Prompt: "Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
I was born and raised in southern California, specifically in the city of Fontana in the San Bernardino County. It is my home and I could not imagine growing up anywhere else. Most outsiders believe that since it is the biggest county in California it would have a large diversity with different cultures and traditions, that assumption would be wrong. It is not the most culturally diverse place in California that title would belong to places like Orange County or L.A. County. Here we were the only South Asian Muslim family that we knew of, that meant I was around a lot of people who did not really understand me and in order to fit in I had to intertwine my beliefs and traditions into the society I was born into.
School had always been awkward for me, starting all the way from elementary until high school. Whenever I would walk into a class for the first time I would see I a wide range of students. Some were black, some where white, others were Hispanic and then there was me. That one little brown kid sitting in the middle of the class, sticking out like a sore thumb. It took me longer than the other kids but I got over the racial differences and made some friends. Even after that I had challenges because of the cultural barriers between us, if I went to a birthday party I couldn't eat pepperoni because I cant eat pork, I couldn't go to the movies in the evening because that would be prayer time, and I would always be asked the same questions as to why I would fast one month for Ramadan. This was an annual thing and I never complained because I assumed this was how life was going to be for people like me.
As I soon learned, that theory was wrong. My family and I would attend many family gatherings for all sorts of reasons. Whenever we attended those festivities I always had a group of friends which whom I was very close to, mostly because our cultures were the same yet I never went to school with them because they lived so far away. After talking with them I realized our lives were very different, they lived in areas such as Orange County where south Asian people are not the minority, they all grew up and went to school together so they never had to deal with the pressure or challenges of trying to fit in. At first I was jealous that always had that close knit group but then I recognized that those kids are caught up so far into their own group that they are afraid or unwilling to branch out. That is what I was forced to do and I believe that it has made me a better person for doing so.
My world has influenced every aspect of my life and has made me the person I am today. Growing up in Fontana was always a challenge mostly because I never had a crutch, that one person that I could lean on and not have to worry about interacting with anyone else. However I do not regret my lifestyle I actually prefer it because it has made me a more multicultural person and with that introduced many other doors which I never knew existed.
Having some trouble as to how my surroundings affected my dreams because my dream has always been to become a pharmacist. can someone help me with that
