Personal Narrative: Changing My View Of The Border

It was summer of 2010. My parents were still married and we went up to Wichita Falls, Wichita to go see my brother Chris who was in the Military on base working. We stayed there for a week. I still remember the car ride up there. We rented a van, we had tvs in the rented van, my sister Rylee, my other brother Garrett (he was in the military too), my mom Traci, and my dad Doug, and my brothers military bag it was like a person. I still remember I had to sit in the back with that bad it was so big. Garrett put the seatbelt around the bag like it was a person. The car trip was so long but it was all worth it in the end. It was in the middle of the week and we were out on the beach. My brother Chris and his pregnant wife Ashley had a boat the water

I came to US during my 8th grade and that was a life changing moment in my life. It was first time traveling aboard and that also not for a trip but for to permanent settlement. I was nervous my whole time been in the plane that how I will cope up with new environment and with bunch of English speakers. I got more. When it came pilot call for, that it's time to land on the Detroit Airport, tighten your seatbelts and be relax. As soon as the plane landed on American soil, I knew that this was the place where I’d to start a new life. Even though I knew America is the “Land of Opportunity”, everything here seemed so strange to me, the streets, the language and the people that was my first time traveling abroad.

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.

When I was living in Cleveland, Ohio I have a friend that is an illegal immigrant. She is Mexican. We lived in the same apartment building. The apartment was different. It stretched to sky and I thought i was going to fall. She is just a year older than me. Her dad is janitor during that time when I was new to America. She is really nice and friendly. We always hung out and sleep over each other house. A couple of years later, I asked her “how did you come here?” She said, “ well, I don’t really remember how I got here, but my dad told me that we came by ship. It was not easy. He faced a lot of struggle just to get us here.” She came here when she was 5 years old and her name is Jameil. Her dad worked really hard. Her dad was divorced with

Despite the Mexican culture that I’ve grown into, this country has been considered my home since I was only a year and a half old. Just like my parents, I am an illegal immigrant. I don’t remember living life without being surrounded by the American influence. Despite any length of time I have spent living and learning in the United States, or the active impact the American Dream has had on my life, according to Donald Trump, I am a threat to this country.

I am the first generation of my family members that has been raised at and attended school in the United States. My siblings were raised and educated in Mexico later transitioning to the U.S. when I was 4. My family from a young age to now has only been made up of my mom, two sisters, nephews, and niece slowly growing as time passes.

I am an immigrant, originating from Ukraine. I moved here three years ago to take advantage of the “land of the free”. I had heard of the conscription under Russian imperial dictators, such as Tzar Nicolas, and Soviet despots, like Stalin. Fourcing an individual to perform a service, regardless of the cause, seems to be slavery to me. When I found that men in America must register for the draft, in my eyes, “the land of the free” became slightly less free. It is abhorrent that men may be required to enlist in the military, and equally so for women and therefore should not be tied to feredal grants.

Looking back to the past, before I was born, I never really knew where my ancestors came from or why they even came here in the first place. It was never made a big deal in my family to talk about our history and the reasons why they came to American. So, I decided to do a little research and find out a little bit about myself, my culture, and my communication styles. I asked for a little bit of help from my grandmothers from each side of my family. I got an abundance of information that opened my eyes to a new past that I didn’t even know about.

As the child of Mexican immigrants, I am always encouraged to work to the best of my ability because of the sacrifices and struggles my family went through to get where we are today. Too young to remember, I am constantly reminded of the difficulties my family experienced as they attempted to rebuild their lives in a new country with nothing but their clothes on their backs and the few cash they had in their pockets. The place we called home was a shabby, old apartment in a neighborhood where the crime rate seemed as if it doubled in a matter of seconds. At a point in our lives my family begged for pennies to afford medicine from gas stations, and even the dollar store when we fell ill. It was never that we were out of money, but we were just financially unstable. We had a roof over our heads, food on our table, clothes, and even a family car, but my father’s income was not always enough to support the life of a growing family and on top of that, enough to invest in my family’s future.

They say the winter is a metaphor for solitude; however, my winter was everything but solitary. I longed for Christmas Carols and holiday cheer, instead I got the sound of doors slamming and children fighting. I expected normal; my mom, my dad, and my brother. Instead I received my mom, my dad, my brother, aunt, and three cousins in a sardine packed house.

Imagine going to a new country, knowing nobody, not even the language. How would you feel? What would you do? My family and I were in this situation thirteen years ago. It was difficult to completely start our lives over and build our family again piece by piece. Recently, people have deemed immigrants as ‘drug mules’ or ‘evil rapists’ and more and more frequently I see on the news the hate unleashed towards them. They are the ‘other’ and it is easy to say these things about people you don’t know. It is easy to generalize a group when you only know the crimes of one person. This country that was built on the hard work of immigrants has begun to hate them. As humans, we want to protect our family and those we love, even it it means saying horrible

A year and a half ago I moved from Venezuela to the US with my family; since then I have tried my best to make this sacrifice worth it and make my family proud. Leaving everything that you own behind and moving somewhere new with only a couple of luggage with you is extremely difficult economically, which is why my family is currently experiencing financial difficulties that make it more difficult for me to be able to afford the costs of a good college education. I currently work 3 jobs cleaning houses to help my family, however, it is still not enough to afford a college education. Being an immigrant is a part of my identity and it has shaped my character into what I believe is a hard-working student and person. At West Marshall high school

Being an immigrant is a mind numbing experience. I didn't know a speck of english and I barely understood my teacher. I had to adjust to the whole new culture. But at age 6 that was easy. I quickly figured out that in here we didn’t have to pray every monday. I didn’t have to put on a uniform everyday. I can easily get free food from the cafeteria when my mother signed me up for the free lunch program. In America I didn’t have to smell the canal and street trash anymore. In just 3 weeks my whole life changed. I got used to it for about 2 years, then I had to go back. Back to the gang-filled, starving, broken house that I was born in.

This is a very interesting story. I am glad that she got to experience how the real life for most of us is, and how sometimes we only work to pay rent and bills. I myself can relate to that with my family. We came here in 2006, and my as an immigrant my mom had to work in whatever she could find, just to be able to pay rent and give me food. This is the reason why I go to school, to better myself, and to be able to get a job that I enjoy doing, and that it will give me a good paycheck. Honestly I feel bad for many people because, it is very hard to live in this country while getting paid minimum wage, but this is why we have to sacrifice ourselves and go to school to become someone.

We started off with a bang. We started with me thinking of what to do how to do it and what were my ideas. Then, a little later we actually started it and not gonna lie, it was scary. I didn’t know that much about my family, yeah i've heard stories but they're stories. Later on we went home i didn’t tell my family anything just unsuspiciously getting all the information and I learned a lot yes. I learned about my names and why they're my names, I learned about my dad getting lost a lot, I learned about my mom moving here to america when she was 14 and how her life was before she moved and why she moved. I learned about my uncle going to jail for crossing the border illegally which is kinda funny. All those I learned but i couldn’t find anything