To the Dean of Admission

Princeton University

From Cristina Moreno

Most influential person, my mother, no contest.

I think that I've been pointing towards this essay ever since the day 12 years ago in Mexico, when my father left. Such was my mother's need to protect me that she would not let me see her cry. Such was my need to protect her that I never let on that I could hear her.

My mother kept us in Mexico as long as possible to root me in all things Latin. Finally she sense our last opportunity for change, we would leave for America.

One tear, just one, so make it a good one. She said.

She would be my Mexico.

Because this admission essay is open record let me just say that our transportation into the United States was economy class.

In order to raise me properly, my mother needed as much of the security of her own culture as possible, so we rolled through Texas, just 34% Hispanic, to Los Angeles, 48% Hispanic

A few minutes of drift in an alien environment, then we turned the corner and we were right back home.

My mother's favorite cousin, Monica gave us shelter.

For the next six years, neither of us ventured outside our new community. Mom worked two jobs paying a total of $450 a week. Each of us doing everything we could to make things work.

We were safe and happy; if only I could have stayed six. But I was blossoming, and during my very first dance, in the time that took the boy's hand to go from my back to my bottom, it was evident that she would have to leave her job to keep an eye on me.

Within days, she was on her way to a job interview. She needed $450 from one job, and that meant, after all her time in America, finally entering a foreign land.

Holding won't have help though. She was no longer intimidated.

Working for Anglos now posed no problem; it would just be a job. She stepped across cultural divide.

My mother did not understand her male boss. He seems as upset as she was over what have been done to Bernice, and yet, had done nothing. He appeared to be a good man, but someone with first-hand knowledge of Latin macho; he seemed to have the emotions of a Mexican woman. She had no idea how to react except to flee.

A simple request from my mother startled me. Her rules were bending. She was losing her battle to remain uninvolved with the Clasky's.

The first time one sees natural beauty which is privately owned, oceans as people's backyards confound the senses. I didn't know God had a toy store for the rich.

Shortly after we left, mother told me of another decision she had reached, I would no longer go to the private school.

The 1.2 miles from the Clasky's house to our bus stop was the longest walk I'll ever know. I had publicly scorned my mother, and yet she had not reacted. What did sparked our climatic moment was my use of a common American phrase: I NEED SOME SPACE.

In the mist of confrontation she found clarity.

She expressed regret that she had to ask me to deal with the basic question of my life at such a young age, and the she asked it:

IS WHAT YOU WANT FOR YOURSELF TO BECOME SOMEONE VERY DIFFERENT THAN ME?

I've been overwhelmed by your encouragement to apply to your University and list of scholarships available to me.

Though, as I hope this essay show, your acceptance, while it will thrill me, will not define me.

My identity rest firmly and happily on one fact: I AM MY MOTHER'S DAUGHTER.

Thank you.

Cristina Moreno