Personal Narrative: A Low Income Family

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I come from a low income family of three. I have one younger brother and a hardworking mom who came to this country to escape the violence back in Mexico. We’ve lived all over Austin except in the westside. Growing up it felt like the path I was supposed to take had been pre-determined by the ethnicity and the income level I was born into. For the most part as I grew up I did not fight the life assigned to me. That all changed one day in 7th grade when a new student transferred to Bedichek Middle School. This was unusual and disturbed our daily routines. Most of us had grown up in the same low income neighborhoods off of South First and William Cannon Streets, where you can buy aguas frescas, fruit and make friends with some nice homeless people with cute dogs in the less glorious and talked about part of South Austin. We had all known each other and knew we’d go to highschool together and have similar lives. Yet, on this day it felt like some of our lives would change. Not one to be left behind and excited to meet someone new, I quickly made friends with the stranger who gloated about a program called Breakthrough Austin. …show more content…
As he spoke I couldn’t stop laughing yet the concept drew me in. Curious, I attended Breakthroughs after school info session and decided to submit an application. The promise of helping students go to college intrigued me. Even though society expected me to end up like most low income students do, dropping out of high school and working a low paying job, something within me knew there could be more to my life than that. But, as a first generation student I had no idea how to change my situation let alone how to get to college, I simply knew I wanted to get there in order to help my family. Breakthrough seemed like the perfect middle

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