The floor my family built
First in my family at a four-year university, and reclaiming the right to want more.
The Simplicity Protocol August 11
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Pierce asked me last week where I went to college.
"Philadelphia," I said. "The University of Pennsylvania."
"Did Grandma Betty go to college?"
"Yes, later in life. She was the first person in her family to go."
He went quiet for a moment. "So you were the first one to go far away?"
I almost said yes. Then I caught it.
My grandfather left the Philippines for Hawaii in 1946, part of the "sakadas" who crossed the Pacific for work. He was there two years before he could send for my grandmother. My mom was born in June 1949, the product of their reunion.
She followed the same pull. Left Maui at 18 for Los Angeles. Met my dad, married by December 1968. Community college, then a career, then Cal State Long Beach in her thirties, then her MBA after I went off to college.
I was the first in our family to go straight to a four-year university out of high school. The first Ivy Leaguer. But I wasn't the first to leave home for a bigger life. My grandfather crossed the Pacific for that, and my mom left Maui for the same reason. I'm third in a line of people who went further than their ancestors.
Your ancestors built the floor. Rising past it is the whole point of what they built.
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