Narrative Essay On Immigration To College

I’m raised in an environment filled with negative stereotypes, high dropout rates, fewer resources, and low expectations. As a Mexican American from the San Fernando Valley, educational opportunities do not come often. In middle school it massed into my head that going to college is my way towards success. Soon it became the only option for me and as a result, I joined Project Grad to begin my journey towards college. They introduced me to the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference during my junior year. After applying and attending, the conference eliminated the label that Latinos are not college material. Subsequently, I grabbed as many opportunities as I could. In my junior my school did not put me in any AP classes. Therefore, I went to go

I open the door. I feel sick. I’m nervous and my stomach’s turning. The room is lined with neat rows of desks, each one occupied by another kid my age. I walk in and sit down in an open seat, kids awkwardly staring at me. It’s my first year in 9th grade, second month in NJ, and my first year in the United States of America.

I was born in 2002 in Kampala, Uganda, a small landlocked country in East Africa, dubbed the nickname ´Pearl of Africa´. In 2006, leaving behind the faces of family members my family of 7 packed and moved to the United States. My family is one of the lucky ones, we did not move because of conflict or a terrible dictator. We moved simply because we had the resources that others around the world don´t have.

When I was a kid, school for me was waking up early in the morning. I also have to study a lot in school, then after school I have to do homework. I remember my first day at school. My mom and dad, both were so happy and prepared but I was so nervous and cheerless. I didn’t like to wake up early in the morning for school , but as time flew by I started loving school which made me wake up with energy instead of tiredness. I began to enjoy the school as I made new friends and I got to know how it is like when you meet people out of your neighborhood. With my friends I had lunch together and study together. I started to understand what the purpose of the education system. Based on what I understood I think the purpose of education is really aimed at helping students get to the point where they can learn to be on their own. In this journey of education I had a lot of positive and few negative experiences,but the negative experiences also helped me growing. Positive experiences are my teachers helping me improve, and I improved more when I moved to the United States.

School, to me and among many peers of my age, is not a distant term. I have spent one-third of my life time sitting in classrooms, every week since I was seven years old. After spending this much time in school, many things and experiences that happened there have left their mark in my memory. Some are small incidences while some have had a great impact on me. However, regardless the degree of significance, things that happened all contributed to shape the person that I am now.

Transitioning from the Democratic Republic Of Congo to the United States was a challenge that my family and I had to overcome. The main reason why we moved was because my father wanted a better life for my siblings and me. My father did not make enough money to pay for our education, food, housing, and other things. With the little money that he did make, he would give some to my mom so she could buy clothes and sell them in order to put food on the table. More often than not my mom was unable to sell anything so, we would go to my uncle's house to see if he could provide us with at least rice to eat with sugar. In my family's eyes, at least, the rice was better than not eating at all. One day, my father's friend called him and told him that there was a lottery game people were playing and if you won, you would be given the chance to go to the United States. My dad was the only one from my family who was allowed to play and after eight months had passed we were informed that we won! We were all so happy and ready to start a new life in America! The new excitement about moving to a better

Coming to AmericaThe year was 1948, and my grandmothers aunt and uncle came for a visit from Chicago to Germany to see their family. They had no children and had come to ask my grandmother if she would be interested in coming to Chicago to possibly live there w ith them. The idea of going appealed to her very much since her home city, Saarbrcken, was still partially destroyed from the WWII bombings. She always had the wanderlust in her blood coming from both sides of her family, so thinking about the towering skyscrapers, the bustling city streets, and the glamorous movies from America was quite enticing to my grandmother. With all off these wondrous thoughts swimming through her head, she enthusiastically agreed to go.Now, it was time to prepare

In 1996 Angelina was only thirty years old when she first arrived in America. Angelina left behind her 7 other siblings and parents, to start a new life in this unknown country. Before coming to America she lived in a tiny town in Mexico, her life in Mexico was much nicer than her life in America from what she described. Angelina mentioned that one of her biggest passions is cooking, “My sisters and I had our own restaurant, we sold food during the day, and during the night I would go out with friends and buy ice cream or delicious churros.” For Angelina one of the biggest benefits of living in Mexico was being close to her family members, “the whole family would go out on field trips every now and then, my favorite were trips to the beach,

