Macon, Georgia – We Made The Big Move At The Beginning

My little sister Anita was born at the time and having a baby sibling around made me feel like a big kid or a parent. I loved holding her and feeding her with a bottle my mom taught me to do while she worked at a night shift (maturation). My fourth grade year is probably the time I went through the most out of my elementary school years. I found out things were getting hectic between my parents. I would see them fight almost every day about money, cheating, and where did they go in their free time. One night when my mom came home from grocery shopping they were verbally fighting and yelling at each other. I heard it from the living room and I went into the kitchen to see them. All of a sudden, I just saw my dad pushed her into the ground and started beating her. She eventually escaped from his grip and ran into my sister’s room. She called the police and they came and arrested him for assault. I couldn’t do much because I just stood there witnessing in shock. They divorced in October while it was the beginning of my fifth grade year. I started to go through depression since the whole thing happened. I grew bitter, unmotivated for school, and even crueler towards my family and animals. I had terrible grades in my report card and I tend to get embarrassed with my teacher yelling at me. I cried over the smallest things that would happen in class. People started giving me sympathy but then got tired of it because it happened often. Around the winter time my mom started to

Growing up in Chicago, I attended a neighborhood school from preschool through first grade. Although it was an exceptional school for elementary kids, the education for middle school and high school students was not as adequate. Seeking a better place to raise their children, my parents were faced with a tough choice. When I was in 2nd grade, our family made the decision to move to the suburbs. On July 3rd, we all packed into our Honda minivan and drove 45 minutes to a new home in the town of Winnetka. Within my first year at Crow Island, my new school, I learned so many new things. I started playing the violin and speaking Spanish, neither of which were offered at my old school. I met my best friends that I'm still close with now. Over the

When I was in middle school, I desperately wanted to find my place in the social hierarchy. I ultimately decided I fit in with a particular crowd that had similar interests: video games, nerd hobbies, intellect, etc. I specifically remember instances where I would express my thankfulness for this crowd I had inserted myself into. It breaks my heart thinking about it, that middle school girl that wanted to fit in so badly that she threw herself into a group that openly mocked and hurled jealous insults at her. I cannot look at that person as myself, because I am no longer her. The culmination of these false friendships and façades of fitting in occurred on the second to last day of eighth grade. I had seen the warning signs that these people were not good to me before, but I ignored them for the sake of having a place. But it was in the moment that they tore down the identity I had built for myself that the curtain was pulled back, and I saw with clarity that these people were toxic. They told me I was not smart. They told me I did not like the right

I was very shy and awkward during my adolescent years. A cringe-worthy yet endearing moment of reflection of suppressed memories. I was the fourth child out of five, to two immigrant parents. We were a low income family with no budget for vacations or expensive school trips. Socially I was not accepted. I was always the outlier. Subsequently, I was bullied and it impaired my childhood for quite sometime. I felt as if I was sentenced to social death that I just could not replevy before the end of adolescent years. Other students taunted and jeered at me habitually; even with uncontrollable factors. I specifically remember my Haitian heritage being one of the domineering methods of my torture. I recall that being subjected

Moving from Texas to Wisconsin was a hard to do. The people were more diverse and never had problem with another race. For myself it was simpler in those days at Texas. I had lived there for the last 13 years, moving is hard to leave a place that is known so well. My mind was going crazy, was panicking because being the new kid at the school is something doesn’t want. As all this is happening, have to endure the school year, which my parents bought my school supplies with my older siblings.  ready for a whole new experience and having the idea of what the people are like. Each week in August school was getting closer and closer I didn’t want it to start. I’m also in the 7th grade and not the most mature person I knew at the time. Everything leading up to the start of the school year was crazy, and when it happened to be the last day of summer, the mind was ballistic.

Then, incidentally, we moved again. My freshmen year of high school at Argyle had just concluded, and my dad decided that it was simply too expensive to live there. I met this decision with both apprehension and relief. He determined that we belonged in Mineola, Texas. Typically, I would have been miserable, but this time, I was thrilled. It was strange because I loved Argyle, yet I was so eager to leave. The longer I contemplated how this could be possible, I realized it was because I could not wait to meet new people, scenarios, and experiences. I was ready for my newest challenge.

