Cause & Effect--My Hero Parents

My parents’ fortunes were changed because of their actions. There was an unforgettable event that happened in 1989. It was called “The Tiananmen Square protests and massacre”. The death of Chinese prime minister Hu Yaobang in April 1989 led many people to go to Tiananmen Square to commemorate him. He was the former president. He was hardworking, so people liked him. Therefore, many students and citizens were going to commemorate him after his death. In addition, students were protesting the lack of freedom and freedom of speech in the country. Eventually, the event turned into a demonstration against the government because the students wanted a democratic government. My parents also participated in this protest. However, my parents and students failed. Therefore, this event affected my parents’ rights to protest and free speech, and this also affected my parents’ right to democracy.

This event affected my parents’ right to protest. The government used force to stop people's right to protest during that time. Therefore, many people were scared to do or say anything against the government. My parents were twenty-three years old at that time. They were classmates at college, and they went to Beijing to join this protest together. In addition, the government ordered the army to ban students’ demonstrations.  My parents saw a lot of soldiers and tanks in Tiananmen Square, and the government allowed soldiers to shoot people and students because the government wanted to disperse the crowd and control the square. When my parents heard the shooting, they ran away because they didn't want to die. In addition, my parents didn't have enough food or water to stay in Beijing. Therefore, they had to leave Beijing. My parents had planned to stay in Beijing until the protest was successful. However, they had to go back home. Therefore, this changed my parents’ plan in Beijing which was to protest, and they had to left and went back home.

In addition, this event affected my parent’s right to free speech because the government didn't allow people to discuss this event. My parents saw the police arrest a lot of students. Moreover, they knew a person who was interviewed by an American journalist, and he was arrested later. At that time, the government only permitted news that was in favor of the government. When my parents went back home and watched the news of the day on the TV, they saw that the government made those who joined this protest plead guilty on TV. My parents were so scared to talk about this event because if they said something about this they might be arrested. Therefore, this event affected my parents’ ability to talk about this event and to speak freely. There is no free speech in China even today. In fact, the government today is cracking down on all kinds of speech including social media.

Furthermore, this event affected my parents’ right to live in a democracy. Before this massacre and since then, the Chinese government has not let people attend demonstrations and the government prevented people from gathering during the days and weeks after the massacre. My parents told me that the government checked people entering the city at all train stations because the government wanted to stop students at the train station, and they didn't let students go into Tiananmen Square to demonstrate. In addition, the government refused to talk to student representatives. My parents saw a lot of students make suggestions to the Chinese government, but the government ignored the students because they didn't want to implement any change. As a result, this event affected my parent’s right to make this country better and their chance to live in a democratic country.

In sum, after this event happened, my parents lost their rights. Although my parents tried to make China better, it was not easy to make the government change. They lost their right to protest and free speech. In addition, they lost their right to live in a democracy. In my opinion, my parents were brave to join this event. When my parents were young, they were heroes. However, Chinese politics today remains grim. People living in China still have no right to protest or speak freely. I hope my country will become more democratic one day in the future.

Cause & Effect Essay

 Divided Country

    Old generations say that young generations complain so much even though they can have everything what they want. I grew up hearing these words since I was young.  From their perspectives, the lives of young people seem so comfortable because many in the older generations suffered terribly from the Korean War. When my mother was five years old, the Korean War broke out. This clash was between communism and capitalism. Before the war, Korea was already being divided into the North and South based on their political lines. However, the Korean people couldn’t imagine that they would fight each other. The Soviet Union and China were behind North Korea and the U.S. was behind South Korea. The war lasted for three years and it left unforgettable deep pain on my mother’s family.

First of all, my grandfather’s business collapsed. He was a successful businessman who ran a furniture factory which was the biggest one in his hometown. Before the war, he built furniture for new schools after liberation from Japanese colonialism in 1945. However, the Korean war broke out in 1950, so all the plans were canceled. Therefore, he couldn’t get paid at all for jobs he already completed. After the war, he started a furniture business again. However, he couldn’t make money because everyone was poor, so no one could afford to buy furniture. Moreover, he ended up getting cancer and never recuperated. Thus, my mother’s family went from being wealthy to impoverished. 

        Furthermore, my grandparents lost their first son during the war. He was a handsome young man in his twenties who was very talented in every way and was my grandfather’s favorite. He was also talented in music and played the violin. When the North Korean army came to his hometown, they found him hiding in his neighborhood and kidnapped him for consolation performances of the North Korean army. After a while, some people who were kidnapped with my grandparents’ first son went back to their hometown. They said that while they were moving with the North Korean army, they were attacked by the U.S. army and most of them died including my grandparents’ son. My mother’s family was distressed to hear that and realized that there was no one standing on only one side in this war, but it was just a tragedy.   

