My Story

Where did you grow up?

I didn’t have a set place of where I grew up. In fact, I have moved 12 times throughout my life. I have lived in Colorado, New York, and Japan for a year. Most of these places I have lived in have left a lasting impact on my life, especially the places where I had school.
The first few places I have lived I don’t have much recollection of, but I know they meant a lot to my parents. Our first home was in Westminster. When we visit, we talk about how my mom used to take me on walks around the park in a stroller. We lived in a basement house that was small and dark, but thinking about it, I can imagine how homey it was and it warms my heart.
The next significant place we lived was in Japan, and by the time we moved there my brother was a baby and I was a toddler. We lived there for a year at my grandparents’ house. This is where I really developed Japanese as my second language. I went to preschool there and got to interact with a lot of other Japanese kids my age. To this day, even though I hardly use Japanese, I can still understand it.
After that year, we moved back to Colorado. For a year we lived in Westminster and I had kindergarten there. But then we moved to Boulder so that my dad could go to CU. We lived in family housing and I had a huge group of friends that lived in that neighborhood. We would always play in the park, and have huge birthday parties and sleepovers. School there was really fun and I had a lot of friends. But after 2nd grade we moved to New York.
We lived in Manhattan and lived in, once again, family housing. This time for Colombia since my father was attending there. My school there was very badly underfunded. It was predominantly full of students of lower class families. I was one of the only white kids in my classes and I am not even fully white. The other kids performed very poorly in all of their academics, so I was always the teachers’ pet. I had a few best friends but it was a very different experience than what I had ever had. Midway through 4th grade we moved to Staten Island.
After moving so much I grew to be very quiet. Kids at school even started thinking I couldn't talk. 4th grade was rough but I did have friends. I usually had two best friends. We moved midway through 5th grade to Westchester New York, which is more up North and is at the border of New York and Connecticut.
5th grade was also kind of rough. I made friends but they were all mostly in the other 5th grade class. I was known as the ‘shy girl’. I didn't feel like a part of the group since I wasn’t there for all of the fun things that happened at the beginning of the year. But 5th grade soon ended and I moved up with the class to the middle school. There I made new friends and my friend group dramatically increased. I finally felt like I was a part of a secure group. I liked where I was. But then we moved again.
I was mortified. We moved back to Colorado. This time to Lafayette and I had to go to Angevine Middle School. I hated it. Every bit of it. My past middle school was one of the best schools in the state and we were part of one of the richest areas of the country so it was very well kept. It felt like in every aspect of my life that I had downgraded and that I was just ripped out of my space. I had to make new friends once again, get adjusted to the new area, and figure out my life again. I was so angry. I somehow managed to survive the 7th grade, and by 8th grade I had found myself a stable friend group and I started rebuilding myself from the inside. By the end of the year I had found myself again and was moving up with all of my friends to Centaurus High School and I had made my parents promise not to move again till me and my brother graduate.
These 4 years at Centaurus I feel like I have found my home and where I belong. I have the most wonderful friends and a community I feel connected to. Living in Lafayette, I feel like I have done the most growing up and this feels like my place. This is where I have been looking for all along.