Fifteen Years in America Chapter 3 - The Dawn before My New Collegiate Life (Part 1)

This is a continuation of my family’s immigration story as told by my dad. In this chapter my dad goes back to college with teenagers! If you missed the previous posts please check out the series’ category here:

Fifteen Years in America

My success in Duke’s Lane strengthened my self esteem, but I knew that I couldn’t be a salesman at a souvenir shop forever. I was in America, and I was an alien. If I wanted to stay, I needed to go to school. In China I studied agricultural economics, and then changed my focus and studied economical law. My English skills were quite horrible, and law school in America required extremely high linguistic skills. I could not even understand the test to get into law school. So as I worked I tried my best to study English. I copied vocabulary words onto cards and tried my best to remember them. When I rode the bus or had extra time at work I would study vocabulary. After three months in America, I took the TOEFL and got a score of 540. This score was 10 points below the lowest requirement of the University of Hawaii’s economics department. Shortly after the test, I received a letter from the department informing that I was rejected. The letter also indicated that in addition to the TOEFL, the GRE was also required as of the spring semester of 1993.
When I read this letter, my heart sank to the floor. I thought that I have expended the effort of nine bulls and two tigers and I still didn’t qualify. Now I needed to study for the GRE, and I had no idea how long it would take for me to be able to get into graduate school. Actually, at that time I did qualify for Hawaii’s Pacific University, which is a private school that charged over $5000 per semester. There was no way I could afford the fee.

During this time, I took a day off from work. I helped Popo clean her yard and then fed the dozen or so red eared turtles in her backyard. Then I started to study. At this moment Popo’s third daughter Gloria came to visit. She is a highschool teacher and she takes turns with her siblings to take Popo out for strolls. Gloria is almost 50. She married a Japanese American many years ago, but he passed away more than ten years ago. She doesn’t have children, and so she visits quite often and is quite attentive to our family. Whenever she comes she would drive us to get groceries and sometimes she brought treats for my daughter.

This day, she saw that I was at home and asked about how I was doing. I told her that I was just rejected from UH, and I could not afford a private university. I was quite anxious and disheartened, but she told me to calm down, and told me that there is a community college named Kapi’olani Community College very close to the house, and it wouldn’t hurt for me to take a look.

I followed her directions and walked south on 16th Avenue for about ten minutes. Then I saw a beautiful campus surrounded by coconut trees and other tropical plants. When I walked into the campus I was pleasantly surprised. Due to a construction project that blocked the southern end of 16th Avenue, I didn’t see the campus when I first moved to Popo’s house. I didn’t know that there was such a beautiful place close to the house. I was mesmerized by the campus’ modern architecture, neatly landscaped gardens, and its grandiose backdrop of the ocean and Diamond Head. Nearly every building on the campus is named after a tropical plant native to Polynesia and Southeast Asia. For example, the cafeteria where I worked is named ‘Ohi’a, which is a small Hawaiian plant with bright red flowers. Another example is the art building, which is named after a very fragrant Hawaiian flower called Maile which is used in leis quite often. Basically, this college’s buildings and Hawaiian plants reflect the roots of Hawaiian culture.

If people say that Hawaii is paradise, then I would say that Kapi’olani Community College is like a small paradise inside paradise. When I first saw this beautiful campus, I fell deeply in love with the place.

To be continued! If you don’t want to miss a thing, please subscribe to the full feed!

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