the opportunities before me; attending college is the necessary next step in my story.

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