I was just outside of Baghdad when out of nowhere, tragedy struck. I didn’t understand what was going on because I was only 4 years old, but I vividly remember coming back to my house and seeing it obliterated. My family later found out that the bombing was from Muslim Sunnis that hated our Catholic religion. It was a tragedy that I will always remember,inextricably tied to feelings of fear that i will probably never overcome because it is a huge part of my life. When my family found out that the Sunni Muslims were threatening to kill everyone in Iraq who is not Sunni or Shia , So my family and I panicked and fled Iraq. Most of my generation stayed behind in Iraq and my generation is dying everyday because of the bombing done by Muslim terrorists. Shortly after all this, my whole family, including myself, were smuggled into Greece.

My family started out with nothing. Most of my generation stayed behind in Iraq and my generation is dying everyday because of the bombing done by Muslim terrorists.

We were living in a state of disaster, with all six members of my family reduced to virtual homelessness. I spent the next few years of my life, not going to school, illegally selling tissues and lottery tickets on the streets of Greece with my brother to try and support my family. My brother Fadi and I were both caught twice on the streets illegally selling lottery tickets and tissues which wasn’t allowed in the streets of Greece because of how young my brother and I were. My mom had to come to jail to bail us out with the little money we had. We were desperately trying to save money to go to the United States. My dad had gone to the United States by himself to try and get a job so he could obtain enough money for the rest of our family to come to the United States. The rest of the family stayed together in Greece as one. My little brother and sister had no education and had to stay home, while my brother and I woke up at five in the morning every day to buy the lottery tickets that we would later sell on the streets I the shivering cold. The whole family suffered. We barely had food on the table, but despite our shortcomings, our family finally gained enough money to go to the United States with some help from my dad.

We were so excited until we found out that we were rejected to go on the plane to the United States because we didn’t have passports. We then had to obtain passports and we were finally able to come to America, again starting in another country with nothing. I was terribly afraid of the challenges involved in living in America. I came to the United States when I was in 6th grade with no English background whatsoever. I soon started learning how to speak the English language and when I was in 8th grade I could fully speak and comprehend it, but Learning a language that fast made me realize that I had a lot of courage and discipline to s stay up until one or two o’clock to study vocabulary words so I can get better at learning the English language. The whole learning process made me realize that I can overcome the obstacles the world throws at me If I put my mind to it. I am so lucky I got my dream of being able to come to the United States, but now after accomplishing my dream, I need to set another. It is now my dream to become an engineer at the University of California, Las Angeles.