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ink_n_imp EDIT: Fix some grammer and some wording at 8 pm...whatcha think?
I got into the NYU study abroad all right, but now I want to get this application for the Acton scholarship done, and I just typed up this essay.
This is were you come in. This is the one time I'm going to beg comments from youse guys. I need you to tell me if it works with the essay requirement. It's all I got. Tell me if it works and if I've got to fix it.
BUT.......I need your opinions by the 14th. As in, tomorrow. Seriously. I just got accepted to the program yesterday and I found out about this scholarship today. I'm working on a REALLY tight deadline, so give a girl a hand.
For your consideration, the essay topic:
As New Yorkers, cultural exchange is a part of our everyday lives. For example, you might hear 5 languages on a 10-minute ride on the subway. Tell the story of a cross-cultural expreience you've had in New York City, and describe how it relates to your interest in study abroad."
And, my Response:
(A/N: YES, I'm adopted. I know that. I'm not really Sicilian. But that's what application essay are all about: fudging facts, writing really fucking well, and having a SHIT LOAD OF DRAMA!! SO...I'm Sicilian. Mi Mangi. Also, this was written between the time of 4am to 536 am. Eh...sudden deadlines are a bitch.)
"Caucasian
Antonella Inserra
Desperate for an informant, and figuring I could kill two birds at once in the process, last semester I interviewed my Aunt Angela for my final paper in "Human Cultures and Society". The topic was Immigration, a topic that was nothing new to me. Like many others in this city, my parents are immigrants, my family an immigrant family. Our roots are in Sicily.
As American-born, I am hungry for stories of life in Sicily. How fortunate then, that I could learn about my own family while working on my final paper.
I visited my Aunt Angela in Brooklyn--her apartment fits both her and her sister, Giovanna comfortably. Their social security check from Italy for their past years in teaching pays the bills. Unlike my grandmother, they stayed too long in Italy to consider getting an American citizenship. They moved here to be near the family, but they will not betray Italy like that.
The interview lasted three hours. Having taken three semesters' worth of Italian, I tried to conduct the interview in "Eng-talian" in order to help things along. Things were going swimmingly, until my parents and my grandmother stopped by the apartment to see if I was finished.
I tried to include my grandmother into the discussion, to get a slightly different perspective, but something was wrong. Even with my "Eng-talian" there was still a language barrier. Unlike Angela, my grandmother didn't go to a university; because of that, she speaks more Sicilian than Italian.
For two areas so close together, you would think the languages would be vaguely similar. But Sicilian has more in common with Greek, Arabic, African and Spanish than just Italian. Even Southern Italian is grammatically different, making comprehension difficult.
It is for this very reason that Sicilian is dying. It is not the language of the industrial, prosperous Northern Italy. It's provincial, so it is abandoned in schools. As an anthropology major, I can recognize this loss of cultural linguistic nuance as common--but as I tried to speak with my grandmother, it saddened me.
We stand at the greatest cultural meld in all of history: we argue that America is more a "salad bowl" of culture, where immigrants try to incorporate their traditions into their new lives instead of melting into American society. But Europe, from an American viewpoint, is quickly becoming the melting pot. In applying to NYU, I was asked on the form if I was black, Hispanic, Native American, Caucasian, or other. This is what a European heritage as been boiled down to: Caucasian. Much like Hispanic is used to describe all of South and Mezzo America, a single word had come to represent not just white America, but all of Europe.
I am Sicilian-American--I feel I can claim this without question. My parents were born in Sicily after all. And yet countries and regions like Sicily, Albania, Greece, and Russia: countries traditionally viewed as "other", as "inferior", are now "Caucasian". But as I look around New York City, I see people unwilling to just melt into Caucasian--or whatever other term used to categorize them--whether they be Russians, Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Koreans or Greeks. In this city, I see the world's largest Caribbean Diaspora. In this city, I pass by "Chinatown" every day while riding the NYU bus to class. And yet "The Caribbean" is a region, "Asia" is a continent, and these lands do not hold a single culture--something a tourist might gloss over, but a New Yorker is reminded of as they walk these streets. In this city I see people who know that their culture is worth more than a single word on a college application.
As a daughter of Italian immigrants, I want to see Italy. I want to get that much closer to the country that has been at the center of my family for so long. As an anthropology major, however, I want to find in Europe what I find here, in this city. I want to explore Europe and find its' cultural niches before Europe becomes the amorphous "Caucasian". I don't want the communities of New York to be my only example of Europe as it was. I want to see Europe as it is now, before it is gone forever.
I got into the NYU study abroad all right, but now I want to get this application for the Acton scholarship done, and I just typed up this essay.
