Extended Tension Tensions

In my family, my brother, mother, and I have all been diagnosed with abnormal parathyroid or thyroid conditions that required surgery for us. My mother, the primary care-taker of our family, worked at a school cafeteria so that she may be able to provide for us at home after school hours as she was limited in her ability to find employment with a technical cooking degree that would still accommodate the family life. Our financial limitations were exacerbated by the diagnoses from the demands of surgery as the only recourse for our diagnoses. Fortunately, my mother's decision to work at a school cafeteria to ensure that we had adequate health insurance enabled us to afford the costly hospital bills from our treatments and more importantly allowed me and my siblings to have her parental support at home.
I found myself in trouble at school at times by my lack of cultural awareness. From being labeled as a bully for fighting back against others who attacked me to not quite understanding why I could not be angry at those who would attack me for no reason, I was often confused at the time by not knowing the wrong of my actions that seemed to be morally just to me. Facing adversity in the classroom in the form of peers who feared my culturally different background, I learned that I must educate other rather than succumb to a cycle of hate. From the initially negative experiences, I have learned to respectfully inquire about a person's individuality that I am not familiar with and ultimately teach others about my identity as