移民女孩因為這篇文書拿到所有8所藤校錄取！

置頂哲學園 好文不錯過

來源：美國留學媽媽圈

一個17歲的名叫Cassandra Hsiao的女孩，今年難以令人置信地拿到了全部8個藤校的錄取。

Cassandra現在住在南加州，收到了哈佛，普林斯頓，耶魯，達特茅斯，布朗，哥倫比亞，康奈爾和賓夕法尼亞大學的全部藤校錄取，現在正面臨著世界上最幸福的煩惱 – 要拒絕哪些世界上最棒的大學呢？

Cassandra 5歲從馬來西亞移民到美國，是第一代移民。她的簡歷無與倫比，但她這篇關於學英語的文書獲得了所有招生官的青睞。

說到她不得了的簡歷：她的學分績GPA 有4.67，SAT 是1540 . 她是學校里兩個學生會主席之一，校雜誌的主編，而且在自己的社區里也非常活躍。

除了學習好之外，Cassandra 作為記者在紅毯上採訪電影明星，參加記者招待會，她還親自採訪過在美國家喻戶曉的大明星Captain America himself, Chris Evans!

除了被所有藤校都錄取了之外，Cassandra 同時也被斯坦福，西北大學，約翰霍普金斯，南加州大學，紐約大學，以及加州大學系裡面的很多名校錄取。

而下面這篇文書，是她取得如此斐然結果的最根本原因。請大家再次體會文字的魔力。

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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 from Malaysia, 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 in Malaysia, 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.

Essay taken from tab.com。文章編輯翻譯自afterschool.my

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