My father and cousin, Tuyen, had left for work, in El Monte, early that day to avoid traffic. Nghia, who is Tuyen's younger brother, left for school a little bit early that day. The only people at home were my mother, my two brothers, Minh, who is the older of the two, and Hai, who was barely two years old, my sister, Anh, and myself. Minh and Anh were in my upstairs room with me and we were playing video games. My mother and younger brother, Hai, were in the living room. I was starting to get bored of playing video games; so I headed towards the kitchen to find something to eat. As I turned to the hallway, I saw a man in his mid-twenties, wearing a brown jacket and pointing a gun at me. All I heard him say was "Get down!" so I told my siblings to do what he said and did the same thing myself.

I really feel that the strangest part of the whole incident was that there were two of the guys with the same name as my brother and I. As I lay under the blanket, I could hear some one yell, "Tuan! Minh! Get up here!" I don't know if the robbers previously knew our names and used them to confuse my family or if it was their actual names. We suspected that the robbers were guys who knew my older cousin, which would explain why the robbers did not search my cousins' rooms. What really makes me mad is the fact that the robbers were also Vietnamese. They should have known how hard it is to come to a new country and try to make a decent living.

Though the gun was only pointed at me for a few seconds, everything seemed to just stop. Nothing except for the gunman and I existed. I felt tremendous terror, having to face the idea of not seeing the next day horrified me. I immediately asked one of the robbers, "Are you gonna kill us?" He gave me an ensuring reply of "Just stay cool." I guess he didn't want to shoot anyone as much as I didn't want to get shot. The men covered my siblings and I with a crimson red blanket. This blanket intensified my horrors of death. I could imagine the blood flowing from my chest as I screamed in excruciating pain. The whole experience seemed to last about three hours, when in fact, it only lasted 45 minutes. Even though I was only seven years old, I could still relate with the idea of your whole life flashing before your eyes when you're facing a life threatening experience.

When the police arrived, I became the interpreter for my mother, since she didn't' know enough Eng

Some common words found in the essay are:
Minh Anh, Tuan Minh, Asian American, Intended Audience, Duck Hunt, Nghia Tuyen's, El Monte, Minh Hai, guess didn't, shoot 'em, playing video, event affected, afraid guns, hat hated, playing video games, video games,
Approximate Word count = 1094
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)