Wotless. Worthless. Such is the saying that I have dreaded since the beginning of time. Anytime I have felt complacent about my school work, I remember this word: wotless. My parents are immigrants, and growing up all I ever heard was about the difficulty of not being able to continue their education. Their stories are not of complete joy and smiles everywhere, their stories are stories of struggle. And the truth is that being born in the United States I never had to experience such things. So this is my reason. I do it for my parents who because of certain circumstances were denied the opportunity to continue their education, to continue to grow as people. I do it for my cousins, aunts, uncles, all whom were denied this opportunity. Because if I were to not work my hardest, if I would to be complacent I would be letting all those people down. I would be wotless. I would be an ingrate to my ancestors who couldn’t read or write, who got beaten if they even tried. So yes, college was never a ‘choice’. It was my only option. In a world full of violence and corruption, college was my only option. Because as Mandela said “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”.
My mother has always told me that without an education I would not have a future, because no one will hire a beautiful dummy. As absurd as that may sound, she was absolutely right. We’re living in a time where you can’t even get a job at a fast food restaurant without a high school diploma. But my journey to fully understanding her was rather difficult. I didn’t always understand just how important education was.
My journey truly set sail during junior high school. When my parents decided to pack up and move back to Jamaica. At the time the junior high school that I was attending was a bit out of control, so my parents thought it was the best decision to move so that I