Resilience essay

Armand de la Garza
Humanities
April 16, 2008

Essay
They helped change the world in a great way and laid the building blocks for our generation. Abraham Lincoln and Sostones Elizondo were two truly resilient people.
Abraham Lincoln is resilient because he fought against slavery against the South. He became the sixteenth president of the United States. Lincoln grew up on a one-room log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. His parents were uneducated farmers. His mother died when he was nine years old. In the beginning of his political career he was failed miserably with the Whig party. Even though, Lincoln experienced all hardships to knock him down, he kept on trucking and raising himself to become a militia leader and then a state legilastor, and finally, president of the United States.
Another person who was resilient was Sostenes Elizondo, born approximately ____. Elizondo immigrated from Ireland to start fresh in America. He was very poor and became a soldier in the Mexican-American war. Elizondo didn’t like fighting against Mexico because it is a Catholic country. At this time in history, many Irish people deserted the U.S. Army and went into hiding to avoid fighting Mexico, a Catholic opponent. They changed their names and got jobs. Some of them, like Elizondo, even fought with the Mexicans despite the fact that if he were caught, he would be executed for treason. Elizondo was like Abraham Lincoln because they both started out poor and made something of themselves despite all the hardships they faced.
Both Abraham Lincoln and Sostenes Elizondo changed history. Lincoln became a U.S. president, led the country through the Civil War, and ended slavery. Elizondo immigrated from Ireland, changed his name to hide his Irish heritage, and chose to fight with the Mexicans who shared his Catholic religion.