WA1
Eddie Arciga
H-English
Shannon Carter PhD
10 Sept. 2009
Self Sponsered
Literacy is something essential in the American culture. It is something that we all use and are exposed to everyday of our lives as Americans. The more literate you are in our society, the higher position you will achieve the majority of the time. People with literate parents and that grow up in a very literate environment are usually the ones who excel the most when it comes to school. The less fortunate that do not have the resources or the environment are pushed to their limits to find ways of learning and still in the end most of the time fall behind the others.
Born into a family where education was not known, where my father dropped out of grade school to work and my mother dropped high school to have me, I was always a mile behind all of my peers. Literacy was not something that was of much importance to my family throughout my early years. When I was three years old, my mom and I were brought over to the United States where we moved to Winnsboro, Texas, a little country town that does not have much. My dad worked on a dairy when we first arrived. Our home was small but it was all we could really manage to have at the time. My dad worked really early in the morning and at times I had to help my dad feed the baby calves. As I became a little older I began the Head Start program at the school district there where I was not so much of a smart kid. I was put in an ESL class for my ignorance of the English language. This is where literacy began to take a toll on me as a young four year old kid. As the year went on I continued to struggle with the concepts of English and my teachers were not too supportive so I did not really feel comfortable in the environment I was set in from the get go. As the year came to a close, my dad was offered a job at “Tammolly’s Mexican Restaurant.” My father was reluctant to accept this job as it would provide a better means of income for the family of four at the time which consisted of my father, my uncle, my mother, and me. This was great news to us all. I was particularly excited because I would be getting to go into totally new school district. This being because the restaurant my father was hired into was located in Sulphur Springs Texas, a town about half an hour from our previous establishment. As we made the transition, I saw right off the bat that I would like this new town a lot better than my previous town. As we drove around the town I could see the friendly environment that the town set. It was something I found quite pleasant as the old town did not set the same type of environment. I felt I was going to be a little more comfortable here then in Winnsboro.
As I began my march into the new schoo, I could feel that I was important because every teacher I saw would come up to me and ask my name and where I was from. My new teachers I distinctly remember were an older lady by the name Mrs. Godbolt and a younger looking Hispanic teacher that went by the name Alma. I never knew her last name as she became a close friend and a literacy sponsor for my first chapters in a life that was full of obstacles. Alma was also my ESL teacher where she made reading and learning the English language something I liked to do instead of something I dreaded to do everyday. She encouraged me to continue studying and learning cause she could see something that I couldn’t see. She always thought I was meant to be different and so I took her dream and for lack of a better phrase, I ran with it. So the years past and I found myself in first grade where the first day I went to ESL and they gave us a test. This test was to test your English, both speaking and understanding. I came out of the test very confident I had done well because I had felt I was well prepared for it from my previous years with an ESL teacher I had loved. I was not too far off, when the results came in, I had scored the highest on the test, not only that but I had scored high enough to not have to attend ESL any more. I sat in Mrs. Diamond’s room, my next sponsor, learning for the first time at the same pace as the rest of the students. I quickly took interest in the math and science parts of all our learning and Mrs. Diamond soon was finding me to sit me down and talk. She sat down and looked me in the eye and said “Eduardo, I think you may have something special in store for you down the road if you just keep trying your best in my class.” Once again, the words that were previously my encouragement were there again; maybe there was a better plan for me where I may make a difference. Maybe I was not meant to work like my father did, maybe I was different. These thoughts all ran through my head as I did not know what to make of the words that my teacher had spoken to me sitting in a classroom. I proceeded through the first and second grade, each year learning bits and pieces more until I found myself at a milestone. When in the third grade, I was elected to go to a special math and science after school group, where they only took two kids from every elementary school around. I found myself starting to achieve things that only a few years ago, my parents and even I did not think possible. So I continued to excel in my literacy and began to establish that I was not just another kid like my father, I had a choice and whatever that was going to be, I had total control of the outcome of my effort that I would input into whatever my choice may be.
