華裔女孩就是憑藉這篇作文，收到8所常青藤名校錄取書

剛剛小編髮了一篇名為《厲害了華裔女孩！憑藉一篇作文，換來8所常青藤名校錄取書》的文章。介紹了美國加州橙縣華裔女學生卡桑德拉?蕭憑藉一篇作文被8所常春藤名校同時錄取的事情。

這篇作文是她的美國本科申請作文common app essay。在文中，卡桑德拉撰寫了移民家庭學英語的真實故事，文章打動了8所名校的評委。

這8所大大學分別為：哈佛大學、普林斯頓大學、耶魯大學、達特茅斯大學、布朗大學、哥倫比亞大學、康奈爾大學和賓夕法尼亞大學。

不少網友希望看到這篇作文，現在小編將作文貼出供大家欣賞。

Read Cassandra』s essay in full

Cassandra Hsiao

In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation – in our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly – yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my mother fromMalaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.

In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for 「cashing out demons.」 I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my pronunciations of hammock, ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except, success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.

Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn』t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else』s parents spoke with accents smarting of Ph.D.s and university teaching positions. So why couldn』t mine?

My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said, 「This is where I came from,」 spinning a tale with the English she had taught herself.

When my mother moved from her village to a town inMalaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school: English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class. When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said, 「That』s enough.」

「Be like that class president,」 my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and patiently mended my mother』s strands of language. 「She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.」

We were both crying now. My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn』t laugh at her pronunciation. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.

As my mother』s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my school』s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored. With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother』s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.

In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.

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