I was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, but I moved to Providence when I was about two years old. My mother's from Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa, so I'm Cape Verdean. It's kind of a mix of Portuguese and African, because it was a Portuguese colony for a long time.
At first I really didn't like Central High School and I wanted to leave badly. There were so many kids and it had that reputation of being a bad school. I thought that I wasn't going to make it to college if I stayed here. I was on the waiting list at Mt. Pleasant, but I signed up for softball my freshman year and really liked it. So after that I definitely couldn't leave.
I've wanted to be a marine biologist for a long time, so college has been in my plans. I'm going to URI next year to study marine biology, they have a great program. I'm going to be at Talent Development this summer at URI, so I'll be living on campus and taking classes. I already did Upward Bound at Rhode Island College. I spent six weeks on the campus. It kind of felt like jail because we had to ask to do stuff and we couldn't use our phones. There wasn't TV or anything like that, you could only do your homework. So that was tough, but it really prepared me for college. You can't always have fun.
I'm really looking forward to coming back to school and playing with my softball team and my tennis team. When I was a freshman there were seniors on the team, so I felt really popular when they'd call my name in the hall. Made me feel like I was important. Now I'm the captain of the team because I'm the only one who's been there for four years. I'm hoping I get MVP, but who knows. I was elected secretary of the senior class, and I try to get to know everybody in our class. When you see someone in the hallway who's a senior and you say, "Hi, I don't know you," you make people feel really important. I'm also the yearbook editor.
It's tough sometimes, because we have lots of events at our school and a lot of the kids don't want to participate. Me, I love participating. I love having fun. I try and get people excited to come to events, but it doesn't always work. I really try and talk to the freshmen, too. Like for Winter Ball, when we weren't selling enough tickets. So I try and reach out to those groups as well. There are freshman representatives on the Student Council, but their voices aren't as loud, at least not as loud as the seniors.
When I first came here I was in the Hanley Building. We were in groups and communities. So it was just us—four classes, and they were all connected. We didn't really get to go around the school and see everything. So I was really naive, I thought this was a small school and I started liking it. Then after my freshman year I got to go around the whole building and was like, "Wow, it's so much bigger." I knew that this was going to help me when I went to college because I had to get used to it. I started meeting new people and I realized that I didn't want to close the door to other people. I like who I am now. Even though sometimes my mom says, "I don't like how you've changed. You're louder." But I'm just a loud person; I'm talkative. I really like who I am.
I'm the first one in my family to go to college with a really clear idea of what I want to do. Sometime it's hard because I feel like my mom puts more pressure on me. It's like my brother and sister are going to community college and I've got to do better. But I don't feel like it's a competition between us at all. Whatever we become or whatever we decide to do, it's all on us.
Maiyai Yang>>
Return to Introduction>>