So there it was, I continued to take interest in literacy as the years went by, not so much english class because that was probably my least of all classes, but math and science improved my understanding, my vocabulary and my reading comprehension. My teachers were all very supportive but I was still missing something, I was still empty inside. My eight grade year rolled around and I did not change anything until we were closing in on the end of the first semester of school. I had recently started to attend church at First Baptist Sulphur Springs and I was really convicted on many things in my life. I reached what I believe was my most important part of my life, accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. When accepting him, my youth minister served as my literacy sponsor as he encouraged me to read the bible more and more so I would learn more about Jesus. So I did just that, I read and read until it just became part of who I was, Ty Musser my literacy sponsor is still a big part of my literacy as I still continue to read the bible on a constant basis. As my middle school years ended, this was the start of all the bigger obstacles that came in my life.
As a member of the band, football, and other various sports my parents were not always too happy with the times we had to practice till late hours of the day. They began the questioning of why I was in both, why I couldn’t just pick one, and why I wanted to do so much knowing that my literacy skills were needed at home for reasons that would be beneficial to the family instead of personal gain. I was the translator for my family when it came to any kind of negotiation or business that would require that you need to know English, as my dad knew very little and my mother knew none. It did not help any that I had two younger siblings that made the income of the family insuficcient and therefore my father had to find outside ways to making an extra dollar or two just so he could keep us in school. Because I was an illegal immigrant, my dad cared more about my two siblings’s education then mine because he did not think I would ever go anywhere because I was not an American citizen. I struggled and wrestled with my father’s logic of school being worthless for me.I was not expected to go through school, on the other hand, my dad always encouraged dropping school so I could work like he did when he was a young teenager. My father always had it in his mind that I would grow up to be like him and school, as in his case, was not in my future. But with some encouragement to make something of myself, I was able to make an effort to continue through my barriers and make it through school even when the odds were against me.
My band instructor Charles McCauley and my head football coach Gregg Owens were constantly there to help me through all my struggles and they treated me like their own son. Gregg Owens once told me, “In order to achieve, YOU must first believe,” those words sunk in and I finally realized that they were all right, I could make something of literacy skills that I had gained if only I exerted myself to my fullest potential. I had made up my mind that I was going to finish high school and pursue education on the higher level which was college. Not only were my parents a barrier but the lack of money was something that always was a hard thing. My parents at times would not have money for certain events or camps that I wanted to go to for improvement of my own gain such as church camps to better my knowledge of the bible or football camps where my understanding of the game of football grew. But like always, God provided a sponsor for that as well. In my church there were many people that were ecstatic to know that I needed finincial help and they would pay for most of my stuff. Their sponsorship of money helped me buy the things I needed to further my knowledge. Finally it came time for graduation and even though my life may have not been set up to succeed, I was in the top 10 people of my graduating class of around 300. For the first time I could feel that much closer to the dream that I had chased for so long. I could taste the first step. I was ready to graduate. As I walked across the stage and looked in the bleachers, I saw my parents and for the first time I knew they finally believed in my dream. As I saw dropplets of water running down their brown complexions, I had my own water come down mine in happiness that I knew that deep down my dad was always proud of me and that he just did not want me to set my dreams to high to where I could not reach them.
Though many sponsors were involved in my life, it is safe to say that it does not matter what your circumstances are, if you are seeking to be someone, literacy is the first and most important thing you need to have a passion for. Without the passion for literacy of any kind, you will not exceed very far in any goal you may have. For all the sponsors that encouraged me on the way up, I am forever grateful of them but I also know that literacy is not something I will learn just once, I will have to continue to seek it out to learn more and with that I know there will be more sponsors on the way. But for now, here I am today, a college student at the Honors College of Texas A&M Universtiy- Commerce, where I am majoring in Biology (pre-med). Something that is not simple but if it is accomplished I know I will be that somebody I always dreamed of being.
