Khoury 1

Tamer Khoury

5/21/2019

English 117

Adversity

In life, almost everyone can admit they have been through great trauma. Adversity can take

many forms; periods of depression, grief, or, losing at something. Throughout my life, I've been

through many traumatic and distasteful events, but like everyone else, we can choose to

overcome it all. Everyone has their own ways of dealing with their troubles, as we read in class

about all these different books, It occurred to me that each character had different things to deal

with, but resolved the situation in their own specific ways. Everyone has to deal with adversity in

a certain stage of their life, but we deal with it differently as we have our own path.

Throughout my youth, until now there have been many troubles and things that needed dealing

with. From sports to relationships I have dealt with hardships. I grew up playing soccer since the

age of four and I continued playing till my senior year of high school, I was always known as a

really great player all throughout my career as a soccer player. Every year the team I played for

would go to this tournament in Davis, California: the Davis World Cup. My team most of the

time would progress to the higher ends of the tournament, but year in and year out we would get

so close to winning and lose. I played that tournament for seven years and losing every year

would really get on my nerves as a teen struggling with other things in life. I found it really hard

to cope with when we lost, but I resolve my problems with working out when I was frustrated.

This coping period really got me in shape and clear my mind and when my team went back for
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the final year we ended up winning the whole tournament after eight years. I was extremely

happy to finally deal with this adversity in my life and overcome it.

Like how I overcame my adversity, so did the characters I read about throughout this

semester. One of them really stuck out for me as they overcame their situation they were dealt

with since day one. This character really spoke to me from The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater:

Richard the African American teen that burned a non-binary teen’s skirt while they were

sleeping. Richard for me went through a lot as the accused guilty in the novel. He had a rough

childhood as his parents were divorced, he wasn’t good at school and he started to hang around

the wrong crowd. While in the 57 Bus his friends peer pressured him into burning their skirt, all

his life he lacked emotional support from his friends and family. “I am not a thug, gangster,

hoodlum, nor monster. I'm a young African American male who’s made a terrible mistake. Not

only did I hurt you but I hurt your family & friends and also my family & friends”(Slater, 185).

When he was finally incarcerated, he asked for forgiveness from the victim and their parents. He

began writing letters to them as a way to deal with what he had done and find a coping

mechanism.

Another character I enjoyed reading about was by David Small in his memoir Stitches, Small

goes through his childhood showing his life and adversities. Small was a little boy dealing with

his own inner fears, but his family and people around him were really his real problems. The

mom was a ruthless and heartless mother to her own son. She was never nice to Small and never

proud of anything small did. She would go out shopping most days and he would have to take

care of himself most days. His father wasn't around much, but that is only because he was a

doctor and was always at work. Small’s adversity wasn’t his harsh childhood but was rather
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discovered later on in his teenage years when he noticed he had a bump on his neck. When taken

to the hospital for a surgery, his parents told him everything would go smooth until he woke up

with a humongous stitch line down his throat. He asked for something from his mother when he

woke up, but she was mad and complained about money. The next day he awoke from another

procedure and he could no longer speak, his vocal cords were removed. When we find out why

he is told he had cancer, he was in shock that his own parents didn’t even tell him. Later in the

memoir Small states, “I gave you cancer”(Small 287). Small’s father later revealed that as a baby

they treated him with radiation which caused cancer. I like to think this was a resolution for

Small in finding out the truth of what happened to him.

Although most struggle with dealing with their adversities, some try to beat their issues

head-on. In Non-Spanish-Fluent Latinas: “Don’t Judge Us” by Tracy Lopez, she speaks on the

Latino community and culture in America. She explains that many Latino Americans have lost

their touch of heritage by not speaking Spanish due to lack of parental guidance or, by choice.

Lopez explains that many Latino Americans are embarrassed to speak their native language due

to lack of fluency, this includes famous Latino celebrities. Lopez states, “I am proud of my

Latino heritage and I have a desire to learn Spanish, but in the meantime, don’t judge me”(Lopez

185). During an interview of a famous Latino figure, this was said when their fluency was

questioned. This proves my point that you can work towards your adversity in your own time for

as long as it takes.

Adversity is something everyone in the world has to deal with some way or another, but it

doesn’t mean you have to succumb to it and let it take control of your life. You can choose

however you want to deal with your adversity in your own time.
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Works Cited:

Small, David. ​Stictches: A Memoir​. W.W. Norton & Company, 2010.

SLATER, DASHKA. 57 BUS: a True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed

Their Lives. FABER AND FABER, 2019.

Isaacs, Emily and Catherine Koehner. Intersections. McMillian, 2017.