This is were you come in. This is the one time I'm going to beg comments from youse guys. I need you to tell me if it works with the essay requirement. It's all I got. Tell me if it works and if I've got to fix it.
BUT.......I need your opinions by the 14th. As in, tomorrow. Seriously. I just got accepted to the program yesterday and I found out about this scholarship today. I'm working on a REALLY tight deadline, so give a girl a hand.
For your consideration, the essay topic:
As New Yorkers, cultural exchange is a part of our everyday lives. For example, you might hear 5 languages on a 10-minute ride on the subway. Tell the story of a cross-cultural expreience you've had in New York City, and describe how it relates to your interest in study abroad."
And, my Response:
(A/N: YES, I'm adopted. I know that. I'm not really Sicilian. But that's what application essay are all about: fudging facts, writing really fucking well, and having a SHIT LOAD OF DRAMA!! SO...I'm Sicilian. Mi Mangi. Also, this was written between the time of 4am to 536 am. Eh...sudden deadlines are a bitch.)
"Caucasian
Antonella Inserra
Desperate for an informant, and figuring I could kill two birds at once in the process, last semester I interviewed my Aunt Angela for my final paper in "Human Cultures and Society". The topic was Immigration, a topic that was nothing new to me. Like many others in this city, my parents are immigrants, my family an immigrant family. Our roots are in Sicily.
As American-born, I am hungry for stories of life in Sicily. How fortunate then, that I could learn about my own family while working on my final paper.
I visited my Aunt Angela in Brooklyn--her apartment fits both her and her sister, Giovanna comfortably. Their social security check from Italy for their past years in teaching pays the bills. Unlike my grandmother, they stayed too long in Italy to consider getting an American citizenship. They moved here to be near the family, but they will not betray Italy like that.
The interview lasted three hours. Having taken three semesters' worth of Italian, I tried to conduct the interview in "Eng-talian" in order to help things along. Things were going swimmingly, until my parents and my grandmother stopped by the apartment to see if I was finished.
I tried to include my grandmother into the discussion, to get a slightly different perspective, but something was wrong. Even with my "Eng-talian" there was still a language barrier. Unlike Angela, my grandmother didn't go to a university; because of that, she speaks more Sicilian than Italian.
For two areas so close together, you would think the languages would be vaguely similar. But Sicilian has more in common with Greek, Arabic, African and Spanish than just Italian. Even Southern Italian is grammatically different, making comprehension difficult.
It is for this very reason that Sicilian is dying. It is not the language of the industrial, prosperous Northern Italy. It's provincial, so it is abandoned in schools. As an anthropology major, I can recognize this loss of cultural linguistic nuance as common--but as I tried to speak with my grandmother, it saddened me.
We stand at the greatest cultural meld in all of history: we argue that America is more a "salad bowl" of culture, where immigrants try to incorporate their traditions into their new lives instead of melting into American society. But Europe, from an American viewpoint, is quickly becoming the melting pot. In applying to NYU, I was asked on the form if I was black, Hispanic, Native American, Caucasian, or other. This is what a European heritage as been boiled down to: Caucasian. Much like Hispanic is used to describe all of South and Mezzo America, a single word had come to represent not just white America, but all of Europe.
I am Sicilian-American--I feel I can claim this without question. My parents were born in Sicily after all. And yet countries and regions like Sicily, Albania, Greece, and Russia: countries traditionally viewed as "other", as "inferior", are now "Caucasian". But as I look around New York City, I see people unwilling to just melt into Caucasian--or whatever other term used to categorize them--whether they be Russians, Jews, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Koreans or Greeks. In this city, I see the world's largest Caribbean Diaspora. In this city, I pass by "Chinatown" every day while riding the NYU bus to class. And yet "The Caribbean" is a region, "Asia" is a continent, and these lands do not hold a single culture--something a tourist might gloss over, but a New Yorker is reminded of as they walk these streets. In this city I see people who know that their culture is worth more than a single word on a college application.
As a daughter of Italian immigrants, I want to see Italy. I want to get that much closer to the country that has been at the center of my family for so long. As an anthropology major, however, I want to find in Europe what I find here, in this city. I want to explore Europe and find its' cultural niches before Europe becomes the amorphous "Caucasian". I don't want the communities of New York to be my only example of Europe as it was. I want to see Europe as it is now, before it is gone forever.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-13 11:37 am (UTC)Just touch a little more on that diff between sicilian and italan and you're pretty much done.
Otherwise, if you need to send it in stat, it's fine the way it is.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-13 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-13 10:55 pm (UTC)For my purposes, Brooklyn is NYC-enough, but I can tweak
no subject
Date: 2005-04-14 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 07:13 pm (UTC)meh. it's a stupid essay question to begin with.