My family moved here to the United States in 1989; from Eritrea, located in east africa. My father lived in the largest city in Eritrea, named Asmara and my mother lived in the second largest city named, Keren. My mother made an hour and a half trip to school everyday. My parents met when they were only 16 years old. In 1988 my mother Kudusan gave birth to my brother Michael. My parents planned to have more kids but they wanted to provide a better life for a family. My parents decided to move to the United states where they didn’t know anyone, they didn’t have a job, and they didn’t know a lot of english. They moved to the states with just enough money to last them an apartment for a couple months while they looked for work. My father found

I find nothing absurd regarding my habits. I’ve simply engaged all of my talents towards one goal, to know everything about everyone. By acquiring information about each and every person, I can avoid the devastation of which I encountered throughout my childhood. Authority and society have been the target of my schemes, from the start. To me, authority resembles a sham; people fail to acknowledge the tragedy that awaits them, and society fails to acknowledge its corrupt system.

Midway into my sophomore year of high school is when I learned that my family will be moving to Massachusetts due to my father’s job relocation. At first, I was set to move to Massachusetts with my family, which meant transferring to my third high school in three years and having to switch to a different club soccer team during the most important year of recruiting for college soccer. Then, an opportunity was presented to me in which I would be able to stay at my current high school and my current soccer team. The opportunity being that I would stay with a close family friend who attended the same school and plays for the same soccer team, but in exchange I would have to leave my mother and father for the next two years of my life. My family and I thoroughly discussed the plan and after many heated arguments and fights, we finally decided that I would stay behind and stay with the Williams family for the next two years of my life. This life changing opportunity has slowly but surely helped me transition from a child into a young adult.

As a child I faced many difficulties that most children at my age would never face, but in order to understand my story you must first understand my background. I was born in Mexico City, Mexico at the age of four my mom made an incredibly important decision that wouldn’t only affect her, but also me as her son. My mom, Rosalia, made the decision to move out of her country that she had grown up in, and the country that I had begun my life in, in order to move to the United States so that her son could not only be with his mother, but also his father. At that age I didn’t think much of it, but today I sit here and respect the decision that my mom made at that time, and appreciate the amount of courage and strength that it took my mother to make

“Papa, no te vayas!” (Daddy, don’t go!) Those were the words that I said with tears streaming down my face every time my dad left our home in Mexico to return to California. I recall this fractured family existence, this inevitable sacrifice of separation in order to survive for seven long years, until my parents decided that it was time to reunite in the United States and finally become a stable family. While the United States was a new setting for my family, it was not a new place for me as it was my birth country. Yet, I remember feeling harassed and excluded, common emotions among immigrants to the U.S. and this new emotion created a fear I was unaccustomed to; I felt scared of this new lifestyle and of the limited possibilities.

On September 1, 2012 I moved to Virginia, United States. Many can say that, but to me it is one of the greatest things I have done in life. Being born in Puerto Rico, an island in which Spanish is the main language, the wish of learning English was constantly in my mind. As I grew up I started to take English courses in school; however, the courses were not as effective, since I only learned the basics of English. Later on after graduating from sixth grade I was enrolled in a bilingual private school. The fact that the school was mostly in English and that it was private challenged my learning even more than in a public school. Although the school was a great one, I was doing badly accademically. It wasn’t until the school year was over that I decided to move to the state of Virginia in order to begin with my journey. A journey in which I learned many things from life and because of this experience I am preapared to overcome anything that comes between me and what I want.

Moving to the United States at age of 15 without knowing English was a big challenge for me, Jose Emmanuel Rojas Liquidano. It was a big change in my life and for my family too, my family is made of 8 members; my dad, mom, 3 brothers, and 2 sisters. I was born and raised in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Out of all my siblings I am the only one that was born in Mexico; all my siblings are U.S. citizens. I have managed to overcome the obstacles due to not being U.S citizen, with the help of my parents.