My father was born and raised in Chuzhou, China, and my mother in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. They met and married in Vietnam and had four children during and after the war. My parents knew that raising their children in a war-torn, communist country was far from ideal. The first time they tried to flee in 1983, the government caught them and my father was imprisoned for two years. By the time he was released, the government had seized our home and family-run spice shop. My parents’ second escape plan worked. In 1986, my uncle successfully emigrated to the United States and began saving every penny he earned. Two years later, with the purchase of a few plane tickets, he bought freedom for my family.

I was born in the U.S. and grew up in a working class-neighborhood in Flatbush, Brooklyn in the 1990’s. Our family of seven shared a small two-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood that was predominantly Black and Hispanic. My four siblings were significantly older than me and helped to raise me while my parents worked menial jobs. Everyday my father would be gone before I even woke up; he spent long hours in Chinatown as a laborer, stocking groceries in a supermarket. My mother worked from home where she glued and sewed goods for a family friend. The fumes from the glue gun always made me lightheaded. I don’t know how my mother sat in her cramped workplace for hours on end.

By the time I was ten, my brothers and sisters collectively saved roughly fifty thousand dollars, enough to open a small CD/DVD store in Chinatown. They were so proud; they were finally able to relieve our parents from their manual jobs. Even the smell of hot plastic began to leave our home. I’ll never forget the joy in my mom’s eyes when she rang our first customer up. I saw, for the very first time, our American dream realized, and our family united in hope.

Only a few years later, our dream turned to ashes when my parents were faced with a random tragedy. In 2004, a woman claimed that a sign outside our store fell and struck her. She refused an ambulance, and my parents tended to her before she left. For the next few months we frequently received letters, calls, and visits from the woman asking for money. The stress caused a rift in our family over how to handle the matter, and in the end my parents simply obliged to pay the full requested amount because they feared legal action. The payment cut deeply into our savings, and coupled with declining sales in 2005, our family-run CD/DVD store closed just five years after opening. Our shared dream was gone.

In hindsight, it is clear that we were taken advantage of. My parents were naïve about the law and lost their business because they lacked the confidence and resources to litigate. As immigrants who spoke little English, they were ready targets for a scam. This incident motivated me to take several law-related classes in college, and to secure internships with two different lawyers, one in personal injury practice and the other in criminal defense. My education helped me to see that the problems my family faced were not uncommon. Before, I viewed my family’s woes as an isolated personal matter, but interning gave me a profound insight into how difficult things can be for those who lack education, knowledge, wealth, and power.

My legal internships helped me to understand how the most vulnerable people in society – like my parents – fear that the law is not on their side. It is true that working-class minorities are disproportionately the targets of police surveillance, arrests, and stop and frisks. However, my exposure to the law has also taught me that the law can also be a source of fairness and protection. During my internship with a personal injury lawyer, I saw clients in low-paying professions secure medical treatment for accidents on the job. While working in the Brooklyn Criminal Court, I also witnessed poor defendants receive mental health counseling or drug treatment programs as an alternative to incarceration.

I want to attend law school to demonstrate to communities such as the one I grew up in that the law can be a powerful conduit for justice. Although the law itself is only a partial solution, it is a key resource that can be mobilized for good. I’ve come to learn that there are many nuances in law and that takes not only intelligence to solve problems, but also compassion and dedication. Given my personal background, I believe that I have the care, insight, and motivation to be an especially strong advocate for those in need. I look forward to the opportunity to utilize the law as a tool to empower disadvantaged people.