Cassandra Hsiao este o tânără de de 17 ani din Malaysia care a reușit să fie acceptată la toate cele opt universități din seria „Ivy League schools”, considerate instituții de învățământ de top în SUA și în lume.
Cassandra e plecat din țara sa de origine încă de când avea cinci ani, iar acum tânăra locuiește în Walnut, California. Datorită CV-ului, dar și eseului său, ea s-a pomenit cu oferte de la Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, Cornell și Penn, având acum cea mai plăcută „durere de cap” din viața ei, întrucât trebuie să decidă în care din instituțiile enumerate își va urma studiile începând cu anul 2021, scrie afterschool.my.
Tânără a impresionat cu scorul GPA de 4,67 și cu un rezultat SAT de 1 540. Pe lângă acestea, Cassandra este activă atât în cadrul diverselor activități desfășurate în școală, unde editează, spre exemplu, revista școlii, dar și în comunitatea în care locuiește prin proiectele în care se implică. De asemenea, tânăra a realizat o serie de interviuri de la festivaluri de film sau ecranizări, intervievându-l chiar și pe Chris Evans, actorul ce interpretează rolul principal în faimosul film „Captain America”.
Toate aceste realizări au fost completate de către eseul scris de tânără, care a reușit să impresioneze comisiile de admitere ale celor mai prestigioase universități. Pe lângă seria „Ivy League”, Cassandra a primit oferte și de la Stanford University, John Hopkins University, University of Southern California, Northwestern University, New York University, Amherst College și altele.
În acest eseu, tânăra vorbește despre modul în care a învățat limba engleză și toate greutățile înfruntate pe marginea acestui subiect, odată ce ea și familia ei s-au mutat în SUA. „Am respins ignoranța și am devenit o voce pentru persoanele fără adăpost, pentru refugiați, pentru cei ignorați”, spune ea în eseu, precizând că motivul pentru care și-a dorit mereu să posede o fluență a limbii engleze este accesul la libertatea de exprimare, prin care poate să fie voce și pentru cei care nu au cuvintele la ei.
Textul original al eseului:
In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation – in our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly – yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my mother from Malaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.
In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for “cashing out demons.” I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my pronunciations of hammock, ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except, success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.
Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn’t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else’s parents spoke with accents smarting of Ph.D.s and university teaching positions. So why couldn’t mine?
My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said, “This is where I came from,” spinning a tale with the English she had taught herself.
When my mother moved from her village to a town in Malaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school: English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class. When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said, “That’s enough.”
“Be like that class president,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and patiently mended my mother’s strands of language. “She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.”
We were both crying now. My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn’t laugh at her pronunciation. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.
As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my school’s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored. With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.
In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.
