The Age Of Fourteen

There are many different “worlds” on this planet we live on called Earth. Everyone alive lives in some kind of little “world” of their own. There is the celebrity world, the “Disney” World, “Wally-world”, lots of different sports worlds, scholastic worlds, and so many others. There is a particular world that some live in, and that is the World of Dance. When you are a part of that world, you literally live and breathe it. Every aspect of the dance culture is wrapped up in that world. To those looking in from the outside it is beautiful, filled with lights, lovely costumes, mesmerizing music, and graceful movements.

When I was seven, my parents got a divorce and after four years my mom remarried an American. Since he could not learn Russian after many years of trying, my family was forced to move to the United States in order to preserve their marriage. When I first learned about the

My parents come from a small town in Michoacán, Mexico. Growing up, my first language was Spanish. There were situations where I would be embarrassed of my parents for not knowing how to speak English. People would give mean looks and give off a rude tone because of the fact they couldn't speak English. I was a shy person, so I didn't know how to defend my parents but those experiences shaped me into the person who is not embarrassed about having Mexican parents and helps them around with their English. I am a proud and lucky to be the daughter of Mexican parents. Aside from that, I had been an only child till I was eight years old. The day my sister was born, I knew she will be my best friend forever. She is now ten years old and looks up

My motherland was not like my peers in the United States, instead it was very different from my friends. I was born in China. My biological parents abandoned me in a box by a train station when I was only a couple of days old for an undisclosed reason. An adoption agency found the box, and then a few weeks later a foster family took me into their home and raised me as their child.

My most significant childhood experience is when I came to the United States for the first time. I was born and raised in Cali, Colombia for 12 years. For most of the people outside the country, who is struggling financially, coming to this country is a dream full of opportunities. It was a long process to come here, since my biological father was a homeless person, and I needed permission from him to come here. Thankfully after two years of dealing with lawyers, my sister and I made it to get our visas. It was my first time in an airplane as well, so everything was an adventure.

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 was my very first time to leave my native land, to migrate to a new country. All I thought about was, that I moving to a better place with a much more superior system. When I first set my foot in this country, I was amazed by the beauty and how developed the U.S. was. I was literally living my dream, and sometimes it seemed impossible to believe, I was living in the most powerful country. Although, I was living my dream until I had to start

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.

My move from South Korea to the United States was to this day the hardest, most stressful event of my whole entire life. At the age of six, I gave up the comfort of my friends, culture, and home to move to a country halfway across the world. Korea was everything I knew and loved. Having never set foot outside of the country, all my dreams and aspirations were set in Korea. Although I was a fickle child and my goals changed constantly, they all were intertwined with Korea. I was going to become a pianist in Korea and teach piano to students. Another time, I decided I was going to become a math teacher at the school I was attending. My view of the world was limited, but I was happy in my familiar, safe place. My move to America changed my whole perspective.

I was 14-year-old when I left my country to move to America in March 2012. When I heard I was moving to the United States, I was so delighted words cannot even describe how excited I was that day. I remember the night before my trip I could not sleep. I was excited because my whole family was going to be with me. My dad migrated to Florida four years before we came, therefore, I could not wait to see him again.

Before I turned four years old, my mother and I moved to join my father in Berwyn, Illinois. My sister ended having to stay back a couple of months so that she could finish her school year. We arrived to a nice apartment in the suburbs, it was a complete scenery change than what I was use to. Everyone seemed to have giant yards, bright green grass, large fences, and freshly painted houses. Back in Fresnillo, we had our large home, but it was rare for houses to have such large yards, so close to the heart of the town. From the time of the move until my first year in kindergarten, I had a bit of time to adjust, watching cartoons in English, I am not quite sure how I picked it up but I did. At that time my mother only spoke Spanish, my father is bilingual, but he would speak to us in Spanish.

I was nine years old when I moved to California from Japan, all the way across the world. Moving to California was quite possibly the weirdest experience that has happened to me as a child. Trying to move from a place that I pretty much spent my life in than literally going across the world without knowing anything about it was very foreign to me, however my parents used to live in california for about one or two decades.

Our family moved to the United States of America when I was ten. My sister was 15 and although she was young, she was mature. I on the other hand was not, I was stubborn. With the experiences of education in our motherland, my sister found America is a great place for education. On the other hand, I refused to go to school because I was scared of not being

the plane on to American soil. We then had to follow some kind of rep.

The Portuguese culture, which I had already grown up with in the U.S., was a main part of the trip in and of itself. The magnificent architecture that I saw there, even though it was decaying with time, was very symbolic of the Portuguese heritage. For example, on many red clay terracotta roof tops there resided cupolas, and on those cupolas was the famed Gallo do Barcelos (English equivalent – Rooster of Barcelos), which