“To live is to fight, to preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.” - Patrick Ness

I used to hear somebody told me that “Life is a journey”; and to me, I used to think simply that my life’s journey is to happiness. In order to achieve the future happiness, I studied hard, worked hard even I left my potential career in Vietnam and flew a half of the earth to United State to chase so-called “ the American dream” which I believed to possibly fulfill my happiness. Until now, I can assert that I’m still on the right way to achieve my life’s purpose. And through the sociology course, I have a chance to closely see my way and to understand deeply reasons and motivations for me to think and to act such a way. My life is divided into 2 periods: one in Vietnam and one in United States; however, I find that as any individual in any society, I’m in the battle to fight against the existing inequalities in social class, gender and minority.
The first thing I learned from my background was that education will be an efficient “equalizer” for social class. My opinion is completely contrast to the Conflict theory which sees the purpose of education as maintaining social inequality and preserving the power of those who dominate society (Tischler, 2014, p.351). I was born in a tiny town in the small province of central region of Vietnam. I grew up in the period after 12 years when the Vietnam War against America ended. After more than a decade completely closed with the outside, Vietnamese government started to open the free-market and welcome FDI to invest into Vietnam, in other words “adopting some elements of capitalism while retaining most of its authoritarianism” (Vuving, 2013, p.325). This helped to open many opportunities for urbanization and increasing job chances. However, where I lived was just a small town in the central region of Vietnam, the change seemed to come late. Differ to other big cities, t...