Friendship: What It Means To Be An Immigrant

As a senior at Red Cloud High School, I’m a member of National Honor Society, captain of the cheer squad, lifeguard, swimming instructor, and part-time employee at the local grocery store. I’ve come to learn from a young age that money doesn’t grow on trees. When growing up, it was just my mother and I. While living on her single parent income, I learned money doesn’t grow on trees. My mother worked a minimum wage job, facing financial struggles at times. Her willpower drove her to get the job she has today. My mother married, and I have a little brother now. As his big sister, I always wanted to be someone he could look up to. At the age of fifteen I became a lifeguard at the community pool. The next year I took classes to be a certified Water Safety Instructor, so I could teach swimming lessons to local children. That same year I applied at the local grocery store, to have a job during the school year.

Studying to be a physician requires lots of effort and time. To an immigrant like me, I tried to manage my studies, volunteer work, and adjusting to a new culture at the same time. I like to stick with my plans, and it has always been my plan to enter medical school on 2018. However, my road to entering medical school didn’t come as easy to me. After transferring to University, two of my close family passed away.

Hello reader, I’m about to tell you a story of some of my life. I am not normally one to volunteer details about myself, which I’ll remain somewhat reserved or completely leave some events out of this autobiography. Nonetheless, I believe I can still make my story interesting for the reader. I was born 1979, in Tampa, Florida; which, is also the same day my biological father decided to leave my mother and I. My mother isn’t a native Floridian, but had moved there with her family when she was still an infant, and had spent most of her life growing up in Florida. Needless to say, my father leaving was not an exciting time for my mother and I. Although she was employed Jimmy Cater was president and had taken the nation into

It was such a joy to be able to watch ‘An Immigrant Journey’. Everyone that was involved in the play in any way, did a fantastic job on creating the story and making the story much more believable for audience members. I thought the cast did a fantastic job of condensing down over 125 hours of research material, into a 50-minute show, which had to be incredibly challenging.

I was born here in Chicago but was raised in a small Illinois town near Iowa. I later returned to my roots as an adult and have raised my own family in the Chicagoland area in (South Suburban) Steger, Illinois. I am a wife, mother and recently became a grandmother.

From an early childhood, I was able to learn the values of hard work, discipline, humility, and determination. I learned this from my parents who would work in the hot sun slaving away in the orchards. Every night I would watch them come home from work exhausted. Their checkered shirts and ripped denim jeans drenched in pesticide chemicals. Their fingers would be chapped and their faces burnt from the long day in the sun. When I turned nine, I finally got to see the realities and the difficulty of field labor.

The best advice I have ever given myself is to never forget where I come from. I am happy to acknowledge my family and my cultural roots. I am first generation born in The United States. My parents migrated from Mexico in hopes to look for better opportunities for my siblings and I. The United States for my parents represented the pathway to success, they wanted to start a family where education is offered to any student and no child is left behind. As well as jobs are easier to find. For that I am extremely grateful and have been positively influenced of living in a place where opportunities are offered.

“Mom, will I ever be treated as a regular person? When will I be like the others without people look at me in a strange way and make fun of me, when mom? When?” Those were the questions I did to my mom almost every day after getting home from school. Fourteen years ago that my parents brought me to this country offering a better life with better opportunities than where I was born. I was seven years old when came to the United States, but I still remember the happiness I felt when I first step in this country. Throughout the years, I have realize that not everything is easy and simple as I imagined. My parents worked in the fields because of the lack of a social security and not knowing how to speak English. Many Americans do not know how hard it is the life of an immigrant, they should have a consideration for us and not just blame us for the deviance of the United States.

“Immigration” a controversial issue that argues two sides, the perspective of Americans and the reality of an immigrant. As a daughter of parents who migrated to the Unites States from El Salvador, I personally believe that immigrants are the correct side from what the Americans see or believe; however, just like anything else there will be two different sides; the good immigrants and the bad immigrants. For example, first, the US has immigrants with different types of crimes committed. Then, we have the issue of jobs with immigrants. Third, an additional issue is the cost of having immigrants that has many questions regarding the benefit. Last but not least, foreign language has been an accommodated at the United States and has been under

Humanity is ever so much more complicated than one could have ever imagined. Humans can thrive on change, but ultimately look for something to declare as home. In search of this home people travel long distances and risk everything they have. When an American contemplates the word immigrant, one imagines the countless people from Mexico crossing into our country or the refugees that hope to make this country their home. What eludes most of us, however, is the reality that most people were, at one point, immigrants to this country and that our forefathers came here exactly the same as refugees come today. What is brought to mind when I hear the word immigrant is hope and perseverance. I remember the countless people who have traveled here

It is not uncommon to hear one recount their latest family reunion or trip with their cousins, but being a first generation immigrant, I sacrificed the luxury of taking my relatives for granted for the security of building a life in America. My parents, my brother, and I are the only ones in my family who live in the United States, thus a trip to India to visit my extended family after 4 years was an exciting yet overwhelming experience. Throughout the trip, I felt like a stranger in the country where I was born as so many things were unfamiliar, but there were a few places that reminded me of my childhood.

When I was young my grandmother taught me to always help others. Even those who may be mean or undeserving of it. There were many stereotypes and jokes made about me but she still wanted us to always help others. I learned to go with the flow and let it go. This lesson and the value in helping others helped me especially in high school. During my junior year in high school I began to take an interest in a program call Opportunities in Emergency Care. That year I was certified as a first aid provider and in CPR. As a senior I continued my education in this field. I am now a certified Emergency Medical Responder and I will be a certified Emergency Medical Technician. I have had many occasions to apply the knowledge and skills I gained, by working

Growing up as an immigrant I view the world in a much more different light than most people do. Whenever an opportunity presents itself to me I am willing to put in the effort if I know it will better my life. This trait of resourcefulness originates from my family who, over the years have created a life for themselves out of virtually nothing. I moved to America at the young age of two years old with my father. Though he didn’t have much to begin with, my father decided to move to this country in hopes to lead a better life and follow on the path of the American dream. I vividly recall being in the backseat of our car while my father trained me on the importance of remaining perceptive and hardworking in school and abroad, I remember he would

I was always a precocious child, yet argumentative and rebellious. I did not want to accomplish anything following a pattern set for me. I wanted to forge my own way. This determination set me at odds with my mother, and has defined our relationship all these years. It has surely led me down my own irregular path in life, and placed me in position to be the family’s black sheep.

Humans like many other animals in earth, migrate. Different people migrate for various reasons, and places. Migrating to a new place is a new journey that is often both challenging, dangerous and costly. Moreover, often through their social network potential immigrants gain an ambiguous vision of what immigration is. While many immigrants make the journey for: economic opportunities, escaping natural disasters or even persecutions in their country of birth, immigrant social network can play a crucial role in international immigration. In this paper I will endeavor how immigrants’ social networks can help us understand who, where, and why people migrate, but also how it affects the ways we understand and empirically evaluate immigrant assimilation processes in U.S. society.