What it’s like to be the first in my family to go to university

I am the first in my family to go to university. I am the youngest daughter of four, with two older sisters and a little brother. My parents are refugees from Laos. They came to the United States without knowing a single word of English. They came here to escape their warring country and create a better life for themselves.

They have been here in the US for about 40 years. They both graduated from a community college but never went on to a four year college. My sisters also only went to the community college in my hometown but didn’t continue, so basically there was a lot of pressure for me to continue on.

Growing up, my parents were really strict. Like your typical Asian parents, they wanted us to get straight As in school and grow up to be either a doctor or engineer. Upon coming to the University of Iowa, I was a pre-medicine major hoping to go through the pediatrics route. That vision was very short lived as my first semester of college came around I knew that it was not the path for me.

My parents instilled in us three important things, the first being family. They made it a priority to make time for family. My parents owned a restaurant in the mall of my hometown, and while that consumed most of our time, we still made time for our family. Almost every weekend we were at one of my parents’ siblings house to spend some quality time with cousins and grandparents. I had friends who only saw their extended family on holidays or birthdays, which I thought was the craziest and most bizarre thing ever. I could not imagine only seeing my extended family on holidays.

The second important thing is our culture. My dad is Taidam and my mom is Chinese. And if you’re thinking that Taidam and Thai (Thailand) are the same, they’re actually two different ethnic groups. Since a lot of people don’t know about the Taidam culture, it was and still is important for my family to keep our culture alive.

And lastly, the third most important thing is education. I grew up listening to my parents tell my siblings and I how hard it was for someone in Laos to get an education, especially a girl. Most girls in Laos have to help around the house, take care of their siblings and help provide for the family, which leaves no time for school. Not that they didn’t want to go to school, but it was almost hard for them to neglect their family duties.

Growing up, I always felt the pressure to go to a university and further my education. It was important for my parents to see my siblings and I to succeed and go beyond what they were given in the country of opportunity. Although my sisters didn’t go to a university like I did, they still got great jobs doing what they love. Samantha, the oldest, is finishing up her Dental Assisting program at the community college, and Elizabeth is a daycare teacher at a Catholic school.

My decision to go to the University of Iowa instead of a community college was for both myself and my parents. I needed the challenge of going someplace new and completely out of my comfort zone. I needed to also break the trend in my family of going to a community college and stopping there. For my parents, I wanted to make them proud and show them that coming to the U.S. was not a waste. I wanted to have them see at least one of their children take advantage of the opportunities they themselves never had.

The picture above is a picture from my high school graduation. My next picture in a cap and gown will be black and gold, and I will be graduating from the University of Iowa.