I like to tell people, "I began going to college when I was five years old."
It was my mother who was responsible for this: The taller than average, nose flaring Leo that always said, "No" to her traditional Chinese family and went off to America at age 20 with the no-name so-and-so that was my father, only to be married and with a child without ever considering going to college.
Perhaps it was the sixth year of scrubbing never-ending dishes in the kitchen of a misplaced Chinese Restaurant in the middle of Nebraska, or having to trek out to the supermarket in the biting cold when the restaurant ran out of broccoli when my mother had enough.
The decision of applying for undergrad would have been something my grandparents were relieved to hear about had her choice not been art school in a random little state called Rhode Island. Met with sneers and the incredulity of my family, her education was funded nevertheless, however she was still unprepared when my father decided to leave us shortly after.
I was mostly eating Oreos and Instant Ramen for my meals at the time, and our apartment in a basement that constantly flooded was surprisingly ideal. I spent the beginning of my years sitting at the back of graphic design lectures, doing group projects with her and her classmates, being babysat in dorm rooms while my mother had presentations and art crits, and sitting in the studio until 3am while my mother frantically put together her final project.
My mother had defied all laws of my family and culture with her decision of having me, and of deciding to base her life around art, a profession that surely could barely support her-self, let alone a child while simultaneously struggling to speak English.
I grew up being fueled by her strength and power, and inspired by "art" which took on a symbolic meaning for me. I took after her, and always excelled in art classes, whether they be at school or in classes I took outside of school.
Although I had other hobbies like playing the piano, winning the role as protagonists in school musicals, and triumphing a cappella competitions with the rest of my award winning group, never did my appreciation of beautiful things get left behind.
I still strive to see the unseen, and work my hardest to exceed mine and my mother's expectation. I go to school at Lang becuase my mother always told me that her greatest weakness was in writing, and that had she learned English better, her world would have had even more possibilites.
She told me to learn how to be clever, to write well to persuade people, and that art comes with intuition, and that first I must aquire cultural capital so I that can appreciate art to its fullest.