        After the war, my mother had to be an independent child at the age of eight. She had six siblings and my grandparents were not able to take care all of them. Thus, my mother voluntarily entered an orphanage to ease the burden on her family. After one year, she came back home because the food was like garbage and she was sick a lot in the orphanage. Even though she could live with her parents, the situation didn’t get better. She picked up the wood and junk in the morning because even a single abandoned can on the street could be a household item for her house. She also sold one old book a day to buy sleeping pills to ease pain of her father who suffered from cancer. In addition, she loved school but couldn’t attend school often. Instead, she had to help her mother sell vegetables at the street market where it took three hours to walk from her house. Due to this reason, going to school became her lifelong dream until she went to college in her middle age. 

        To be honest, I couldn’t understand my elder family members whenever they criticized young generations and compared to their suffering from the war because it sounded unrealistic and felt like a story from a novel. However, when I heard from my mother about her childhood for the first time, because of my homework, I realized all the devastation during the Korean War that she and her family experienced. While listening her story, I felt really sorry for this young girl and ashamed that I didn’t ask about my family history before. She said that she had never told this story in detail to anyone. She cried like a child, and I also wiped away my tears. Finally, I was able to understand my mother better since I started to see vulnerable sides of older generations behind their strong sides. 

  

Winning Nothing

             Almost every country in Latin America has its own currency, but Ecuador is one of the exceptions. Twenty-two years ago, Ecuador changed its currency from sucres to dollars. In 1999, Ecuador was going through an economic and political crisis. The economy was deteriorating, and inflation was causing the country sink. As a result, the president arbitrarily changed currency, provoking a catastrophe. The dollarization started after the banks declared themselves bankrupt, and they started stealing Ecuadorian money. This event has been one of the most important historical events that Ecuador has gone through. Most of the population lost something with monetary value, savings, business, and houses, not even to mention people who lost their families. My family wasn’t exempt from losing something. The devaluation of the currency and the crisis economic caused two of my aunts had to immigrate to Italy. My mother was in the process of starting a small business and she lost everything she invested, and my grandparents lost money too. 

           Dollarization affected my family in many ways. Two of my aunts immigrated to Italy because of our family’s economic situation. They decided to help our family economically. In the beginning, it was hard for us to see them suffering the sorrow of being alone in another country. Moreover, they experienced racism and discrimination because of their race and language. They didn’t speak Italian. They had to do manual labor jobs that they would never imagine. However, my aunts helped my great-grandmother to build her house. They sent money to her every month to help with the expenses. They also help their sibling keep going after the economic crisis, sending money to them too. One of my aunts returned a few years later, but the other one still lives there. She always says that she is grateful to be in Italy despite all the circumstances she has experienced. 

           In addition, my mother’s new business was affected by the economic crisis. A year before my mother decided to set up a small business. She used to sell luxury brand perfumes. She traveled to Colombia to buy all the perfumes and do business with the providers who would sell her the perfumes that she would distribute. Everything was going well until the crisis and the dollarization occurred. My mother lost everything she invested and more. Despite Ecuador’s problem, my mom’s method to charge money for perfumes was unfavorable. She let the customers make monthly payments after they bought the product, so they would get the perfume first and pay later. As a result, they never fulfilled the payment commitment they had with my mother. They said as an excuse that they lost everything during the bankruptcy crisis and the dollarization. My mom had a lot of debts with her providers that took her years to figure out. Nevertheless, something good happened to my mother. She gave birth to me. She was pregnant while all this situation happened and at some point, I witnessed the crisis too.

        As I mentioned, this crisis involved my whole family. My grandparents faced difficult economic situations too. They were part of those people who had some savings at the bank, and they had lost it. It wasn’t a lot, but it represented their efforts over many years. They lost it with the crisis and the dollarization. Besides, they had a small business at their house. In Ecuador, it is common to see small grocery shops in houses where people can buy basic items like food or school supplies. They had this type of store. They didn’t close their small shop, but the business went through tough financial times. Customers weren’t frequent as before. As a result, they lost money and gained debts with banks. They asked for loans to keep going their business. Furthermore, it was hard for them to adapt to the new currency. They never had used dollars, so it was like learning again. 

