Have you ever had an obstacle that you had to overcome in learning a different language? In David Sedaris “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and Beth Johnson’s “The Professor is a Drop Out”, the individual’s trials are homogeneous in many ways, this stems from them being older students attempting to learn a different language. David Sedaris expresses the difficulties in learning French in a French-speaking nation, author Beth Johnson take the reader on a journey into the life of Lupe Quintanilla the reader learns of her struggles to learn English when she and her family moved to Texas. Both texts show the hurdles that these two people had to embark upon while being insecure in an environment that didn’t prioritize their native languages. But victoriously,
The Fur Trading Era Have you ever trapped an animal. Well the trappers had to do this every day for a living. The life of a trapper was very harsh and lonely. Some trappers got married mostly to Indians. Here is a look at what their life was.
Growing up I always knew my mindset was far past my years. The way my mind worked was different and older than those kids around me, so it was no surprise for me to be on my own right from the get go after turning 18. For as long as I can remember I have always done everything by myself especially school related. My parents are Hispanic and speak little English, making me the first person in my family to attend college. My parents brought me to the United States from Mexico at the age of four and I have lived in Oklahoma ever since.
On January 5th , 1988 , my mother, Rosita Rancharan immigrated to the U.S from a small city in Belize named Corozal. Although she was married and had a teaching job that kept her economically stable, when her papers came out she decided to immigrate to America because she saw greater economic opportunity. At the time she was building a house with her husband , but she did not want to take out loans to build it. Originally she had just come here to stay for a couple of months so that she could send money back home to her husband to help build their house. But eventually she became more adjusted to living here and decided to stay here and build a foundation.
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.
Becoming a us citizen of us from the time that I was in high school, I though in getting the citizenship through my mom,but I noticed that she was really scared of applying, so I didn 't bother her and chose to wait the require time to apply by myself after two years of waiting, I stared the process and the fist step was filling the application in Internet, second was taking the on us office and last was taking an oath, after all this steps finally I got my citizenship. When I stared applying with the us citizen office, I was eighteen years old and I was really scared and nervous of the process, But that dint stop me from starting the application. So I decided to fill the application on line with all my information and paying all the fees with my moms credit card, after that I had wait for one month and a half and while that I felt that the waiting time was taking for ever, but when I got the letter it makes me feel better knowing that they received my information and
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.
The first eight years of my life, I spent in India where I was born. Growing up I was constantly reminded by my parents that I needed to make them proud by getting a good job and living a good lifestyle. They told me this because they did not want to see me live a hard life like they did. When I was nine years old, I moved from India to the United States of America. The reason why I moved to America was not because I was living a bad life in India, it was so that I could have a better education and more opportunities in life.
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.
My identity was created when my parents wrote my name on my birth certificate in 1998. Not knowing anything, my parents decided to walk away from the Hmong tradition of giving their descendant a Hmong name and wanted to become more Americanized for the better of my future. They came to the conclusion of calling me Billy, which have no affiliation with being Hmong at all, being the first in the family to walk down this path. Being borned in the United States as the youngest child in my family and being, with my four older siblings, the first generation of Hmong-American, allows me to have a different life than I would in Laos. Since my childhood, my culture is influenced by the experiences and opportunities that had shaped me as the person
Coming to America The most critical event of my life was November 11, 2013 the first time I boarded an airplane to the United States of America. It was the scariest but happiest time of my life experiencing it with my father and sister. I was afraid of heights, so there were times when I told my father I was too afraid to board a flight. I never actually imagined myself boarding a plane owing to the rigorous processes in acquiring a United States visa.
A few years ago I came to realize that with perseverance and working hard every barrier can be overcame, even though some things seem impossible, they are not. Everything started three years ago when I moved to this country to continue my academic preparation. In Mexico, my sister was the one who performed poetry, I was more interested in reading something else rather than reading poems, not to mention performing them. I started high school since my tenth grade, but I had to take English 1 because in Mexico I was instructed only in Spanish, therefore I did not take any English courses.
Being bilingual has given me the opportunity to appreciate the diversity of cultures. I grew up in Colombia, speaking only Spanish, until my family migrated to Miami, Florida when I was six years old. Due to my early departure from Colombia, I took Spanish in high school to perfect my writing and reading, which has inspired me to explore other languages as well. My interest in Portuguese began when I learned that Brazil was the only Latin American country that did not speak Spanish and led me to take two semesters of the language at the collegiate level.
Through the course of my life, I lived in many parts of the country and travelled many foreign countries. I experienced many different cultures, dialects and languages. This reflection led me to realize that my life and who I am was influenced but the dialects and languages I spoke. Though some of the languages were very similar, they were different enough that the words have different meanings in different places. Dialects between the Southern and Northern United States are different enough to be another language, as with the language that the military uses.
January 22nd, 2001, I was born in Dallas, Texas, in the United States. Naturally, people around me spoke English, resulting in my early speaking and language to be English. Eventually, my family moved to Finland where I learned Finnish, this became my mother tongue. Just about 8 years later my family once again moved aboard. This time to Taiwan, where I spoke English all the time.
