Call Me, Beep Me, If You Wanna Reach Me

In Roxanne Gay’s Bad Feminist, a part of the book that particularly stood out to me was the quote “I enjoyed being the best and making my parents proud. I enjoyed the sense of control I felt by being good at school when there were other parts of my life that desperately out of control. I was expected to get straight As. Bringing home a grade less than an A was not an option so I didn’t. This is a typical child-of-immigrants story, not at all interesting” from the section Feel Me. See Me. Hear Me. Reach Me.
This part stood out to me because of how much I related to the situation. As a child of an immigrant myself, I know all too well what it’s like to have school pressure and feel the need to have perfect grades. I would come home crying if I got any grade lower than an A on a test or assignment. My school work is what drove me to be the best I could be. I had this desire to be the best at everything I did, and that included school work. I always felt as if I was never good enough in anything that I did, so I felt that school was the only thing in my life that  could control enough to be considered “good enough.”

I always felt as if I was disappointing my parents if I didn’t get As in my classes and on my tests, to the point I hid my report card from my parents when I got B in math one year. I thought my parents were going to get so mad at me, that I started bawling when they read it. It took them an hour to calm me down and tell me that it was okay and that I didn't need to be perfect all the time.

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