We Are Interested in Learning More About You and the Context in Which You Have Grown Up

Emily Tran, “Bearing the Pizza”

We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations and accomplished your academic successes. Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors caused you to grow? (800 word limit) *

Since I was tall enough to peer over the counter at Little Caesar’s, I was the pizza bearer of my family. I had the “honor” of exchanging five dollars and forty cents for one pepperoni pizza and carrying it back to my family’s mid-sized sedan every pizza night. It was a task I once disliked – hated, even. It’s not as if my parents forced me to pay out of my back pocket; it was my father’s money I carried. I was simply embarrassed to be the only person in the establishment under four feet tall. The inquisitive gazes bore into me. A bell chime signaling my exit was my only relief. As we drove back home, the greasy pizza warming my lap, I asked my parents, “Why do I have to buy the pizza? I’m not a grown-up.” Their only answer was: “You will be.”

For the first four years of my life, I was a carefree child. I toddled around at home with my maternal grandparents while my parents, a waitress and an electronics technician, worked full-time. My grandparents babied me and my brother, telling us folktales of tigers, feeding us Halls lozenges as candy, and letting us drink evaporated cream (which was much sweeter than milk).

This halcyon time came to a halt when I was told I had to learn English for school. I realized then, for the first time, that the people outside of my grandparents’ home did not speak Vietnamese. I quickly learned how to read and write English from flashcards prepared by my mother and my grandmother; to me, it was just another game. Soon after, my parents bought a house of their own on the other side of town. I no longer saw my grandparents every day and grew worried that I would not be able to play anymore. At my new home, I was told to start doing chores like watering the garden or folding the laundry or washing the dishes (just the round, plastic ones). I was also assigned the task of teaching my 3-year-old brother how to count and read. I was relieved that I was still allowed to play, but it just wasn’t the same.

As I grew up in that house, I was given more and more assignments: from filling out school registration forms to filling out income tax returns, from preparing my brother’s meals every weekend to changing my new baby sister’s diapers every hour. In third grade, my parents specifically requested that I be given sixth grade math. In fourth, they strictly enforced my violin practicing (though we could never afford a tutor). I had personal objectives to accomplish, too – like learning to negotiate and build a bridge between the two clashing cultures I lived in; like learning to cope with loss when my uncle, my grandfather and my great grandmother died in two consecutive years. It was a task I learned like any other: by doing it. I learned how to comfort others. I learned that even adults cried. Sometimes, I envied my peers who watched football games while I watched my siblings. Eventually though, I accepted my tasks like a bird accepts the sky – they were just facts of life. I started to enjoy them and even assigned myself more missions. I picked up the viola, hog-hair paintbrushes and a job at a yogurt shop. I waltzed my way into ballroom dancing. I joined a plethora of after-school clubs even though my parents believed it would be better to focus on my studies and my grades. (I maintained them, anyway.) I felt prepared to take on the world.

In the midst of my tango with independence, I realized why it was crucial – not just for myself, but for my family – to be independent. I realized that my parents had suffered enough hardships, growing up during the Vietnam War, being unable to escape to America until their early twenties and having difficulty learning English and adjusting to American life. I swore that I wouldn’t be another one. I will alleviate my family’s troubles as much as I can. Today, I accept my responsibilities as the eldest child not as obligations or chores but as duties and missions. Today, I gladly bear the pizza. Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you. (500 word limit) *

Shortly after my eighth birthday, I found my grandfather collapsed on the floor. I thought he had only tripped and would be fine but the ambulances came and I grew worried. In the flurry of paramedics and sirens I could only watch, confused. He had a stroke that day. He stayed in the hospital for several long yet short weeks and I couldn’t visit him at all. When he returned, I was relieved and shocked. All his hair had fallen out and he could barely speak. Day by day, he became less mobile and more covered in tubes. I learned that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer in September and had until February to live. He died in October.

Worldwide, millions of families suffer the same fate and loved ones ask “Could this have been prevented?” I’m afraid that, for my grandfather, it was inevitable. He grew up in Vietnam where men smoked as if smoke was a side dish to their “cà phê sữa đá” (coffee with milk). Brothers, fathers, uncles, and neighbors stood by koi ponds after dinner, cigarettes in hand. It was just the norm. When my grandfather moved to the United States, nothing changed, even though Americans apparently saw smoking in a different light.

Since the 1970s, America’s acceptance of smoking plunged. Gradually, legislation restricted advertisements for tobacco companies. Cigarette packages were required to display a health warning; states enacted cigarette excise taxes, critically raising the price of smoking. Studies determined that smoking caused lung cancer, ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and stroke. Nevertheless, there are still 47 million smokers in the United States – many of whom are adolescents. I see and smell the evidence every day on the ground, at bus stops, on middle school campuses. Bank tellers, waiters, and stockbrokers stand by dumpsters after work, smoke swirling around them.

Part of the reason why so many continue to smoke is addiction. My father started smoking at the age of seventeen. By the time I was born, he was already trapped. He tried to quit after my brother was diagnosed with asthma, but he couldn’t. Even after my grandfather’s passing, he could not stop. When my sister was born, he struggled again and finally managed to quit smoking (though he admits he still craves a cigarette). I’m grateful that he stopped, but I still fear that one day, I might find my father collapsed like my grandfather.