           To sum up, dollarization changed the economic system in Ecuador. The country was affected by the consequences. My family faced the catastrophe of seeing our family getting separated, losing money, and hope. It took many years to adapt the country to a new era in the economy. What happened after dollarization and bankruptcy was horrifying, but also left a new hope that everything would be better at some point. Ecuador has preserved dollar currency for all these years. I consider it has helped the country not to be a complete mess. Even though the dollarization brought difficult times, the economy in Ecuador improved in a few aspects over the years. The situation would be worse if the country kept the old currency. Ironically, we got over what happened twenty-two years ago. It was hard at the beginning, but it has been better through the years. I don’t mean that Ecuador's economy is great now, but it is better than before the crisis.

 

    Coup d’état

        My family witnessed a very serious coup d’état in my country, Mali. In 1968, high military officials decided to overturn the Malian government which included my grandfather, Sekou Ly, and his close friend Moussa Traore, who was the president of Mali. My grandfather was the minister of defense. Conducting the coup along with protestors of the past regime destroyed the city of Bamako. Over two thousand civilians died during this coup d’état. That year all schools were closed due to the political and economic crises. The salaries of civil servants were very little, and they especially did not have enough money to feed their families well. Due to my family’s parts in this crisis, it was hard to go to places My family was looked strangely wherever they went by the citizens, so they stopped going out for a while. My family struggled for a while to rebuild their lives after this Coup d'état because most Malians knew who they were, and they were despised for it.

          This event traumatized my mother and her siblings, who were just kids at the time. According to my mother, the initial events took place while she and her siblings were at school. It was the end of recess, so everyone was supposed to enter their class. When they were entering the classrooms, students, teachers, and security guards heard gunshots coming from nowhere. At that moment, it was a mess in the schoolyard, and everyone was panicking. Students were running in all directions to hide, and the principal of the school tried to call the police, but nobody was responding. Suddenly, a security guard got a call from his colleague saying that multiple military trucks were passing and shooting their guns in the air near the school. It was the beginning of the coup d'état. My mother was trying to find her siblings, by looking everywhere in the school which was divided into two parts junior, and high school. She was also scared about what might happen to her siblings. She tried to call home, but no one picked up the phone. Therefore, she called their driver who usually stays at the school door with a bodyguard. With all the students running back and forth, my mother finally found her extremely terrified siblings, and they made it to the exit door. My mother and siblings found their driver and bodyguard outside, and they were taken to a safe place. Although they were safe and able to get out, my mother was still afraid of what would come next. This event has stayed with my mother for a long time.

         Another effect of this event was that my grandmother was not allowed to go out anymore without bodyguards for months. Before the event started my grandmother, and her driver were going to my grandmother's friend’s house without bodyguards. My grandmother explained to me that when she was going to her friend’s house, she stopped in the city center to buy some fruit for her friend. When they arrived, her driver saw some people running, but in his mind, it was nothing. At that moment, he heard gunshots and understood that there was a problem going on in the city. He tried to call one of the bodyguards to get some information, but on the radio, journalists were already talking about the chaos and the gunshots it was the beginning of a coup d Etat in Mali. In the area, my grandmother and her driver were stuck, so they decided to find a safe place to hide before someone got hurt. After hiding for hours, bodyguards rescued my grandmother and her driver and took my grandmother to her kids to a secret location where no one could find them. After what happened to my grandmother, she could not go out alone anymore because the country was not safe for her family.

      During the event, my grandfather’s family had no news of him for months. Military officials kidnapped my grandfather and the president. Before the kidnapping, my grandfather was at his office discussing a traitor in the government who stole money and gave insider information to the military officials with the president. Military officials already had their plan. In the middle of my grandfather and the President having a discussion, they heard gunshots and lots of commotion downstairs. My grandfather told me that he went downstairs to see what was going on. Then he saw a lot of soldiers with their guns pointed towards the building, so he ran as quickly as possible upstairs to warn the president. It was too late, some soldiers had already made their way upstairs through another entrance, and they had their guns pointed to the President, and quickly turned towards my grandfather as well. My grandfather and the president were detained and taken to an isolated place where no one could find them, they had no idea where they were. My grandfather and the president were not even allowed to talk to their family and tell them that they were fine. According to my grandfather’s explanation, the military officials were very mean. My grandfather and the other detainees only ate once a day. They were unable to take a bath alone, so they had guards watching them 24/7.

        Hearing my family explain what happened to them during the coup d'état, I have realized how difficult and traumatizing it was for them. Even after the coup d'état, my family was unable to focus on rebuilding their life, because they were still traumatized, and the country was not safe for them. My mother and her siblings didn’t go to school for months. Since the Malian government decided to close all the schools due to economic crises, my mother and her sibling’s studies were disrupted for another year. Overturning the Malian government whenever the military has the opportunity must stop because they are putting many people's lives at risk, especially innocent civilians.

