Personal Narrative: My Parents Coming To America

Names are important to us, as we grow up, our names and our personalities become intertwined, they are how people identify us. So when we adopt a new name, even for a brief period of time, we allow ourselves to essentially become a new person: we can change what we didn’t like about our old selves, and assume new characteristics that we admire in others. For some, it is freeing to embrace a new name, but for others it is comforting to go back to their old one.

The essay “What's in a Name?” written by Lini Kadaba was published on December 7th, 1997 in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Kadaba's essay is rooted in exemplification. She utilizes the framework of names, specifically surnames that were changed during the immigration process, to showcase examples of Americans that had previously immigrated to the United States and successfully assimilated. Kadaba then chronicles those Americas quest over time to regain and reconnect with some of their own culture and learn more about their ethnic roots. In many cases Lini Kadaba found that those Americans were changing their surnames back to versions more closely resembling their heritage. She asserts that pressures to assimilate have lessened over time and that

This journal speaks on how names are seen as some form of “talent” as it is bestowed upon us on birth. This also has religious implications as some feel as their name is a gift talent given from god. Everyone's name within “their eyes were watching god mean something. An example of this would be Tea Cake. “John Callahan says that Tea Cake "revivifies" names” . The names also have a slightly overshadowed sense of racism, as in a way most of the names given to black people have a sort of dumbed down approach to them. Going back to the complete disregard of the “Afro-American” culture by the

Coming to the United States for me was like a rebirth. It was a totally different life that I had to adapt to; a new language to learn and new people to meet. Frank A. Clark once said, "If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere." This quote says everything I believe about hardship in life because adapting to a new environment for me was not easy. It was a path full of struggles, hardships, and disappointments. But without them I would not be who I am today.

I am Patt Ryan, an eighteen year old farmer who came to america with a life saving of $3.56. I came with my brother Matt Ryan, a seventeen year old farmer with the life savings of $1.35. We came to America because we wanted to find a better way of life. We also came to find religious freedom. We knew that we would be able to find this in America. My brother and I could not wait to see what America had in store for us. My brother Matt and I sailed to America on the very full Alexina boat. It was a poorly built, crowded boat filled with diseases and short of food. As a result, many of us Irish immigrants got a disease and many others died before we even got to America. My brother and I were one of the lucky ones to stay fairly healthy. Others

My family moved from the Middle East to United States because of a number of reasons. The primary reason was the education infrastructure. The education infrastructure available in United States is perhaps the best in the world and this is probably what my parents thought when they moved into the country. The second was job because my father was working and he was provided a better opportunity to the work in this country, seeing the salary hike and other factors he decided it was in the best part of the family and all that we moved to the United States. Earlier, it was difficult because being from a different racial background presents you many challenges and you have to somehow manage those things. My family found it difficult at the start to communicate with others and make friends but slowly it all started to shape well. There were more and more people coming for

It’s been a year since my father passed away. Traditionally, my family will get together that day to mourn and recall the memory of my dad. When we cleaned his desk a few months ago, we found these old newspaper articles about dad and our family, refugee immigrants who were resettled in Kansas City area over than two decades ago.

When I first migrated to United States, everything was very new to me. I had no idea how things worked in this country. In India, things were very different from here. In the United States, I had trouble with my grades because I didn't understand much English, so the assignments were very difficult. I showed determination and perseverance throughout my years in middle school. I had to stay after school and get some extra help. I read numerous books to gain more interest in Language Arts. I eventually started making A's. Now, as a 8th grade I am presently making all A's.

