Ma Rainey was able to connect with people through her music by creating relief, as if she understood what they were going through and living through.

During slavery, the inhumane conditions were unsettling. Slave owners would not even regard the slaves as human beings, treating them as if they are cattle.

I think all that mattered to her parents was that she was attending college. As long as she gets her degree, her grades, to them, don’t matter

There are parents who are uninformed or unaware of how to go about the steps to get to college and that limits the child/student and deprives them of resources. Doing everything yourself is very frustrating

Back home, my community is predominantly Hispanic. Almost everyone that I knew had struggled filing for FAFSA, or didn’t even file for it because they either didn’t know how to, didn’t know the right resources, or were given false information by actual teachers that it would lead them to get their parent’s deported if they tried. I find it systematically racist, if they only settle to stay in that small town because of limited financial responsibility, then how are they going to be released from the endless cycle of misfortune? It’s very very frustrating when parent’s aren’t capable of understanding what needs to be filled out and how to fill it out correctly. My parents tried making me more in debt by selecting more loans than I needed because they needed the money to help pay for bills.

My initial thought upon reading this article is that it is going to somehow relate to me. I am a first generation college student, my mom came from the Philippines and my dad had only gone to community college, and I don’t think he even finished that. I have an older sister who dropped out of college and started a family, so in general, I am who my younger sisters look up to because I am the first person to actually try and achieve a degree. It is so very stressful to balance work, school, and family issues. It seems like everything weighs down on your shoulders as a first generation college student because you are trying to help your family while you are learning everything and doing everything on your own. It’s very frustrating. What I didn’t know, in terms of the article, is that both of your parents shouldn’t have a bachelor’s degree in order to be considered a first generation college student. I never really thought about the requirements for it, I just knew that I was one, so it was weird to just see it written out like that so blatantly. Also, the student should be considered a first generation college student if his father who had a degree, passed away before raising him. It doesn’t make sense to me.