Personal Essay: Moving To America

I was grown up in Vietnam, I 've had lived there for 13 years, and my family moved to the United States for better life and education. I went through a lot of challenges, but the most difficult one is a language barrier. I couldn 't speak English and couldn 't communicate with anybody in school. The school I went to doesn 't have Vietnamese and I couldn 't ask for help. I was struggling with school, and I didn 't learn anything for years.

A challenge I have had to overcome throughout my life is fitting in. When I was four years old I was adopted from the country called Kazakhstan. I came to America at four years old and I lived with my new mom and dad. Throughout my life I have looked for what I am good at and what I will love to dedicate my life too. But due to not having my real parents there I never really knew who I was.

For as long as I can remember, my childhood was one memorable aspect of my life. My environment motivated me to be a survivor and adapt into whatever situation I found myself in because of the constant movement that happened in the busy city I grew up in. I was born and raised in the western part of one of the biggest countries in Africa known as Nigeria, a pretty large state known as Lagos. I resided in a popular city known as “Ikeja”. It was a busy place where every person had to worry about their means of survival because as much as the city had its positive sides, the negative sides took a lot from the citizens because of the corrupt government.

Being an American Simply put, the American concept is to do things better than everyone else. Discontent with how England ran things in their country, people traveled to America because they believed they could govern a better country than England could. When the colonists grew tired of how England ran things in the colonies, they drove them out by force, because they believed they could do things better. Serving 50 years as a federal judge, Learned Hand spoke out against dictatorships in his speech “The Spirit of Liberty”, “A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.” Addressed in 1944, this line refers to Hitler and other dictators who were leading their countries terribly.

I can never have my father’s smile or my mother’s eyes, and my skin tone will never match their pale skin, even though I am their daughter. My parents’ DNA cannot be traced in my body nor my siblings’. Growing up in this family has given me a future I would never have had if I were not adopted. At the age 10, I saw the world from another perspective when my family and I embarked on a journey to adopt my younger sister. Traveling back to my birth country shaped me into the person I am today because I have become open-minded through having a better understanding of privileges and values.

The first eight years of my life, I spent in India where I was born. Growing up I was constantly reminded by my parents that I needed to make them proud by getting a good job and living a good lifestyle. They told me this because they did not want to see me live a hard life like they did. When I was nine years old, I moved from India to the United States of America. The reason why I moved to America was not because I was living a bad life in India, it was so that I could have a better education and more opportunities in life.

I used to have this grudges in my heart when everything go hard that would made me wanted to blame my parent. But I can’t because I was not raise to think that way. When I come to America, I was eleven years old and no one asked me if I wanted to come it just happen in a second. I was in a cold place with extended family that I never met before and that one person who raise me and made me feel secure was still back in the country. I had to lived months without her and next thing you know I adapted and convince myself they are doing this because the wanted the best for me.

Where I came from and what I remembered, America was a country of freedom, education, and a place of hope. Surrounded by these affirmatives, inside me lays many opportunities ahead. I spent most of my childhood in Thailand (a place I wouldn’t consider home), where there were very few educational opportunities for me to pursue. In addition to its lack of opportunities, its educational environment was also very poor. I was incapable of setting goals for myself and showing others my strengths.

At the age of____, I left everything behind in Armenia and migrated into the United States of America to start a new life. Even though I love my paternal land and do not forget where I come from, the fact that I could pursue a career and become a productive member of the society encouraged me to move to America. To my great misfortune, I was persecuted for being politically active in my own country and I could no longer fight with the authorities for violating my civil rights. I had the potential of facing more dangerous situations than I was already in at the time. I am my parent’s first child

When I was 10 years old, my parents made the life changing decision of moving to America. Like most people from where I come from, my parents saw America as a new beginning, the land of the free and the land of opportunity. My brother and I, on the other hand, were less than excited to be leaving behind everything we had known and loved since birth for a far away country that we had only known from the news. On the plane and all through the immigration process, my mother didn’t wear her hijab and told me and my brother to not say anything in Arabic. That should have been the first red flag, but I was too naive and too excited to be on an airplane to notice.

Words cannot even begin to express the admiration and gratitude I possess towards my mother. From humble beginnings, she has completely transformed into a mentor and role model, not only for me, but also for countless people around her. In Korea, on February 15, 1973, my mom Patty was born. While she was in elementary school, her parents made the courageous and life changing decision of moving the entire family to America, hoping for a brighter future for their two children, my mom and her younger brother, Chris.

With everyone now aboard the cruise ship, I can’t even hear myself think! The sound of adults and children overwhelmed with excitement and bursting with laughter fills the sea air. “We’ll be departing for the Caribbean islands shortly,” exclaims Captain George Johnson. This is my cue to start making way to my compact yet cozy room to unpack my belongings for my ten day trip.

I was taught in order to learn new vocabulary words will be given a packet of the used of vocab definition to filled in the blank for the word that best fits the sentence. Also, it comes with a song for us to listens at first trying to figure out what it's talking about then write will discuss at a whole group summarizing what the story meant or song meant. I was also giving vocab to each person in the group to present in front of the class what it mean by guessing the word. The struggles is when being able to read a book that interest to me and have to a summarize of the book in paragraph to show that we have read and understand the book. Having to find the who the character, conflict, conclusion of the reading, and why you would recommend

My Journey to America Moving from Nigeria to the United States permanently feels great, but at the same time it is sad leaving some of your loved ones and family behind. There are many events in life, which can change one’s way of thinking. As for me, one of the major changes in my life occurred when I moved from Africa to America. This change has entirely affected my personality positively. Why?

Moving to a new country can be difficult sometimes. Leaving all my relatives and friends back home was the saddest thing for me. My mother told me that we were moving to a new country. At first, I thought my mother was joking about it. but little did I know that she was telling the truth.