Personal Narrative: Moving To The Dominican Republic

Moving to America, was a difficult transition for me. I had come to the realization that I wasn’t going to see my friends any time soon back in Iran and that was hard to overcome at a young age. I was alone as a child because my siblings are a lot older than me, and my parents’ had the challenge of starting over because they had left everything behind in Iran. However, that wasn’t going to get in the way of me succeeding in school. I have always been a fast learner, by the age of eight I had already learned four languages. Also, I was voted most improved by my classmate every year I was in Elementary School. This might not seem like a big achievement, but as a young student in a new country it was a huge motivation boost for me to improve every

Again I was struggling not to let myself down and to learn the concepts of the new country. At first everything was hard; I had a lot of difficulties on all my classes due to the lack of reading and understanding the language. I remember when my 7th grade English teacher handed me the book “A Child Called It” by Dave Pelzer; I was stuck in the first page “I’d never realized so many words existed!”(Malcolm X 432).I kept solving my problems by myself, using the dictionary, searching words on the internet, and comparing some Spanish words with English ones. For some reason I didn’t like when people tried to translate and when the school tried to assign me Spanish tutors. I felt that getting help in Spanish wasn’t any good and it just disrupted my learning. Even though school was hard “I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.” (Alexie 447).I accomplished my goal of passing 7th grade. During the summer I used to go to the library and read books, because I didn’t understand most of them, and I found reading in English innocuous for the first month. After I got the handle of reading and writing once again, I felt confident of myself, and my life came back to normal.

My entire family was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. After three and a half years of living there my family decided to seek a better future in The United States. My father would go to the United States back and forth to work and earn money to send to us in Mexico. Eventually my mother was able to get a visa and my brother along with my little sister had an alternate way into the United States. We lived in Dallas Texas and Atlanta Georgia before settling in Howard county Maryland in a very small apartment. Luckily we were doing pretty well with my dad being the only one knowing English at the time. My father was working two jobs and I was getting ready to start kindergarten. I was very excited because the education we would have received in Mexico was nothing compared to the education in Howard County. I was excited for what was to come, but there were disadvantages of knowing only Spanish. Being bullied because of my poor English had an impact on me. I was in completely separate classes learning things that were simple compared to the regular course. I was excluded from certain activities, field trips and assemblies. I was clueless at first though as I slowly learned the language I understood things a lot more.

It wasn’t all bad, from my childish perspective I thought, “Hey, they talk just like on TV, I can do this,” and with making a few friends, I came to use and practice the language as if I had been born into it. However, the one that struggled was my sister. Again, none of the schools offered any bilingual courses, and she was five grade schools ahead of me. At first she seemed to be doing okay, but at some point she would come home crying of frustration. In Mexico the grades are set from 1- 10, a 10 being the equivalent of an A, which she always used to get. However, her first year in a completely different country with a different language, she struggled, mad that the only thing impeding her from being successful was the language

There was a new language and new people. The first school there was to enroll there was no acceptance for a third grades with no knowledge of a six grader. The lower grades were in vacations, there was no way to get in the school as a third grader. The next school that was chosen was a temporary one; the wait for the normal one would affect studies. In the school everyone was kind even though the first day was confusing and getting lost was easy since the language was different. The office ladies knew how to speak Spanish and English. The first day in class everyone was nice, teachers were helpful even thought they didn’t know any other language other than

One day my mom unexpectedly decides to move to the United States for a better life for my little brother and I. That's when my grades started dropping and I started misbehaving in school. I was young at that time, so I really didn't understand why, but I got really angry. I thought she was making the move, just to do it and get us away from our friends. I mean, what is an 8-year-old going to think when her mom decides to move out of the blue? And not the next town, but many miles away on a plane.

The first day of school was the worst day I’ve ever been through in my childhood time, I cannot communicate

When I started school, I felt more of an alien, I didn’t speak the language and that was an impediment itself already. I think, at first, I only wanted to go back to Colombia. I didn’t want to get used to anything or anybody. During school, it

First few weeks of school did not go well for me. I felt like I was a rare animal at the zoo. People would point at me, speaking the language that I do not understand, and giggle. A non-stop talking kid suddenly became mute. At the time,

On the first day, I cannot speak any English at all. I felt very uncomfortable sitting in the class, listening to everybody talking without saying any single word. Later on, I got home, and I was very disappointed in myself. I could have just given up, but I didn’t. I kept on studying very hard, and as the time went by, those hard works paid off. I improved, and I can finally speak with everybody. If I have never face the situation like this, I might have given up on everything that’s hard. Furthermore, I wouldn’t have realized how big this world is and how hard is it to try, and just keep being the same old negative person. When we are facing new vocabulary words from the book we’re reading, if we are not practicing how to use and pronounce it, our English will always be on the same level. Like me, without this situation, I wouldn’t have changed and keep believing in something that was

Three months ago I was studying my last moments of high school in Mexico. I had already planned the university I was going to and the major I wanted to course. Everything was happening really fast when my father told my mother and I that he had a job opportunity in the United States. He didn't wish to force us to go with him, although we did accept to leave because both of us consider that the most valuable thing in this world is family.

Armed with new sneakers and a whole new vocabulary, I started my first day of school. It was a learning experience for both my parents and I, but when it was over I felt like I fit in. Kids do not care where you are from or if your English isn’t up to par. In fact they only cared about two things: how good you were at tag and what kinds of crayons you had. Lucky for me, I was doing great in both departments. I experienced my first year of elementary school alongside the friends I previously made.

     Once my family and I arrived at our new house I was still very saddened because of the move and had trouble not getting mad at my parents. Summer went bye like it wasn’t even there and by the time school started I was very depressed. The new school I was going to was Naperville North High School which was about ten times the size of my old school in Pennsylvania in size and in the number of students. In my school in Pennsylvania there were about twelve students in each class, here the number runs around thirty two. The school building was so big I had a lot of trouble getting to class on time let alone finding them in the building. The school wasn’t what I was bothered by the most because it was the fact that I didn’t have any social life and I was a social person. There were a lot of different groups of people at my new high school, it was tough for me to fit in and meet new people. Everyone just knew me as the new kid and didn’t even bother to find out what my real name was. The first

My first day of school felt so strange as if I was banished to Mars. Or at least to some very far away place full of strangers where nobody speaks my language. Because indeed, nobody spoke my language on my first day of school. I was 6 years old and lost among people whom I couldn’t even talk to. How could this happen? I spent all of my childhood in Hungary, but it still felt like we just moved to another country right before me starting school. Although no such thing happened, I still blame everything on my parents.

The first year, the time to prove myself had arrived. Classes, rooms, teachers, and some students were unfamiliar. Eventually, minutes melted into hours, hours to days, and days to weeks. It didn’t take long before my schedule was routine, something of second nature. Humor and happiness were found in the form of my advisory family, where school was transformed into something more than going through the same motions of day to day activity. By the closing point of sixth grade, I was having a hard time letting go of what I’d adapted to. “What’s wrong?” my dad asked when I was getting into the car after being picked up early on the last day. I explained how distressed I was that my first year of middle school exceeded my expectations, and that it had to come to an end. Although his outlook viewed my reason for sorrow as trivial, I didn’t.