America the Lazy
Emmanuel Amponsah
Dr. A. Graf
EL -1000-002
As I was on break at work in the back of the nurse station, I read head lined in an article of Newsday “AMERICAN STUDENTS LAPPED BY THE REST OF THE WORLD” followed with another line standing out almost more so than the head line “Americans Are LAZY”. In it was a picture referring to a class room of Korean children who were made to study on average 16hrs a day. The writer of stated how foreign countries valued education so much more than us as a whole, and how the first generation children of immigrants had a roughly 40% greater chance of not completing school because of the adopting in culture. I said to myself “Are Americans lazy?” I felt this couldn’t be true when as a collective whole people travel from all over the world to take part in all the resources America has to offer. Why come here to learn to become lazy? I don’t feel Americans are not lazy and neither are their children, people are just victim of their life experiences. My parents both came from Ghana with no one to help them in 1971 (my father) and 1974 (my mother). Most of my family actually all came from Ghana, Africa to America, so I guess I’m a first generation American. They were both sent to America by their parents in hope to obtain jobs and hopefully be able to bring their siblings to America as well so they could do the same. My parents were both very intelligent students who met in school back home but parted ways when my father left America. They both happened to meet by chance at a church in the Bronx. They soon married and started a family. I grew up in the Bronx as a very poor kid. My parents enforced the need to obtain an education through their own example. So with that the pressure of being something beneficial to society was heavily pushed upon me and my other siblings. I remember my mother frequently saying “If I were you guys I would be a doctor to make my mother proud”. I particularly remember as the middle child of five
Dr. A. Graf
EL -1000-002
As I was on break at work in the back of the nurse station, I read head lined in an article of Newsday “AMERICAN STUDENTS LAPPED BY THE REST OF THE WORLD” followed with another line standing out almost more so than the head line “Americans Are LAZY”. In it was a picture referring to a class room of Korean children who were made to study on average 16hrs a day. The writer of stated how foreign countries valued education so much more than us as a whole, and how the first generation children of immigrants had a roughly 40% greater chance of not completing school because of the adopting in culture. I said to myself “Are Americans lazy?” I felt this couldn’t be true when as a collective whole people travel from all over the world to take part in all the resources America has to offer. Why come here to learn to become lazy? I don’t feel Americans are not lazy and neither are their children, people are just victim of their life experiences. My parents both came from Ghana with no one to help them in 1971 (my father) and 1974 (my mother). Most of my family actually all came from Ghana, Africa to America, so I guess I’m a first generation American. They were both sent to America by their parents in hope to obtain jobs and hopefully be able to bring their siblings to America as well so they could do the same. My parents were both very intelligent students who met in school back home but parted ways when my father left America. They both happened to meet by chance at a church in the Bronx. They soon married and started a family. I grew up in the Bronx as a very poor kid. My parents enforced the need to obtain an education through their own example. So with that the pressure of being something beneficial to society was heavily pushed upon me and my other siblings. I remember my mother frequently saying “If I were you guys I would be a doctor to make my mother proud”. I particularly remember as the middle child of five