A few months after Shayla was born my family decided to move to Canal Winchester. This was a big deal because moving means a new school. The next school year Desiree, James, and I were going to Tussing Elementary. We went there for a year and while I was there I was able to make dean’s list. The following year we were moved to Pickerington Elementary due to Tussing being overcrowded. After 4th grade I went to Diley Middle School, and while I was there I was able to have a spectacular time at Outdoor Edu. Before the school year was up my family moved to Reynoldsburg. When the school year was about to start I learned that I was going to be going to Lakeview Junior high instead of Ridgeview. The transition was much harder for me this time than

We couldn’t build a treehouse or ride a four-wheeler in Clinton. We eventually sold the two-story, mahogany-red house in Clinton and moved to a place called Pisgah, Mississippi. We rented a two-story, blue house that had about two acres of land for six months while my parents searched and searched online for their dream house. It was beside a giant soybean field, a mechanic, and the sweet, old lady next door. The house was pretty old and worn out. It was the beginning of 2015 and the second semester of school was about to start. I’m very nerdy so all the other nerds at the school welcomed me there. There were a lot of white people there and very few African-Americans. Everybody had a thick, country accent and wore camouflage there. Even the Spanish teacher was a redneck like everybody else. I didn’t feel comfortable at first, but after a while it sort of changed

It was the year 2008, I had just graduated from St. Michael’s School located in Los Angeles, CA. This year was quite exhilarating for me also scary because I was going to attend an all-girls high school. Los Angeles was my birth place also a place where I called home. One day, I came home to hearing my parents talking about moving to Mississippi. I remained devastated, not only we were moving to the south, I’m moving away from childhood friends. I was worried I wouldn’t see them again and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make new friends in Mississippi.

In 2014 of October I moved to Georgia from Florida. I was leaving a place I had been living in my entire life. It was a tough situation as I knew moving to a different state and school could be difficult. I was very nervous as it was a new environment with different people and new types of school work. I was worried about not making friends or getting bad grades. That morning of school my heart raced. When I arrived at school I met new people and my teachers, I also figured out which teachers were bad and what teachers would be good. I left school that day very happy knowing I would have a great year. Later that week I started to become more familiar with the grading systems, behavior system and connections. at my old school they were called

I attended the same school from Kindergarten all the way through my Senior year. It was a private school, and I was really blessed to be going there. I basically had the same group of friends for thirteen years. One summer when I was about twelve years old, I decided I wanted to go to a summer camp. Only a few of my friends from school went to the same camp, so I was excited to make some new friends. The summer had been going great so far, and I was having a lot of fun. Towards the end of camp, a new girl was placed in my cabin, and I approached her to try and be her friend. She proceeded to ask me where I went to school, I replied, “American Heritage.” Then she began saying hurtful things to me. For example, she called me a “brat”, she said I was spoiled, an entitled white girl, and that I never had to work for anything because “daddy’s money” bought me anything I wanted. The things she said to me really came as a surprise me and really hurt because, in my case, none of those things were true. I tried to explain to her that none of those things were true

When we did finally move from my childhood home in Illinois to our new home in Knoxville, Tennessee, the only thing I could think about was how isolated and scared I felt. What was it going to feel like on my first day of class when I was surrounded entirely by strangers? I will always vividly remember walking into my new high school and feeling so lost. Every class I walked into was an alien environment and I had to struggle to keep my composure.

Coming from a fine arts High School and transferring to a sports driven High school was very hard. Thier different ways of doing things was like a slap in the face. I had culture shock. Coming from such a diverse community to being the minority in almost all the classrooms, it was really nerve racking. Not to mention all the inappropriate questions I was getting about black culture from students. But I knew it was all worth it because

I am the oldest out of four siblings. I have two younger brothers and a sister. Aaron is currently in 8th grade, Mauricio in 5th grade and my little sister Ariana who's just two years old. No schooling yet, but soon will be attending. I have my 48 year old father and my 37 year old mother who I truly love them with all my heart. Our primary language spoken in our household is Spanish. English is our secondary language, even though my parents are not fully 100% fluent. We still speak English to get better at. As mentioned being misunderstood as a small child or in their point of view is very common in my life and currently in their life. At the age of five I began schooling. I began Kindergarten at Silver Valley Elementary School located in Lexington. I remember my teacher was Mrs. Hall. A very tall blonde. My assistance teacher named Mrs. Parish. A very nice short brown headed. At only five years old I had a very difficult time to communicate with others at school. I didn’t know much English. Why? Because English wasn’t my parents primary language to communicate. As the oldest, it was very difficult for me to pronounce certain words, and very difficult to respond to questions. The way I expressed myself caused lots of conflict between my teachers and myself. I still pictured some of the teachers didn’t have patience with me. Teachers would get very frustrated and so did I. At some point I didn’t want to go to

I’ve lived in three different states and attended six schools over the past eight years. Relocating from Texas to Michigan, and later Michigan to Georgia were big adjustments for me. I missed my friends and close relatives. However, I knew I had to make the best of my circumstances. Through these experiences, I began to learn to be more flexible, become more open-minded to different traditions, and be adventurous in different parts of the country-I played volleyball, joined a dance team, and even went skiing! At school, I also focused on excelling in my classes and challenge myself like I did when adjusting to a new town.