An example of an autobiographical essay

[Written by a student in the Labour Studies program, used with permission]

My name is Carlo, and I was born in June, 1958, in Italy. Our family, made up of my mother, father, and a brother,
emigrated to Noranda, Quebec, when I was five years old. I encountered my first, but not last, taste of racism when kids in
the neighbourhood laughed at my poor command of English. As fast as I could I learned not only English, but French as
well. I became trilingual, speaking fluent French and English, as well as Italian. In the process, I made new friends from a
lot of different cultural backgrounds.

We then moved to Toronto, Ontario, where my Dad got work in a rubber factory. From my earliest days, I knew our family
had to struggle for every penny. My Mom baked pizza which my brother sold by the slice, door to door. I caddied at the
local golf courses and brought home all the money that I made. I hated it when other kids made fun of working people, like
garbage collectors, who cleaned up trash for a living.

When I was in grade six, I was ill in hospital for two months with a kidney infection, and it changed my whole life. I
seriously took up playing guitar. I began to do photography, and joined the audiovisual club. I discovered I was artistic with
an interest in graphic art, although I didn’t always agree with the kind of art assignments the teacher gave us. However, I
had no idea what to do after high school graduation. Thinking electonics was the wave of the future, I enrolled in and
graduated with a diploma from George Brown College in Instrumentation Technology. I was hired on by Ontario Hydro as
an apprentice.

Life was magical for a single guy in Toronto at this time. I made quite a bit of money. I enjoyed meeting and socializing
with many new friends from a variety of different cultures. During this time, I met and married my wife, Valerie, a
Registered Nurses’ Assistant, and soon we had two wonderful children, a daughter, Carla and a son, Nicholas. With new
family responsibilities, I felt there was not enough opportunity for advancement at work. My wife and I thought of places
we would like to live such as the east coast. But there were no jobs there. We finally decided to move to northern B.C.
when I was offered a job with a forestry company.

Because of the children’s activities, I soon became involved in the community coaching children’s hockey and soccer, and
being a scout leader. At work, I joined the Pulp Mill Recreation Club, eventually becoming president. There were a lot of
things that needed changing. I decided I wanted our company to start a wellness program and researched to prove to
them that healthy employees tremendously reduced absenteeism and health costs to the company. I wanted the company
to reward those who kept themselves fit and began to lobby for this through our union.

I soon became elected as union safety captain, then later became a shop steward. I began to run for executive positions
rising through the ranks from financial secretary to environmental vice president, chief shop steward, first vice president,
and finally becoming president, a position I held for two years.

In my trade, I constantly must upgrade my skills, so I took advantage of many learning opportunities to do so through the
company. This helped our union come into the 21st century, because I insisted we buy computers and subscribe to e-mail,
connecting our members to other locals throughout the province. I also edited the union newsletter, keeping the members
informed of all aspects of the local’s business. I used desktop publishing to produce our newsletter before anyone in Head
Office knew what it was. Using my background in art and photography, I brought our publication from a crude photocopied
rag to a sophisticated communication tool. For my efforts, I won two Canadian Association of Labour Media Awards, one
for the best cartoon in Canada, depicting flexibility in the workplace, and one for the best editorial story of less than 500
words for a Union Newsletter. I also use my desktop publishing abilities for community fund raising activities.

I lost an opportunity to be union president for a third year because of an unpopular decision our local executive made in
connection with implementing a contract that upheld the recognition of seniority rights. Reflecting back, I would not do
anything differently. We took the task at hand, looked at the contract, discussed among the executive, asked for the
opinions of our area rep, the Western Region Vice President, and our lawyer. Then we made our decision and stood by it,
even though it meant I lost the presidency by nine votes. Now, two and a half years later, we are being proven right
through the labour board.

Because of this event, I found myself with extra time on my hands. This opportunity made it possible for me to concentrate
on pursuing university studies and my social work for unions. I enrolled at AU in the Labour Studies program. I continue
with the newsletter, putting forth social and political issues that organized labour is facing today. I support the unions in
the community and am involved in organizing them as they have never been organized before. I am even more committed
to fighting for social justice than I have been all along, and am keen to move along this route in the future.
 Anne Frank (Biography)

Anne Frank was one of the thousands of Jewish children who were killed in the
Holocaust. She became a well-known name and one of the most discussed victims of the
holocaust after her diary ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ was published by her father a couple of
years after her death. The diary is today one of the world’s best known books and has been
translated into several languages. It has also been adapted into many plays and films all over
the world. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, during a highly tumultuous period in the nation’s
history, she moved from Germany to Amsterdam with her family in the early 1930s after the
rise of Nazis in her homeland. At the height of the World War II the Germans occupied
Netherlands and the Jews were no longer safe in Amsterdam as well. As the persecution of
the Jewish population continued to increase, the Frank family was forced to move into
hiding. A young teenager who hoped to become a writer on growing up, Anne dutifully wrote
in her dairy, documenting her daily life in hiding. She remained hopeful that one day her life
would return to normalcy but her hopes were unfounded; she, her mother and sister were
killed along with thousands of other Jews in the concentration camps. Only her father
survived the war.

