The stigma around low-income students seems to be that of the "rags to riches" (academic riches, anyway) concept that is seen in Hollywood and other forms of media. Sure, it is no easy feat to be a low-income student in the United States, especially for those who are the first generation in their family to attend a four-year college or university, or any higher learning institution for that matter. Having said that, the people who I have talked to have really illustrated the point that I will be making in this article. When people who truly have known the struggle of being a low-income student say they are low-income, they rarely use the word "poor," and for good reason. Being poor and being low-income are two completely different things. Coming from a low-income household simply means that the family who you lived with wasn't able to make a certain amount of money in a fiscal year, and therefore they had to make sacrifices in order to make ends meet. These could take one of many forms, such as living in degraded housing (a.k.a. livin' in the hood/the projects), having to eat only at home or not being able to go to the movies, having to walk to school, wearing the same shoes every day for a year until you or a family member could afford you a new pair, or my favorite, having to come up with ingenious ways of side hustling/keeping your personal belongings clean and or well kept. Then again, there were others who had a poor mentality: the local street gang, for example, who did not find another alternative to staying in their homes and "gang with their homies," or to make the decision to avoid drugs, crime, or getting caught in the crossfire.

Being poor is a mentality-- being low-income is a temporary state of economic being. Not many people stay low-income forever. However, people can stay poor for the rest of their lives. It seems kind of ridiculous to think that many people use those two words interchangeably. Unfortunately, that seems to be the reality some of us live in. "Did you grow up poor?" many people ask me when we are getting to know each other. I usually reply with a chuckle and go on to explain that even though my parents didn't have a lot of money for me to have everything I wanted, they always made sure that I was fed, clothed, and had a bed to sleep in. I never grew up poor. I grew with many riches around me. The public libraries in my town and in my schools. The wisdom and experience of my parents who sacrificed more than I could ever imagine for me to be writing this article late at night. My friends who, for better or worse, showed me that life is filled with a multitude of different ideas and changes that not even the greatest prophets in history could have imagined. And even the music on the radio that gave me insight on the stories that touch millions, from the introductory notes of Hotel California to the fueled Bay Area flavor of rappers like G-Eazy and Iamsu!.

I am still amazed to this day to run into people who seem to not have some kind of an idea of the greatness that they themselves have achieved and who have not really taken it into consideration when looking at others and comparing their own. In the end, being the great "come up" from the projects really has a huge significance. But only by putting their egos aside can students be truly empowered by themselves and by others. The collective of low-income students really does make you realize that there are certain things that Americans from different cultures take for granted. But one thing that is agreed upon is that we are working towards a better future and we do not have a poor mentality. We have the mentality of royalty, where our garb is the tradition of a thousand generations before us, and the riches that we have are not of the ephimeral, but of the eternal.