Response to "I am a Man with a Heart"

Bee Lee

Section 2

Week 8

Response to "I am a Man with a Heart"

       Within this week’s reading, “I am a Man with a Heart,” Andrew Thi talks about his many aggravated felons that would lead him to be deported. At first, we are told that he is an honored roll student who did well in school. His family escaped from communism and immigrated to the U.S. seeking the American dream. However, he found it hard to live up to the expectations, as he was more Americanized. Aside, he became more involved with robberies. As a consequence, he was charged with many accounts of (second-degree) robbery and ended up serving time for INS custody and then federal custody. Because he was being charged on many crimes, he was ordered deported. Due to this, he did all he could to show the federal agents that he was capable on improving himself.

       Reading this article, it felt great that I could relate to Thi when he first described of his family hardships and experiences. Though, I did not follow his felony path, my family like his, share the same hardships. My parents came to the U.S. and wanted my siblings and I to have a better life. By that, they made us value education. However, similarly to Thi, my brother was affiliated with gang members while my younger brother, sisters, and I are more affiliated with education. This made me questioned: Is it because of the model minority stereotypes that lead those minorities, who cannot live up the expectations, to go out of way and make poor choices? Referring back to Thi, what factors influenced him to make poor choices within his life and why did it take him that long to understand his wrong doings? If Thi was not a minority, would he be ordered deportation?