Personal Narrative: My First Generation Immigrants

My grandfather was the first person in my entire family to come to America in about 1988, so it’s been almost 30 years. When my grandfather decided to come to America, he had no green card, or a citizenship to come here. Therefore, he was driven to do various tasks to acquire his green card, so that he could travel to America. Keep in mind that he left his 4 kids, and his wife behind in India. As soon as he arrived in America, he commenced to look for a woman who was an American citizen, on the behalf that he wanted to bring his family to America as well.

I thought the meetings would be awkward for me, as I didn’t get along with strangers too often. However, this experience has taught me to give everyone a chance and for that, I am truly thankful. Then again, I thought that LA 111 would be able to help me adjust to that problem of mine and it did eventually. Participating in the class helped me later articulate what I had learned to my member where or when it was necessary. I realize now that it had been my fear of being alone in this that had kept me from joining programs like this.

- Many of the people described in this volume live their lives in two or more nation‐states and are embedded in social networks that reach around the globe. These individuals continue to participate in the economic, social, political, and religious lives of their homelands even as they settle in new places. They send resources and remittances that continue to fundamentally shape the life circumstances and possibilities of those who remain behind. By so doing, they call into question long‐standing assumptions about the immigrant experience in the United States. One particularly useful notion is the idea of long‐distance nationalism.

I was 10 years old when my parents finally allowed me to help cultivate the corn crops on the plantation we owned. Even though the hot Mexico sun was beating down and the air was so humid you could feel it on your fingertips, I loved every second of it. Year after year, I remember salvaging a few ears of corn and running back into the house, hoping that I don’t hear my parents coming after me. “Andrea!” they would shout, and I would giggle and put my hands behind my back. Then, I would stuff the stolen crops in the small crevice between the cupboard and the wall.

My family consist of five people: my mother, father, sister, brother, and me. My dad works as a landscaper. My mom works at Ross dress for less, she works in taking out the merchandise from the boxes and putting them on the hangers, she has been working there for almost 10 years now. My parents immigrated here from Mexico to America a long time ago, before I was born, making them immigrants. My sister is 13 years old and my brother is 15.

July 4th, America declared independence from Britain. Ironically, on July 4th, 1997, my parents came to the U.S , declaring independence from their own country. Christians in Egypt were beaten up, wrongly convicted, and killed. My parents did not want to raise their children in such a corrupt society and desired to come to America to pursue a better way of life . On November 26, 1999, I was born and my parents knew that this would mean a worse financial crisis.

When I first came to American, I lived in a homestay. Parents in a host family are very nice to me. Every day they will give me a rich breakfast with ice drink, but we usually drink a cup of hot water in the morning in China. Chinese people think that drinking a cup of hot water in the morning can prevent stomachache. Therefore, I asked my home parents to give me a cup of hot water, and they were shocked by my request.

The requirements of becoming a citizen in the United States have changed drastically over the last few centuries. Becoming a US citizen is a lengthy, stressful and expensive process. Parts of the process are based luck, while other parts are based on tests and interviews. Through history, the process of becoming a citizen has gotten harder and harder. Edwidge Danticat’s short story “Caroline’s Wedding”, the processing center at Ellis Island and the historical change of immigration laws show and compare the struggle of becoming a citizen in the United States.

When I first came to America, I was 4 years old. I knew nothing about the country. The culture, the language, the customs, and the etiquette in America was something that I was never exposed to as I was born in China surrounded by my own people. All I have ever watched was Chinese cartoons and read Chinese children 's books, but nothing about America was ever introduced into my life. However, there was one thing that I was certain of about the country, that I will have a good life in the land of the free.

As an immigrant, relocating to America does not necessarily mean a permanent settlement. More often than not, my family moved in multiple occasions as my family found it challenging to achieve a sustainable way of life. During the span of my childhood, I have moved to seven cities within a span of fourteen years and enrolled at five schools. Being an oriental immigrant proved to be enough of an embarrassment to my moral standards, but being labeled as “the new kid”, activated my deepest insecurities. Forcibly putting myself in an environment where diversity was not apparent, I implicitly harnessed an arrogance and hatred to my own culture.