Metamorphic

No war anywhere in the world has brought peace and hope to itself. The great powers of the world always make decisions in their favor, and ordinary people pay the price for their decision by losing everything and their lives. It has been more than forty years since the start of the Iran Iraq war. This imposed war on Iran lasted eight years, and like any other war, it inflicted irreparable damage on the country and the nation of Iran. My mother's family was one of the millions of Iranian families who suffered a lot because of the Iran-Iraq war, and that was the beginning of all the hardships they had to experience after the war happened.

With the start of the war, my mother’s family had to leave their city and take refuge in another place. Khorramshahr is one of the southern cities of Iran, which borders Iraq, and it was the first place to be attacked by the Iraqi president Saddam Hossein. My family was from that city and lived there at that time. My mother explained that she remembers the first missiles hit civilian areas around noon when people were at work and kids were in school for the first day of the school season. Moreover, my mother’s said that she would never forget the day, they were forced to leave their home and move to an unknown future. They experienced a hard time getting to Tehran to settle in my mother’s aunt’s house. However, they arrived in Tehran after two or three days of beginning the war. Many people had difficulty running away from the city. My family was lucky to find a chance to settle somewhere safe.

In addition, this war caused my grandfather to lose one of his legs. After my grandfather took his family to a safe place, he decided back to Khorramshahr to find my great uncle who had not come back since the beginning of the war, and help people, also move his other family members, with his car. At that time, the Ba’athists were a particular group of the Iraqi army forces, and they controlled many areas of Khorramshahr. In the meanwhile, my grandfather was helping people who were trapped in their house and city run away from the enemy. In one of these operations, a mortar hit the area and the fragments of mortar wounded him. Due to the hardships of living with one foot and an artificial leg, my grandfather could not return to his mechanical job for several years and this disability not only weakened his body but also his mental health as well. Therefore, he felt that his disability causes great inconvenience to his family for many years.

Eventually, my family found out that my uncle who was missing for a long time had become a martyr. Like many people, my uncle went to war with the invading enemy to defend his city and country, but he never back home since the first time, Iraq attacked Khorramshahr. due to the chaos in the city and the lack of proper communication ways with each other, my family had no connection with him. However, they thought that he had taken refuge in another city with the rest of the people, but when they didn’t get any news from him for a long time, they became frustrated; besides that, all the family wanted to believe that he was still alive. During those years, my family went everywhere and to every organization to search for him, but unfortunately, they came back disappointed every time. In the end, with the news of his martyrdom, my family and especially my grandmother understood that their child would never return home. My uncle’s martyrdom made my family unable to forget the bitterness of this war.

All the bitter events that my family went through made it impossible for them to ever return to their hometown. Even though they went there a few years after the war ended, they were faced with a city and a house that looked more like ruins. For this reason, they did not last more than a few months and returned to Tehran. Even today, after thirty-four years since the end of the war, people of the region have not yet been able to fully rebuild their lives, and the effects of the devastation of the war are still visible on the face of the city. In my opinion, the war has never made any land successful. War has always brought hardship and irreparable damage to the people of the lands. I have never understood the war of powers and whether gaining power is worth the bloodshed and displacement of millions of humans!! I only hope that one day, humans can be able to find a sense of peace and live the life as they deserve, happy and free.

 Displacement

 

Being in the middle of the gun conflict was the reality for a lot of families in Colombia countryside during the 60s and ’70s. When the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia Farc group was created in 1964, its main purpose was to combat the deliquesce and social problems in different rural zone of Colombia. Over time the group turns into a cruel group to try to get the government power and fight with the legal Colombian army for territory. In a lot of the territory, the Farc had marijuana crops and abducted people as an economic income. Over the years there have been multiples peace agreements between the Colombian government and Farc, but the last one was in 2016. The violence ceased in different years depending on each place where the Farc were. In rural zones in Colombia, forced displacement was the only solution to flee the violence for a long time. Although my father's displacement was not forced, he decided to leave his life of farming and cattle, the life that he liked. He left his town to avoid dying in the middle of the conflict between two armed groups. He was seventeen years old and moved to the capital city, Bogota to start a new life without education. As a result, he met my mother, and I was born in Bogota. My father’s displacement changed my life and has allowed me to live different experiences that I would not have lived in a town.

As a city girl, I didn't have to do hard work in the countryside during my childhood. It is common for kids in the countryside to work in farming or do a lot of household duties. In my case, I did not need to help with the guava harvest while the sun burned me, milk cows at dawn, feed and collet chickens’ eggs, or make fences. On the contrary, I was in my city Bogota enjoying the city and the cultural spaces, like museums and parks for kids. In Bogotá, I was able to meet an awesome group of friends. We have been friends for twenty years, we traveled together, and have incredible experiences together.

