PIQ #5: Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have

taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic

achievement?

The most significant challenge I have faced has been my unstable living situation. It was

an issue that affected me educationally and socially. Since I was young I was teased because of

my blind left eye, and at the age of eight, I left my life in South Central LA where I was raised

by my granny and great grandmother. I moved to Las Vegas with my younger sisters and mother.

After living there for a few months, we came back to Los Angeles. We lived with my great aunt

for a little while, but soon had to move into a homeless shelter. I figured it was because of age

and health issues.

At the homeless shelter things weren’t too bad; besides the bad living situation, and

teasing about my blind eye, and the one moment a woman rudely assumed I had pink eye, we

continued on. After living there for three months, my siblings and I were taken from our mother

by DCFS. I was separated from my sisters when we were put into foster homes. It was an

unnerving experience because they pulled us into a room for questioning and the next thing we

know we’re being separated.

During my time in foster care, I was faced with more challenges such as a language

barrier. Luckily, the girls that were already there were fluent in both English and Spanish. This

helped ease my experience and destroyed the language barrier. However, I was able to persevere

through this challenge until my aunt and uncle gained custody of my sisters and I.

Albeit our better living situation, it was still hard. However, within the years that I’ve

been in Carson I grew a lot and now excel in my studies. I still face many of the social
challenges I encountered as a young child, yet I’m continuing to cope. I now have a prosthetic

eye shell and play volleyball despite being half-blind. Overall, I continue to thrive despite the

odds being against me from the beginning. With help I became the strongly determined fighter I

am today.