At an age when most young girls spend their days watching Sunday morning cartoons and playing with Barbie dolls, I was struggling with the emotional turmoil that was my family. Growing up in the slums of L.A., my living situation was abominable: I could never have invited my friends over to my cockroach-infested cupboards and sparse closets. My father was rarely around to support us, and the memories I do have of him are mostly repressed visions of nights filled with violence and horror. My mother disappeared most nights, slaving away to feed two growing children. I became a latchkey kid, forced to grow up early.

Ignoring reality, I played within the safety net of my imagination, desperately envisioning my dad’s return so that we could finally be one happy family living the American Dream. Yet being Korean-American made the stigma of poverty especially difficult to deal with. No other Korean I knew suffered from the same lower-class humiliation. I became painfully aware of my “difference,” but I could never confide in my comfortably affluent peers about the hellhole I lived in. The tides finally turned when Mom transferred me into a magnet program in the Valley; it was a far cry from the L.A. schools I had attended, and my hopes rose as much as my test scores. I perceived a sense of sincerity in my new counselors and teachers that had been sorely lacking at my old school. Although my new school was an hour-long bus commute away, I soon found myself thriving in its loving environment, which stood in stark contrast to the lack of support and guidance in my home life. I threw myself into the world of books, eventually sacrificing fluency in my native tongue in order to excel in my American school.

My good fortune continued when I was named to the Honor Society, won the school science fair, and eventually gained employment at the Korean American Coalition of L.A., a community advocacy organization that catered specifically to underprivileged Korean-Americans in the Downtown area — people just like me. I experienced firsthand the arduous task of earning my own money, and for the first time I realized that I could depend on no one but myself for my own success and happiness.

My father’s mistakes made clear to me what I did not want to do in my own life. I promised myself that I would not end up continuing the same miserable existence, trapped with no way out. Unlike my parents, who have only a high school education, I swore to myself that I would beat the odds and become a college graduate. Knowledge is my greatest goal. I know that a college education will finish the transformation of my world from one of hopelessness into one of abundance and opportunity.