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Why Do I Like Soccer? -- By Soledad Rosas My Roots--By a 9-year-old boy whose parents are from Hong Kong. The father migrated with his own parents and met the boy's mother during a visit back to Hong Kong. They married, and she came to Oakland a year before the boy was born; he is the oldest of three children, and she stays at home to care for them. The father works two jobs as a cook. The mother feels somewhat isolated and lonely in Oakland; her own parents and siblings are in Hong Kong. The mother has been back twice to visit; last summer she took the children and stayed for the summer. The children loved it there (as shown in the drawing "I miss my family at Hong Kong"), and they beg to go back. The mother also has yearnings to return, perhaps permanently. My Roots--By a 9-year-old boy whose parents are refugees from Vietnam. As the artist has explained in a capsule narrative at the bottom-left of the picture, "my mom came from Vietnam to Indonesia and to Oakland." The boy often talks, and in other classroom assignments has written about his mother's harrowing experiences during the war in Vietnam and its aftermath. His father is unemployed, and his mother works as a manicurist, travelling long distances to her job. Like many of the other children in the class, he "roots" for family, friends, a pet, as well as, in an unusual culinary twist, "my dad's chicken soup" and "my mom's rice soup." HomePage