Personal Narrative: An Immigrant

I used to have this grudges in my heart when everything go hard that would made me wanted to blame my parent. But I can’t because I was not raise to think that way. When I come to America, I was eleven years old and no one asked me if I wanted to come it just happen in a second. I was in a cold place with extended family that I never met before and that one person who raise me and made me feel secure was still back in the country. I had to lived months without her and next thing you know I adapted and convince myself they are doing this because the wanted the best for me.

I remember our first days in US were difficult for me and my mother; especially, one night when I woke up and saw her fainting in the cold floor. I had panicked, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a car, or phone to call anyone. I felt a shame of myself, I couldn’t help my own mother at the same time. Thankfully, one of my neighbors was awake, and she helped me with everything.

Challenge Essay Moving into The United States that has a different language has been the biggest obstacle that I have ever faced, especially with the fact that there was a time where I didn’t understand a single word of that language called English. This was a big obstacle in my life since I was raised in Mexico where the prime language, there is Spanish and that was the only language I knew back then, it was until the day had come where my family and I had to move into the United States due to the violence that has been happening in Mexico. I consider those times the most difficult ones of my whole life because I had to work triple than what I normally did in school in order for me to learn a huge complex language.

German Immigrant- $5. Husband and three children. It was not at all how I had imagined it would be. America, the land of the free, was awfully confined. I stepped off the boat with anger filling my entire body.

Scotty: Dude look at all those Mexicans crossing the border illegally and stealing our jobs! It makes me really mad!! Why can’t they just stay in their own country? Neeyal:

This autobiographical essay will define my experience as a Dominican immigrant living in New York City. Being an American citizen with a Dominican background are extremely relevant to the process of political socialization. My family background is founded on the principles of democratic values, which taught to me by my mother and father. In New York City, I found a “melting pot” of different immigrants that allowed me to feel more accepted as a Dominican living in the United States. More so, these aspects of the socialization process provided a foundation for my belief in democratic values throughout my life.

I am not white, but I am not Mexican either. I am, however, a first generation Mexican American with parents from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Perhaps I do not know what it is like to cross the border that refrains me from being Mexican, or the color of my skin that refrains me from being white, but my own personal experiences make me the Mexican American that I am today. Growing up I celebrated the Fourth of July with fireworks, and the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe with matlachines.

I was born in Southern Los Angeles and lived in a conserved community of predominantly hispanic immigrants seeking socioeconomic prosperity for their families and an adequate education for their children. My family was a part of this community and as such, I was always met with a high standard for education and was taught to fully appreciate the benefits that followed it. I would constantly be reminded of these benefits when I would continuously witness not only my own family struggle, but when neighbors and friends also struggled to provide essential payments for their utilities, food, or rent. These financial struggles stubbornly persisted to haunt my family and in 2008 we were in no position to maintain our home and consequently lost it. This drastically strained family

Growing up in an immigrant household in America, was difficult. I didn’t live, I learned to adapt. I learned to adapt to the fact that I did not look like any of my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that my hair texture would never be like any of my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that I was not as financially well off as my peers, so I changed.

As a teenager moving to a new country with a different culture, different language, and being thousands of miles away from everyone I grew up with was not an easy change, however, that was precisely what I did in January of 2013 when I came to the United States with my father. My whole world changed since, and shaped my way of thinking. From learning English, adjusting to a new culture, experiencing my first snow and finding my way in my new country, my life has been an exciting adventure. My parents brought me to America almost 5 years ago to have a better life, and to get a better education.

First generation immigrants sacrifice their adulthood in search of a better life for their family and for future generations to come. My father came from Peru to support his family. He was the first person in his family to come to America. He works in road construction from morning until night so that my family is supported. The desire to repay both of my parents is the belief that guides my life.

More than twelve million immigrants will make their first stop in America at Ellis Island Immigration station in the years ahead between 1892 and 1954, at least that's what we read. Who knew a small island in the New York Harbor would become my life saver ? I have waited for this day ever since I was just ten years old. I was thinking about the time when I first heard the news that we would be traveling to America when I was interrupted by a repetitive phrase. “Are you ready, Aria ?”

In 2009, the U.S. Census gathered that there were over thirty-three million second-generation immigrants living in America. America is a melting pot, and in this melting pot, it isn’t uncommon for these children, myself included, to lose sight of what our lives could be–and the struggles that our parents faced to ensure that we have more opportunities than they had. As I write this essay, I’m stressing over the things any other American high school sophomore faces– grades, social drama and statuses, and my follower count on Twitter and Instagram. These “problems,” if even that, are minute to what others our age face around the world.

I woke up on an especially cool winter morning and looked over to my mother’s side of the bed. She was not there, I knew that, but I secretly wished she was. I swung my legs off the bedside and rushed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get myself ready for school. This was a typical morning for me.

The world is filled with people, and like snowflakes, each person is not the same as another. Each person identifies with different aspects of their lives to create their own personal identities. I personally identify with my Italian side of my family to help form who I am today. I have found myself connecting with this side more so than the other parts of my identity. It affects how I live my life by becoming the center to the culture surrounding me.