I was always kind of a school person - my parents were teachers, and my grandparents were immigrants, so their big thing was, 'Go to college, go to college, go to college.'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I went to school and made good grades and went to college. So I was afforded an opportunity through my parents' hard work that most people don't have.
Everyone I went to school with went to university, or took a year off and then went, and that was the norm - so I did the same thing.
I thought I was going to school to be other people, but really, what I learned was to be myself - accepting myself, my strengths and weaknesses.
My parents regarded school teachers as higher beings, as did many immigrants.
I was the daughter of an immigrant, raised to feel that I needed to get excellent, flawless grades and a full scholarship and a graduate degree and a good job - all the stepping stones to conventional success.
Unlike any other time in our history, we have to know that staying in school and getting an education is the most important thing you can do.
I think my parents wanted me to be whatever I wanted to be. But I do remember them - when I first moved out to L.A. - sending me applications to grad school for teaching.
I grew up in a really horrible school system, but my parents did not let that define how we function. They gave me more work at home from them than I ever got from school. To learn about the history of myself and my people, and that armors me.
I was never an A student. I never really liked going to school like many of my friends. There were just too many students and too competitive. We were sort of forced into studying to go to college. It was like if we didn't go to college, society looked at us as failures. We didn't know what to do with the situation.
My parents weren't stereotypical and pressuring me to go to college. They mentioned it a lot and constantly, but it wasn't a do or die thing, like, 'You have to do this or you're done.'