I was born in India. I was raised in Punjab state. I spent almost 17 years of my life in Punjab. I lived in India with my family. When I was 17 and half, me and my family moved from India to the United States. We immigrated to United States in 2016. Moving and adjusting into a new and different environment is not very easy. There are a lot of differences between these two nations. The language, education, work or job, living standard of people are the major differences that I have seen in these two nations. In 1947 after the British rule in India, a partition was happened in Punjab splitting it into two parts “West Punjab and East Punjab”. The West Punjab was given a name new of Pakistan. My great-grandparents used to live in West Punjab before

I am Rochan Mahajan and I was born in New Delhi, India. I immigrated to the United States of America when I was thirteen years old. I migrated to the States with the objective to attain better quality of education and secure a better future for me and my family. Since I was born in India, I love to play cricket. Cricket is a sport similar to baseball here in America. Additionally I also enjoy playing tennis. Additionally, I have also played tennis in my school’s tennis team during my freshman and sophomore year. Besides sports, I also enjoy playing piano in my free time. My hobbies are listening to music, watching TV shows, swimming, playing tennis and cricket, playing piano, and volunteering and giving back to the community. Additionally,

Growing up, my family valued experiences over material possessions, a lesson my parents learned from their parents who immigrated the U.S. without jobs or living arrangements. When I was only three years old, my parents took me to the public pool and gave me my first swimming lessons. My chubby limbs splashed around as I tried to keep my head above water. With practice, I began swimming competitively when from the age of 10 until my junior year of high school. I enjoyed the competitive nature of the sport and performing simple movements against the resistance of the water. Under the water there is a serenity and calmness not subject to the laws of gravity. When I was forced to stop swimming competitively due to my rheumatoid arthritis, I found

The person I decided to interview was my mother, Shazia Khan. She lived in Lahore, Pakistan and she believed she would be there until the day she died. America was a parallel world to her, where crime, corruption, and poverty did not exist in her mind because of the way people talked about this free world. However, she was engaged and her husband, my father, was living in America as an immigrant so she moved over to California. In January 1995, she moved into a whole other world full of “robots” as she likes to call it. (Khan, Shazia).

My names Gabriel Hudson, I hated my name it for some reason, when I was innocent and blind to societies imperfections, I wanted a “cool name” that was popular among my peers. When I was younger I never knew the importance that a name could possess. I never really thought about having to fight for anything or having to struggle to have a life that is so weighed down by the gravity that money has in our society. Money has always been relevant and at the forefront in my family. My parents are extremely diligent and would be part of the category of misfits, I have stated previously. My parents knew how the world is and tried their best to prepare me for that. Being named after an archangel in the Bible, not because they think i’m an angel to have as a child, but because he’s strong and fights for what’s right and good in people. I am now coming to this realization as I become a young adult and seeing that life is not fair and people like me who does not have as much wealth and resources to be set for greatness. People like me have

    Names are a terrible way to understand someone’s identity because names are regularly replicated. In my sixth grade class, there were three Mollys. We all had different backgrounds, different religious affiliations, and different personalities. If our names displayed who we are, wouldn’t our identities all be the same? Instead of staring at names and trying to understand their meaning, one should focus on a person’s personality, for personality depicts our identity. In fact, I have learned from experience to not infer one’s identity based on their name. For instance, in middle school, I was mutual friends with a girl named Kassidy. One Tuesday afternoon, my friend, Katy told me that Kassidy was going to sit with us at lunch that day. I shrugged my shoulders and replied with a casual “okay”. Before Kassidy walked in, I had a whole image of her in my mind: blonde hair, cute pastel colored clothes, and religious, all stereotypes that I thought a person with an innocent name like Kassidy

After reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri I gained a better understanding of how cultural barriers may affect our self-confidence in the world. Gogol, a young boy who grew up in the United States with parents that were only accustomed to Bengali ways in Calcutta, India, struggled raising a child in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His mother, Ashima, and father, Ashoke, gave their child a unique name in a sense to honor an author who wrote short-stories that Ashoke had read minutes before a tragic train accident long before their move to the United States. Ashoke had crumbled the paper out of one the short-stories to attract attention for help, these papers that were collected in the short story helped save Ashoke 's life when he was lucky enough to have the strength in his body to move when he was experiencing so much pain. Over time, Ashoke became very fond of the Ukrainian author and it was soon the name to be given to his child. This name impacts his child 's life and throughout the story you see growth within his character. He matures during a class field trip to a cemetery at age eleven, when he stays with the Ratliff 's, and during the event of his father 's passing.