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*Susanna Kim I was born here in America but I moved to Taiwan with my mom when I was two or three years old because my dad was living there. My mom gave birth to my brother in Taiwan. She got pregnant there a few times. One time my mom was pregnant with twins. I’m not sure if she got an abortion or if she had a miscarriage. So then my mom got cancer but I am not positive as to how my mom developed that either. Soon, my mom became sick. She didn’t have a job and we didn’t live with our dad. I know my dad would have given her money to support us but she knew she was getting sick and that she couldn’t take care of my brother and me so she sent me to America to live with my grandma. A few months later she moved here with us as well. My mom passed away when I was eight and my dad stayed in Taiwan. He would call occasionally and send money sometimes but often he would go half a year without calling. In short, he wasn’t really in my life. When I lived with my grandma, it was with my two cousins and my brother and me. When we first moved here, my grandma and my grandpa were still alive as well but then my grandpa passed away just a couple months after I arrived. Then it was just my grandma, myself, my two cousins, my brother and my mom in the house. My mom passed away a few months after that. So it was my grandma, a single old lady who couldn’t speak English and couldn’t drive, taking care of four kids. She always put a lot of emphasis on my education because, as she reminded me, I didn’t have parents like other kids and I needed to set a future for myself because once I grow up, she wouldn’t be able to be there for me forever because she was so old. She knew that I needed to be self-reliant. I think that’s where most of my motivation comes from for trying to get good grades. My grandma was just very protective. She passed away when I was in eighth grade and my only relative in America was my uncle but he made it really clear that he didn’t care about my brother and me and that he wasn’t going to take us in. As luck would have it, my grandma collapsed from an artery burst. When the ambulance came, the neighbors were driving by. My neighbor stopped and stayed with us the entire time at the hospital and she decided to take us in. Ever since, I’ve been living with them. I guess the reason why I work so hard in school and why I try to push myself to the limit is to be the best that I can be in everything I do, because through all of my experience, I’ve learned that I need to be self-reliant and that no one else is going to take care of me. Even with the people that love you the most, sometimes it’s just not within their power to help. They can’t stay with you forever.
*Michael Gonzalez
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Last year when school was beginning I was at my uncle’s house with my father. It was only us three. I come from a family who often drinks. My uncle was really drunk and so was my father. My uncle had a gun in his drawer and he wanted more beer. He was drunk and just joking around but he threatened my dad and put the gun on his neck. We told him to stop but he just said, “Don’t worry, it is not loaded or anything.” As my father moved, the gun fired. And it hit me. It went through my shoulder and through my chest and through my other arm. I had been shot. I am very religious so I didn’t panic, I didn’t cry; nothing. There was blood gushing everywhere and it seemed to happen in slow motion. Anyway the first thing I did was get down on my knees and pray. Before this incident, I hadn’t talked to my father for two years. And now he was crying and trying to hug me and blood was everywhere. My uncle started panicking. They wanted to take me to the hospital. But I knew if I went to the hospital they would ask how it happened and we would have to say my uncle had a gun. And I thought about my cousins and they are just little kids. I couldn’t let them live without their father. So I said I wasn’t going to go. My uncle said he didn’t care what was going to happen. He just wanted me to be okay. But I resisted and said I wasn’t going. I went and took a shower and then I wrapped the wound in gauze. We decided to keep it a secret. But then, when I took the gauze off, it was bleeding terribly. So I had to tell my mom. My uncle went to get medicine, the kind doctors had to cure me. And thanks to God I healed. My wound didn’t get infected or anything. But it hurt horribly for a really long time. I couldn’t move my arm or anything. I [feel] blessed that I came out okay. Before all of this I didn’t care about anything. Freshman year I had 1.8 grade point average (GPA). After this I turned my life around. I take all honors classes and get straight A’s now. I had a 4.00 GPA last semester. I use this as a motivating factor. Right before I was shot I felt a push. It pushed me back. I don’t know what the push was but it saved my life.
*All of these Huskies have been given aliases for both their security and their privacy. Each of these first-person accounts was based on an interview conduc