Personal Narrative: The Immigrant

At the age of fifteen, I could barely speak an English word. As I sat on the plane with a blank head flying across from Vietnam to the United States, I knew completely nothing what’s going to happen in my life. After almost twenty-four hours sitting on an intolerable chair, I arrived, as I looked above my head “Welcome to the United States”. And yes, welcome to my story, and undoubtedly my experience is the author.

My father left my mother as a young immigrant, he left me at a young age, I only had my mother and my little sister. I couldn’t imagine the world without them, so when I discovered I could potentially lose my mother, I almost fell apart.

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.

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

Un inmigrante siempre será un inmigrante.” (West Side Story) Once an immigrant, always an immigrant. Sixteen years ago my parents made an unthinkable decision. Leaving behind their jobs, families, and everything they knew to pursue life in an unfamiliar country; the American Dream. So, one fateful morning my mother said her goodbyes boarded a plane with me in her arms at barely a year old. My dad had arrived earlier, flying from Argentina to New York on his own. I was too young to fully comprehend the struggle it was to assimilate in a country where they did not speak the language. Once I got older, I heard stories of their experiences and began to understand first-hand what it meant to be an immigrant in America.

It all started on one sunny day on the month of July, I was done with my service to protect my country the United States of America. Man it was nice to experience the smell of freedom once again. Due to my deployments in many countries I never had the opportunity to step forth in the land of the free, my home, it felt nostalgic to experience it all again. During my time in the military I was twenty-one and was first a designated marksman or Scout Sniper in the Marine Corp for a year or two, then I decided to join a special operations team and joined the 75th Ranger Regiment and continued my role as a sniper. Then finally through months of hard work and combat deployments my skills as a sniper was finally recognized. I was hand selected to

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 not easy, specially when you have to adapt to another environment. Learning english was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Every time someone spoke to me english, l began to get frustrated. Sometimes I used google translator to do the assignments and projects that they give me, and sometimes my classmate would translate for me the english sentence my teacher spoke, And it would help my english get better.

I was following the heartbreaking news of Immigration crisis in Europe and watching that how these desperate people struggling to save their lives and find a better life in nearby countries, that the photo of my parents and I in a hand curved frame right next to my computer caught my attention and reminded me of my own journey as a refugee.

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.

I’m juror number eleven I immigrated from Europe to the US I work as a watchmaker.I believe in the justice system in America and will see that it gets carried out fairly and properly. I’m quite, polite, honest, educated, and I’m observant to all the facts, I will take everything into consideration before making a decision on a verdict.As I said before Im quiet and poliet I keep to myself untill I am asked to speak or when details need to be remembered and I treat everyone one with respect. At first I believed that the defendant was guilty but as we deliberated I came to see that there was a reasonable doubt that the defendant was innocent.

I was born in a third-world country. Though my family and I came to the United States when I was 8 months old, there is no disputing the fact that I am an immigrant. By definition, this word “immigrant” only means a person who migrates to another country to live there permanently. However, there is an apparent stigma in this country marking those with such a title like myself. To be looked down upon as an immigrant in a country founded by immigrants either shows the inherent negative stereotypes forced on those from several regions around the world, or the widespread belief that nationalism here is weakening. Both statements are confusing and lacking rationale.

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