Ben's Story

     Ben Chang is an 83 year old man who grew up in Northern China. Growing up, he was one of 11 children. He had 4 sisters and 6 brothers with a father in the army. Ben's father was a 4-star general and fought in the Chinese Civil War with Chiang Kai-Shek. Ever since Ben was little, his father was known for being on China's most wanted list due to his connection with the enemy army at the time. The Kuomintang (KMT) was the army Ben's father served for. When the Chinese Communist Party went to war with the KMT, CCP was looking for every were at member of the KMT to kill. This resulted in his whole family being forced to flee the country from the communists searching for him.

     As communists searched for his father and family, they planned to kill every last one of them. At the age of 15, Ben and his family fled to Taiwan on a boat. "At the time, I didn't feel much of anything, thinking we were only moving. It wasn't until I got onto the boat when I realized what was really happening with our family and everyone around us... But when [my family] arrived, I was very excited as to Taiwan was a new place I knew I would spend my life at." After two weeks, the Chang family safely arrived in Taiwan away from the communists, for the communists invaded their home the night they had fled.

     For the next decade and a half, Ben lived his life in Taiwan going to school and graduating. During this journey in Taiwan, he also fell in love with a lady named Linda. Ben and Linda got married in China in 1966. A couple of weeks after their wedding, Ben decided to leave to the US for education.

     Coming to the US in 1966 was a tedious process with lots of paperwork, but when Ben finally arrived in California for the first time, he set his mind on finding a job. He came alone to the US without his wife, Linda, who stayed their son, Roger, that was born in Taiwan 1966 before Ben left to the US. In the US, Ben worked at jobs and with enough money saved up overtime, he soon decided to go to graduate school in New York. After a year of living with his brother in Los Angeles, Ben found a job where he worked up enough money to finally attend school in New York. Throughout the year of 1966, Ben wasn't just working hard to stay on his feet. He filled out an application allowing Linda to come to the US and waited everyday to hear back. When the application was finally approved for Linda to come to America, Ben waited for Linda to arrive in the US. From then on, the two traveled to New York where Ben studied and went to school.

     For the next few years, he worked his best to finish graduate school at Syracuse. Later on, Ben got a job where he was able to save enough money to finally move his family into a home in Tennessee. In 1969, Ben and Linda had a daughter in Tennessee on their anniversary day.

     After living in Tennessee for seven years, Ben found a job that was back home in Taiwan. Therefore, he decided to take the offer and move from Tennessee to Los Angeles where their luggage was shipped and stored in LA. In 1976, Ben moved back to Taiwan with his family where his daughter, Angela, and son, Roger, lived and went to school for a year. Unfortunately, Angela was constantly getting sick because of the climate change. This resulted in the family choosing to move back to the United States.

     When Ben and his family came back from Taiwan, he came back to live in LA. They lived in LA for a few years and over time, decided to find a different home. From then on, the Chang family moved to Rowland Heights where Angela and Roger grew up. In 2017, they recently visited Tennessee for the first time since they left in 1976. Today, Linda and Ben both live together in the same house in Rowland Heights with the rest of the family close by.

SAMI LEONG

     Hi there! My name Samantha Leong and I am 13 years old. To my friends, I go by the name Sami. Growing up as a child, I was always outgoing and loud as a special part of my personality. I attend the school Alvarado Intermediate and live a very entertaining life with my family of five with my two older brothers, Derrick (18) and Nick (16). Some of the many hobbies I enjoy doing are playing volleyball, piano, and simple arts and crafts. From a young age, I was always an athletic type of person and grew up playing both tennis and volleyball. When I was 12, I decided to give up tennis to play club volleyball for the next years to come. I enjoy the many opportunities and fun experiences the sport brings to me from new friends to fun travel destinations. Piano is another interest that I take pleasure in as it allows me to express my way of music and a different type of passion I have for performing. Ever since the first time I came to Alvarado, it has all been a very memorable experience over the past year. Alvarado has brought me many more friends and brought me to become much closer to others, but Alvarado has also taught me about my future and what I can do to achieve my goal. As I begin to grow up, I plan to go to college and pursue my dream to go to UCLA and become a principal and with the help of my friends, teachers, and family, I plan to strive high and make these dreams happen.    

     Throughout the work of this project, it taught me about many things about my personal life and the world around me. To answer our essential question for this project, I've learned that much of the world is shaped from immigration, but how? Many and lots of the parts in our society is shaped from the diversity and differences immigrants from around the world bring to the United States. Simple things such as the food we eat and the supplies we buy come solely from the diversity that the US has and the unique things that others bring. Some skills I've learned through the course of our project is being able to work with partners and also being able to learn more about technology and different ways to display your own pieces of work. Other parts of the project I enjoyed was being able to learn about my families past and how my grandparents were able to persevere and have faith in the world and life ahead of them. Personally, it made me realize how lucky I am and how not to take things for granted because the generations before me went through the many hardships to get me where I am today.

KENNETH OCEAN

My name is Kenneth W Ocean, I'm 14, going to Alvarado Intermediate and am living a decent life. I go to school with all honors and am getting straight A's, but it wasn't always like this. When I grow up, I'd like to be an entrepreneur, just an entrepreneur who sells some random products, like a cool business called VAT19. Since entering Alvarado, I have grown as a person with many personal activities. Some things that I have learned over the years were being more confident of myself, I was always a shy kid, never really liked talking, or even talking to people. Now, I like to associate with others, have a good time, bringing me to the next thing that helped me build confidence and survive school. Skateboarding, helps me by making feel good, making me never give up and just start believing in myself, etc. I joined a swim team about 2-3 years ago and now, swimming has taught me discipline, never giving up, thriving, etc., getting some difficult times took 2 and a half hours each day from Monday through Saturday of hard working practice. 

The project helped me to answer the question by getting to know how different people has different background and what they have experienced just to come to America. All of the sacrifices they've made to give their future generations of family, a better/easier life to live. With a little over 37,000,000 immigrants, and to hear their individuals stories with the details, is just amazing. I personally learned how to do better research for assignments. Before I just used to search up the subject then go to the first like, thinking that it was the most reliable source because it was the first link that popped up. But I guessed wrong most of the first links were "Wikipedia" and it's an "unreliable" resource to look at. I practiced partner work, communication, etc. , I didn't really learn any skill, again just practicing social skills. Like the last question, I didn't "learn" any trait from HONOR, because I know when your talking about a family member, its personal and it gets to you. When you get a piece of information wrong from the truth, I hurts (I guess).