How Ramen Noodles Helped Me Get Over My Imposter Syndrome

I was born in Quezon City, Philippines to a low-income family and as a child, I saw our financial situation as a burden. When I was two years old (just months after my parents had gotten married), my dad needed to migrate in order to support us financially. When I was eight years old, I had to temporarily stop school and leave all the friends I’ve met and made memories with as I prepared to migrate to the United States, following my dad who I have never seen in so long that even after moving to Hawai’i, I felt a disconnect between him and I. My only connection with relatives and friends is through Facebook, but who knows if they still know me by now? I haven’t been “home” since 2010.

Moving to an entirely different country was difficult. I remember walking to class with my “Hawaiian” shirt and Spongebob backpack and being teased because my accent was too heavy and I couldn’t pronounce my ‘f’ sounds properly. Hawai’i was pretty diverse in the sense that there was no white majority narrative. Most of the people in Hawai’i were people of color that all share the struggle of being low income, but still, I was out of place. I found a lot of Filipino kids, but most were from provincial areas and spoke Ilocano. I spoke Tagalog and was known as the “city boy” who was privileged. I mean they were not wrong. I did have it easier than them. I grew up with the support of several relatives who were already abroad at the time, but it doesn’t mean that I had it easy. I grew up with the word “enough” being embedded in my brain. That’s enough. We only have enough money for food. That new toy you had when you were six? I probably didn’t get it. My mom used to tell me that a note pad and pencil were my ideas of playtime.

At eight years old, I experienced my first plane ride and a new culture and a new language that I barely knew definitely made my new life difficult. Am I an American now or am I still a Filipino knowing that the people around me did not speak the sound of my tongue or shared the customs I’m used to? Do I fit in? Why am I here? At eight years old, I had my first symptom of imposter syndrome. That feeling of overwhelm and realization that you have a shot of a better life while knowing that you are one of a few handfuls of your people to have this opportunity.

I was ashamed to say that my mom works as a macadamia nut harvester and that my dad works in landscaping. Unfortunately, that feeling remained with me as I got to Georgetown, where a lot of the students come from more affluent and wealthy lifestyles. I ask myself, “Do I belong in this institution?” You see, my dad doesn’t own a multimillion company and I didn’t attend a magnet prep school that prepared me for an elite education. I mean I had much lower test-scores in comparison to other Georgetown students, so what is this kid from rural Hawai’i doing here? Everywhere I go, I will overhear another student unconsciously boast about their trip to the Bahamas or that internship they had with the mayor’s office. So the idea that I may have gotten in as a mistake or because of the color of my skin never left my mind during the first semester my college experience. As someone who was rather deprived of these opportunities, I felt uncomfortable. I knew that if I fail that there was no Plan B. If I fail, I go back to my real world where I am back to having “enough.”

I attended a rural and under-resourced public high school where the books are older than myself, the floors would creak when I walked on it, and the teachers are forced to teach outside their specialization because of a lack of teachers. Also, it is so small that my graduating class only had 42 students including myself. In 2016, my high school ranked very poorly in a performance assessment by StriveHI. Only 71% of students graduate on time. I saw my friends drop out, become pregnant while in high school, or become addicted to substances. In addition to that, only 38% attend a post-secondary institution. To many of my friends, the common mentality is to stay on the island and work directly. Some joined the armed forces, also. Yet, growing up in Ka’ū, I was a member of a community and school stereotyped as a ghetto or an underperforming institution where our low scores and past experiences determine our worth and capability of success. I watched my high school class decreased in size as hope slowly became an empty promise to many of those around me.

I waited months before I put in my enrollment deposit to make sure I received the emails from the school and that I actually got in. You see, my acceptance was more than just for myself. My school and my community celebrated with me. My principal tweeted about me to other principals in the school district, shortly after I taught her how to tweet. It was overwhelming because I felt that the pressure to do well in my college education was becoming a lot for me because everyone at home will be watching me. It’s rare that a student from a school considered to be a “ghetto” by other places on the island to attend an elite university like Georgetown University. During my graduation, I was happy that I can enter the new chapter of my life with a chance at social mobility and I am proud to have seen my classmates become college students, soldiers, and members of the workforce. From high school, I learned that labels do not define me. Your hard work and dedication define you.

Yet at my university, the same imposter syndrome that I faced as an eight-year-old came back and once again, I wondered why people like me were not common here. As a Filipino, I became an exotic type of student; one that made me a rare phenomenon even within the Asian American student community at Georgetown. With my status as a low-income student, I felt double the pressure of being in an institution that I knew was made for the rich and affluent. It wasn’t made for poor students and for people like me. Nearly half of my university identify themselves as white and only three percent of the student body share the same financial bracket as me according to the New York Times. Am I still supposed to say that I belong here?

In the classroom, I was falling behind. I was learning new concepts as well as material that my underresourced high school did not teach me, but for some reason, I was expected to know before I attended college. Our online transcripts gave us an option to see the mean grade of every class and as expected, I was below average. Academically, I knew I was inferior to all these students who attended magnet public and private schools. With that, I knew that it wasn’t my grades that got me into Georgetown. Was it my race and affirmative action that got me here? That was a question that I’ve spent nearly all my first semester trying to answer. Being an active member of the Club Filipino at Georgetown, I saw how there wasn’t many of us at all. I guess you can call us a minority within a minority and that sucks.

I always disliked the term poor and never considered myself poor. Instead, I say that I am socioeconomically disadvantaged. I was unable to partake in materialistic cultural activities such as constantly shopping or eating out at four-star restaurants like the 20% of the student body who belong in the top 1% of the financial bracket, but that doesn’t define me, right? I remember late nights studying and my roommate at the time asked me how to cook ramen noodles. Yes, I am finally getting to why I named this essay the way I did. I was shocked by this request because all you do is boil the water and add the seasoning when the noodles softened. Ramen noodles are often joked by many as being a type of food that students eat when they are poor and can’t afford a decent meal plan and while that may hold some truth, being asked how to cook ramen noodles has showed me that while many affluent students had an advantage over me by being able to afford private schools and tutors to help them study for standardized tests that they were not perfect and so am I. Their strengths are my weaknesses, but my strengths were their weaknesses.

I grew up eating ramen noodles and experiencing adversity from a young age. Every experience that I described in this essay are all lessons of growth that have shaped who I am and made me a student of an elite university. I may not be as academically prepared or wealthy, but I never saw myself as poor. I am rich in experiences and lessons of perseverance and adaptation. As a low-income student, my biggest advice to other students like me is to never regret your past. While they may hard and we wished that we had more than “enough,” all our experiences complement one another creating the greatest gift of all: the best version of ourselves. I am not saying that rich students have not faced challenges in their lives, but people like us depend more on these experiences to find who we really are. I end with this one note: find your ramen noodle and remember that you belong regardless of what people may seem or what the circumstances may be.