BILINGUAL
PARAEDUCATOR
Marvelous
Mother
Winner of the Literary
Inspirations Essay Contest
Thi Nhat, Nguyen
I
am writing about a book
character who inspires
me a lot. About a month
ago, I read Born a
Crime written by Trevor
Noah. It was an extraordinary
memoir that I think everyone
should read. In the book we
have a view of South African
society in general, and Noah’s
life in particular. It was very
interesting to me. In Noah’s
stories, I found inspiration
from his mother who raised
Noah through all the barriers
apartheid brought to them. dian, writer, producer, polit-
ical commentator, actor, and
television host,” says Wikipe-
dia. If you open YouTube, you
can see the popular videos of
his comedy shows or The Dai-
ly Show which has millions of
viewers. He can speak many
languages like English, Xhosa,
Zulu, Sotho, Tswana, Tsonga,
Afrikaans and German with
different perfect accents. With
his knowledge, his humor, and
his talent, he became famous
not only in South Africa but
also all over the world.
I felt that her mentality at that
time was a century more ad-
vanced than a normal person’s
would have been. That’s why
we have a successful Trevor
Noah now. His mother and his
book reminds me of my prom-
inent mom and my unforget-
table childhood in Vietnam
where I was born and grew up. Behind his success is his re-
markable mother. I call her
the greatest mother. Noah said
Born a Crime was written for
his mom, his first fan, who
made him become a success-
ful man. I can feel Noah’s love
with all his respect and pride
for his mom through his words
in every single story he told in
his book. Patricia Nombuyise-
lo Noah was the name of No-
ah’s mother. She was born in
a poor three-child family un-
der apartheid in South Africa,
About Trevor Noah, just a
click, and we can find a ton of
information about him online.
He is a “South African come-
48
about which Noah explained in
his book, “The genius of apart-
heid was convincing people
who were the overwhelming
majority to turn on each oth-
er, separate people into groups
and make them hate one an-
other.” She was the youngest
child and grew up without her
parents’ love. She lived with
her aunt after her parents di-
vorced when she was very
young.
She chose to live a different
life than the rest of the Black
South African people at that
time. She started with learning
English and typing because she
realized that those skills would
help her to find a better job to
earn more money in white peo-
ple’s company. Even though
it was illegal, she hid herself
to live in white people’s land
secretly after finishing work,
which brought her worldview
closer to a modern life of the
developed countries. She no
longer accepted old-fashioned
traditional rules. She was very
smart and independent.