 Bogotá

In addition, I am thankful that I finished university because in Velez, the town where my father came from there are no Universities. I should appreciate the education I received because a lot of people there barely finished high school. Also, many teenagers there get pregnant which contributes to the cycle of poverty. The good news is my father always dreamed to go back to the land where he was born. When the violence ceased, he took my family and me for vacation every year to his town and we spent time on the farm. He has some cows and chickens that we took care of. I love it, but just for vacation. That experience allowed me to grow up with countryside and city experiences, which for me are a good balance. 

The last effect on me was that I was able to meet people from different countries and learn about their cultures. Back in my father’s town, there are some people who have never even left their town or seen other parts of Colombia. They are not curious about what is outside the country, what other people think about life, or how they lived in other places. For me, it is the most exciting thing that someone from the other side of the globe tells his or her customs or rules instead of reading about them. Now I am in the U.S.A. hoping to learn more about myself and others. Certainty Chicago will allow me to meet more people from different countries and have more experiences than the ones that I could have in a small town.

 

I cannot say that my father's displacement was a blessing. I think I can say it was a challenge, and the advantage was for me. When I visited my father's town, I realized how my life changed because of his displacement. I experience different situations than the people of his town, but I cannot say if it was better or not. Undoubtedly what I'm sure of is that I am thankful for the experiences in the city and in the town, for studying, for travel and learning about other cultures, but above all for being able to be my father's daughter.

 

Homesick

            

            When I came to the United States, food was a challenge for me because eating was a different experience. People living in the US like to eat raw vegetables, and a lot of Americans like to eat salads. Growing up in China, however, I was used to eating cooked vegetables. As a result, there are very differences both in terms of the type of food and the way we prepare food between China and the United States. When I arrived in the United States, I felt like I had lost my connection with China, and this made me feel homesick. For example, Chinese breakfast is very different from the United States breakfast. In addition, Chinese dumplings are also different from breakfast in the United States. Moreover, Chinese street food is different from United States street food. Therefore, moving to the United States made me feel like I was living in two different worlds. 

             One of the first aspects that made me feel homesick was the cooking methods such as the flavor, texture, and seasoning. For example, Chinese breakfast always includes steamed food or boiled food like steamed bao and tofu soup, and people always drink tea in the morning. On the other hand, the breakfast in this country usually includes cereal, eggs, and cheese, and people living in the United States like to drink coffee to start a day. Therefore, eating breakfast in this country is a different experience for me because it is two different worlds for me. When I ate cheese for the first time, I thought it smelled bad. In addition, after the first time I drank coffee, I felt my heartbeat faster and it made me very uncomfortable. Therefore, it took me a while to get used to eating breakfast in Chicago.

            Additionally, the way Chinese food is offered in the United States is not the same as it is offered in my homeland which is Liaoning province in northern China. For example, dumplings are different between my homeland and the United States. There are many kinds of dumplings especially from northern China like pork with green onion, beef with mushroom, chicken with shrimp, and leek with egg. Moreover, people always boil dumplings or steam or fry dumplings in China. However, the way these dumplings are offered in Chicago is limited. There are only a few dumplings in the United States like chicken and pork. I believe they are made by a machine not a human, so they obviously taste different for me. When I go to the Asian market to buy dumplings, I always feel it is so disappointed that I cannot make dumplings and I should learn how to make them from my mother. Therefore, I even started to forget the taste of Chinese dumplings which had made me feel like I had lost connection with China.

            Furthermore, what I also miss from China is the street food because there is almost no street food in Chicago. It is a totally different experience getting street food in the United States compared to back home in China. It is not all processed food like in the United States, but they feel that someone has made them and put work and effort into making these delicious meals. In addition, I miss the experience of going out with my friends. For example, my favorite Chinese street food is grilled chicken wings, and they taste so good it is something that I cannot get in the United States. In addition, I live in Chicago where there is almost no Asian street food even though I can see some Mexican street food. In addition, when I walk down the street after school in Chicago, I can’t smell anything of the food which made me feel very different because I can smell the food on every street in China. Lastly, I miss the experience of street food in China because it is a very special experience knowing that someone has cooked these foods. In addition, I also miss the experience that hanging out with my friends every time we went out for these street foods. 

            In sum, there are many foods that are challenging for me now. In addition, it has taken me a long time to get used to eating food in Chicago. Usually, I crave to eat bao, tofu, tea, and some other Chinese breakfast. Additionally, dumplings are offered in many ways in China where they are very limited. Moreover, I really miss the experience of street food in China. Especially, I miss the experience of socializing with my friends every time we went out for these street foods. All these experiences make me feel homesick.