Childhood & Early Life

 She was born as Annelies Marie Frank on 12 June 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany, to Otto
Frank and Edith Frank-Holländer. She had an elder sister, Margot. The Franks were a
typical upper middle-class liberal Jewish family who lived in an assimilated community
of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Her father, an army man turned businessman, had
scholarly interests and both her parents encouraged their daughters to read.
 Anne was born during an era of political chaos in Germany. In March 1933, Adolf
Hitler's Nazi Party won the elections held in Frankfurt for the municipal council. The
party was notorious for its anti-Semitism and her parents began to fear for their
children.
 When Hitler became chancellor of Germany, the family left Germany and moved to
Amsterdam in Netherlands fearing for their lives. They were among 300,000 Jews who
fled Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1939.
 Otto Frank, an industrious man, worked hard to stabilize the family’s financial position.
He found a job at the Opekta Works, a company that sold fruit extract pectin, and went
on to establish his own business.
 Anne started attending a Montessori school. She was an extrovert, outspoken and
friendly. She had always loved reading and now she developed a writing habit as well.
But she was very secretive about what she wrote and never shared it even with her
friends.
 However, when the Frank family had finally settled into a comfortable routine, Germany
invaded the Netherlands in May 1940 and the peaceful lives of the Jews came to an
abrupt end. The persecution of Jews began with the implementation of restrictive and
discriminatory laws, and Otto Frank once again feared for his wife and daughters.
 Due to the restrictive laws, Anne and her sister were forced to leave their respective
schools and had to enroll at the Jewish Lyceum. Meanwhile, their father struggled to
provide financially for the family as being a Jew he was not allowed to continue
running his business.
 Anne received a gift from her parents for her 13th birthday on 12 June, 1942: a red
checkered diary. She began writing on it almost immediately. Even though most of her
initial entries were about the mundane routines of day to day life, she also wrote about
how her family fled Germany and adjusted to life in the Netherlands.
Life in Hiding
 In July 1942, Anne’s elder sister Margot received a notice to report to a Nazi work
camp in Germany. Realizing that the family was in dire circumstances, Otto took the
family into hiding in makeshift quarters at the back of his company building.
 Otto’s employees Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl helped
the family during this crucial time. Soon the Frank family was joined by another family,
the van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist, in hiding.
 Initially Anne found living in hiding an adventure and wrote about it excitedly in her
diary. She also developed a romance with Peter van Pels during this time which she
mentioned in her writings.
 Since the family was not allowed to go outside, she spent most of the time reading and
writing. Her diary became her closest confidante and she wrote in detail about her
relationships with each of her family members.
 As time wore by, Anne lost her youthful optimism and began to grow weary of the
confinement. However, she did not lose hope that life would one day return to normal
and she would go back to school. She mentioned in her diary that she wanted to be a
writer one day.

Arrest
 The Jewish families were betrayed by an informer in 1944. Their hiding place was
discovered in August and the Franks, van Pelses, and Pfeffer were arrested and
interrogated. Having been arrested in hiding, they were considered criminals.
 The group was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where the men were forcibly
separated from the women. Anne, her sister and mother were pulled away from their
father and taken to the women’s camp where they were made to perform heavy manual
work.
 After some time, Anne and Margot were separated from their mother, who later died,
and moved to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where the conditions were even
worse with scarcity of food and lack of sanitation facilities.

Death & Legacy

 A typhus epidemic spread through the camp in 1945 and other diseases like typhoid
fever were also widespread. Though it is not known what exactly afflicted the Frank
sisters, it is believed that both Margot and Anne became ill and died sometime in
February or March 1945.
 Otto Frank was the lone survivor in the family. Miep Gies, who had retrieved Anne
Frank's diary after the family was arrested, gave it to Otto when he returned to
Amsterdam from the camp.
 On reading the diary, her father realized that Anne had maintained such an accurate
and well-written record of their time in hiding and decided to get it published.
 The diary was first published in Dutch as ‘Het Achterhuis. Dagboekbrieven 14 Juni 1942
– 1 Augustus 1944’ (The Annex: Diary Notes 14 June 1942 – 1 August 1944), in 1947. It
was soon translated into English and published as ‘Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young
Girl’ in 1952.
  The English translation became very popular and was soon adapted into plays and
movies. Over the years the diary was translated into several other languages and is
considered one of the most widely-read works of the 20th century.

Major Works
 Anne Frank became one of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust due to
the enormous popularity of the English translation of her diary, ‘Anne Frank: The Diary
of a Young Girl.’ The diary, which has since been published in more than 60 different
languages, contains a poignant account of the Frank family’s life in hiding during the
Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.