If everything were easy, smoking would be eradicated immediately. Children would no longer be exposed to secondhand smoke. $96 billion that normally go to medical costs would be saved every year. The prevalence of cancer, heart disease, and stroke would decrease dramatically. Lives would be saved. It is not within my power to cure smoking but I hope that by studying Neuroscience, I can find a way to prevent smoking-related diseases by reversing the effects of addiction. I know the contributions I will make to addiction research would make my grandfather proud.

Describe an experience that you have had or a concept you have learned about that intellectually excites you. When answering this question, you may want to consider some of the following questions: Why does this topic excite you? How does it impact the way you or others experience the world? What questions do you continue to ponder about it?

The moment an infant opens his eyes, he sees color. In kindergarten, children play with the idea, swirling it between their stubby fingers until they get a squelchy brown. As a painter, I think about colors every day, looking for stimulating subjects and deciding on schemes and palettes. Even so, color is such a substantial part of human life that it is hard to see the world as simply Roy G Biv.

My first oil painting was inspired by an advertisement for an insurance company. It was a photo of a cove in the early evening where small, purple mountains peppered the horizon; warm, yellow sunlight danced around the violet shadows of the clouds; a silhouette of a bird skimmed the calm waters. Seeing this picture, so rich in color, gave me a sense of openness and relaxation. I knew I had to paint it. After two weeks of mixing ultramarine with permanent rose and dabbing just the right amount of medium yellow on the clouds, I felt I had finally captured that majestic, calming sensation. My art teacher agreed, giving me an enthusiastic pat on the back. Proud of my masterpiece, I showcased it to my family. My parents, like all parents, congratulated me with gleaming smiles, but never truly giving their opinions. My grandmother, however, was blunter. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It looks ominous and scary.” My jaw dropped. How could she say that when my painting was meant to soothe and relax? Had my art teacher lied to me? “The purple clouds are the scary part,” my grandmother pointed out. “Purple is a scary color.”

I realized that both my art teacher and my grandmother were telling the truth. Although they were seeing the same painting, they perceived different messages. In Western cultures, purple is associated with royalty and luxury because it came from a dye that colored the robes of Ancient Roman patricians. In Eastern cultures, however, purple is the color of bad news, often associated with death. “Hoa trái tim tan vỡ,” are purple flowers from Vietnam that resemble broken hearts.

These cultural differences in the perception of color cause me to wonder. Color is only a spectrum of electromagnetic waves which humans sense through photoreceptor cells. If people see the same colors, why do they assign them different connotations? Why is it that some cultures have two different words for blue while others have a phenomenon known as “grue,” where blue and green share the same word? Perhaps, for people, color is more of a cultural concept than a physical or a biological concept. If so, is it possible for people to understand each other better through understanding color? I believe that finding these answers will define the human experience like never before. Just thinking about solving the puzzle of color and culture gives me shivers. I think of it when I see dresses and flags and entrées and dinner plates; and every time, I think to myself, “What a colorful world.” Color is a product of visible light, a range of electromagnetic waves from 390 to 750 nanometers in length, which we perceive as a spectrum from red to blue/violet. When light hits objects, some of it is absorbed and some of it is reflected. Thus, what we see is only rejected light. We are able to sense this light through photoreceptor cells in our eyes called rods and cones. Rods detect the difference between light and shadow whereas cones differentiate color; together, they build the vivid, quotidian images we see.

If color is simply a cultivation of light waves hitting our eyes, why do we assign so much meaning to them? It’s perplexing to think that these light waves can be “happy” or “sad”; yet many cultures tie yellows and oranges with happiness and blues and purples with sadness. Strangely enough, color can also represent age. In Vietnam, it would be inappropriate for my grandmother to wear pink because, like other pastels, pink is a “young” color, worn only by unmarried women up to their thirties. Dark browns and greens would be more suitable for my grandmother. Perhaps pastels are to young, fertile women as vibrant colors are to robust male birds. Color might be a mode for attracting mates.

Most likely, we value colors because we associate them with the things we encounter. In Western cultures, purple is associated with royalty and luxury because it came from a dye that colored the robes of Ancient Roman patricians. We see this association today in overly embellished literature known as purple prose. Conversely, yellow is the color of imperialism in Eastern cultures. (I find it peculiar that the two royal colors are also complementary.)

It makes sense that different cultures have different connotations for colors because they have different experiences, but color naming is more difficult to explain. In several languages, there are distinctions in colors that differ only by lightness, not hue (red versus pink, for example). In Russian, there are two words for dark blue and light blue: “sinii” and “goluboi.” Many languages, in contrast, have a phenomenon called “grue,” the use of the same word for green and blue. In Vietnamese, the two are distinguished by descriptive suffixes; “xanh lá cây” is green, as in leaves, while “xanh bầu trời” is blue, as in the sky. A study by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay (1969) implies that the explanation for the difference between these languages might be biological.

Color is such a substantial part of our lives; I wonder what the world would be like without it. It’s amazing how color can be looked at artistically, physically, biologically, psychologically, culturally, and even linguistically. It’s everywhere and yet, there’s still so much to ask, to wonder, to know. Can we expand our visual spectrum? Do different cultures see different colors? How does this affect their perception of the world? (some sort of transition) And then I think to myself, “What a colorful world.”