UC application personal statement--please help!

<p>Hi! I'm revising and finalizing my essays for UCs this weekend and I need advices and help from people. It's not quite finished yet though. I wrote it awhile ago and now that I read it again, I want to add and change some things.
Your comments will be greatly appreciated and thank you so much for your time!</p>

<p>Prompt: Describe the world you come from--for example, your family, community, or school--and tell us how your world shaped your dreams and aspirations.</p>

<p>Last year's ethnicity breakdown of my school was: 13 American Indians, 247 Asians, 21 Pacific Islanders, 57 Filipinos, 841 Hispanic, 569 African Americans, 501 white, and 2 foreign exchange students. For the first time in the United States last year, a transgender was voted as the homecoming king. Several teachers on campus are openly gay. We have almost every kind of religious churches and temples in a very small city in LA, meaning students come from various religious backgrounds. Multicultural Literature is one of the most popular classes at school. The school emphasizes on intercultural education and the students value and celebrate cultural diversity. This is the kind of community I come from: diverse, yet harmonized.</p>

<p>The strange thing is that I am so familiar and comfortable with this community that I did not even notice this diversity. Also, coming from a traditional Korean family living in the United States created the environment for me to grow as a culturally diverse person who can perceive the world in different points of view. For example, I practice American individualism of self-reliance and personal independence but engage relatively more collective and unified Korean characteristics. As a result, my thoughts and actions are well-balanced. Having friends of various ethnicities and interacting with different cultures on a daily basis were the norm and I really believed that it would be the same everywhere I go across the country until I started taking Multicultural Literature. Through that class, I realized, though it was hard, how many cultural problems we are dealing with and how accepting my community was in comparison. In the world that is constantly becoming localized and accessible, ethnical prejudice and discrimination is an on-going problem we must face; however, the world I come from showed that the world isn't black and white keys on a piano; it is the beautiful chords that composes the harmony and melody. Knowing this fact, I wanted to learn more about the societal cause of our the instinctive human response to categorical differences, and perhaps make a progress in which we learn to understand and respect others without judging them based on their ethnic background. My community shaped a person that I am, who tolerates and believes in fairness in equality among every one of all backgrounds.</p>

<p>Please let me know if there's any grammar corrections to be made!</p>