Personal Narrative: My Move To The USA

John sat quietly thinking about the events from the day before. A lot had happened in the last couple hours. He wasn’t sure whether to stare at the wall in shock or go out celebrating. John had just been naturalized. He was a citizen of the United States of America. He never has to go back home. He had rights. He could out and say anything! He could practice his religion! He was American.

The plane took off and were in the air leaving the place I had only ever known. I remember when my parents told me and my two brothers that we would be moving to the United states. At the time I didn’t know where we would end up or how we were even getting there. All I knew was I would be in a totally different landscape with a lot of ethnically different people whom I have never met or seen before.

Even though it hasn’t been a long time since our family has moved to America, it feels like a lifetime ago. I can barely remember the days of walking around barefoot and only having a small piece of bread to eat, while here everyone has shoes to wear and eats pasta multiple times a week. How my life has changed in such a short time. Everyone and everything moves at such fast pace here, if one blinks they can miss a lifetime. Back in Sicily, the days drug on while everyone went through the motions of their days on the farm. There are many differences between Sicily and here in America, but the first time I laid my eyes on the Statue of Liberty, I knew I was meant to be an American.

Since the moment my oldest brothers moved to the United States my family knew we could not be apart from each other. Four years past, enough time to finally go start a new life with my brothers in the U.S. In between those four years I was born, my sisters would always talk about my unknown brother to me. Then they told me we were going to move. I was barely two years when we came to the U.S. It was February 25, 2004 when we said goodbye to my grandparents, mom and dads family. It was a long ride from Mexico City to Nogales, when we arrived in Nogales my brothers friend, Alejandro was waiting for us in a minivan. Alejandro told us that the toughest part was coming. He said we had to split up, my sisters and dad was going to walk through the

I was sitting in the back of the taxi in Ukraine. The car moved and I began to see the one I love fade into the gray night fog. I will never forget the feeling I had during that moment. Like something was being ripped from my heart - a moment of great despair as I leave both my family and my country.

It’s been a little over a month since I got to America from Mexico. I live in New York City now. It’s nothing as I expected it to be people in the city are very rude, one day I was walking to work which is a clothing factory a teenage boy, who looked very wealthy told me, “go back where you come from” and “you don’t belong here.” That’s when I met the nicest woman I have ever met, her name’s Jane. She saw everything that happened, she knew I was scared of the boy and that’s when she gave me this flyer. She told me to come to her organization meeting at this church where she would help me adjust to New York. Surprisingly, the meeting was during a time I didn’t work and I heard a couple of the girls that I work with chatting about it. So, I

My mother gave me this book to write in before I left my entire family behind in Chiapas, Mexico. She told me not to be afraid and to write whenever I am feeling upset, anxious, or angry. I haven’t wanted to write this stuff down, but I do not want to say it out loud either. I moved to America last year to stay with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in Brooklyn, New York; I was twelve then and perhaps very naive about what my life would be like in America. I didn’t know any English, but my parents told me that coming to America would help me become smarter. Better even. Unfortunately, America is not what I thought it would be and in recent times, the President is even threatening to make us leave. In Mexico, I felt that I had such an amazing life, where I was able to run around and be free. But here, I am stuck between four walls in a small one bed-room apartment. In the land of opportunity, I feel that I have none.

Transitions are a part of life. Most people their first big move is going to college after high school. Mine was gliding over the Pacific Ocean at the age of three to New Zealand. When most people think of this country, they think of The Lord of the Rings, an abundance of sheep, or even, “that one island close to Australia”. To me, though, New Zealand was my home. After nine years, I would be leaving everything I knew and I would be moving to America. However, my life did not start in New Zealand. I was born in Fairfax Hospital, Virginia, and for the first three years of my life, I lived in America. I don’t remember much about the house we lived in, but I do remember walks to the park and my black Labrador: Pepper. We had to leave her behind when we moved to New Zealand in 2000 because strict bio-security laws would require her to be quarantined. She was left behind. I left many more memories behind in New Zealand when I moved back to America in 2009. Things like

Vietnam in There is a small town in the Vietnamese countryside where many people grow rice for a living. Others have small barns to raise pigs, chickens, or ducks to sell it in the market places, so they could earn some money to support their families. In that small town, my family lived for many years. On one day in 2006, my family had “good” news. I wondered what it is. My mom told me, “We will move to America and live there.” From that moment on there were many emotions flowing through me. The new beginning for me was moving from Vietnam to America. The changes that I had to experience when I came to America would mean hard times for me. There were the language barriers that I had to overcome, the foods from home (Vietnam) that I couldn’t live without it, and the relationships with other people that I would miss.

Every individual have moments that changes their lives. It can be a big moment or a small moment, just depends on how each individual sees it. As for me, I wasn’t born in America; I was born in Vietnam. For nine years of my life, I did not know where America is and what is America. Not until I migrated here, to America, to live with my father because he wants me and my brother to have a better and a brighter future. Vietnam and America are totally different from each other. Vietnam is a very poor country; where as America is a country of luxury. When I first moved to America, I was overwhelmed by everything; the environment, the community, and the language. Everything is unfamiliar to me and somehow I have to adapt with those unfamiliar things.

I couldn’t believe the day had come, I was moving to America! For me, this was going to be a whole new experience and a life-changing event. Truth be told, I did not know what to expect, and on what is going to happen next.

The environment in which i was raised on was a pretty and calm back then. I came from a not rich or medium class but a low class. That place was that i was raised where i came from is mexico matamoros tamaulipas not a really good or great place now but where i lived was the best place ever. lived there all my childhood until i was six. My parents wanted a better future for me a better education a better life for me so we moved to the united states. I still had my both parents and in still do except at that time we had bad economic situations. My dad had to head up north and look for a job in florida i didn’t want him to go especially because it would be hard for me not being able to see him. Sometimes i wouldn’t see my dad for a year or two

Imagine a happy place where everything was all right in the world. You have a loving family and loving friends whom you get you play with all day long until you get tired. Now, imagine that happy place being taken away from you, all in one day. That’s how I felt when I found out I was moving away from my family and friends. When I was young, I did not understand why I had to move away to a place that was completely foreign and unfamiliar. I can still remember the frustration and disbelief I felt when I was told I was moving from Philippines all they way across the world to the United States of America. I cried, I kicked, and I fussed hoping that would make a difference but it did not. It didn’t matter how I felt or whether I understood the reason, because I was moving either way. Moving from Philippines to America was a challenge for me because of the language, I had trouble fitting in and I struggled to make friends.

The doctor said he didn’t mean to. We started out in my house, but I guess that could all go away in the snap of a finger. By we by the way I mean me, my wife Ava, my dog spike and my studio crew. We were having a normal day sitting in our studio attempting to record one of the songs that was going to become a number one hit in the United States Of America. I knew what happened was going to come around soon, I was 50 years old and had made some seriously bad choices throughout my life. I was working so hard when I was younger to try and end the segregation in the US but no one would listen to me, the only thing they would say is “you’re not good enough, we don’t need you, and you’re just a singer what are you going to change except

Hiding behind the stairs, I heard my mom say, “I think our time here is coming to an end.” Overhearing my parents’ statement startled me. Despite being unaware of the plot of this conversation, I hypothesized that some significant change was going to occur in my family’s life. Later, I entered my mom’s room to ask more questions. Unable to digest the most unanticipated and shocking answer in my life, a surge of questions streamed through my head: Why did we migrate from the US to India initially? Now, why are we moving back to the US? Why are they making arbitrary choices right before I start high school? All these questions swamped my mind.