I Am A U.s. Born Citizen

In December of 2005, my family and I came to the United States from the Dominican Republic. I came to the United States because my parents wanted to provide my siblings and I a better future. In my hometown, The U.S is considered the country of opportunities. At that time, I was oblivious and unaware of what was going on. I did not understand why I had to move across the world. When we came to United States, my family and I had to live with my grandfather. He shared his home and provided us with anything we needed. It was difficult adjusting to a new culture and environment.

I am an immigrant and my parents live in Eritrea, a small country in Africa, while I came to the United States back in the 1990s at age 18 as a student, in pursuit of the American Dream. As a family, we didn 't have much growing up and struggled at times to make ends meet. I was raised by a single mother due to a war, my father was gone. My mother wanted me to get an education and live the life that she never had. Since I lived in a poor country, I couldn 't help myself but work hard and support my family at age 12. She pushed for me to go to the USA to go school to become educated. I was very blessed to have found a sponsor to bring me to the United States.

My father was raised in a predominantly Dominican neighborhood in New York City. Along with other immigrant families, he grew up in the basements of tenement buildings. When he left home at 17, set out to quickly assimilate into what he viewed as mainstream America. This included raising me as an American first. As a result, I lacked a connection to my culture. I knew nothing about Dominican culture, food, or music. I yearned to learn more about my cultural identity.

I grew up in a small town in the state of Michoacan, Mexico until a few weeks after my seventh birthday. In 2001, after six years since my father petitioned to have us come to the United States with him and finally he had received a letter from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that his request had been approved. Being of that age, I was my mother’s companion everywhere, however, all I could grasp from those conversations was that we were going to the United States. I don 't think any of us knew what this meant or to what extent this would change our lives, not even my parents whom I thought knew it all.

Immigrating to America is a process in which many people all across the world entrust as their one way ticket to a better life. Whether they do so legally or illegally, coming to the United States ensures better opportunities, economically, politically, and so on, to people who would have otherwise been worse off in their countries of origin. Even so, the common understanding of being “better off” can be considered a misconstrued concept when it comes to living in the states. Many families that choose to immigrate to the U.S. fail to realize the cultural hardships that newcomers tend to face once on American soil. Anything from racial discrimination or bias at work, in neighborhoods, at school, etc., can all be challenges that people encounter when making a move to the U.S. Such challenges are described by Richard Rodriquez in his autobiography Hunger of Memory. In this passage, he explains how cultural differences between Mexican and American ways of life have shaped him into the person that he is today. He also chooses to highlights the problems that he faces growing up in a predominately white neighborhood, while attending a predominantly white institution. Much of his writing consists of the cultural differences and pressures he feels to assimilate to Western culture and how this process, in turn, changes him into the person that some may find to be unethical, but nonetheless, someone he is proud of.

My family decided to immigrate to America when I was a child, wanting to give my brother and I the opportunity to obtain an education here and lead a better life. However, coming to America, I struggled a lot. As an “outsider,” I did not understand American culture and it took me awhile to learn English. Everything was so much more spacious, so much more modern. Though, despite being a “foreigner” in this new land, my classmates and teachers were very accepting of me, welcoming me with open arms. With their help, and with the help of my family members, I began adapting to life here.

Moving to the United States at age of 15 without knowing English was a big challenge for me, Jose Emmanuel Rojas Liquidano. It was a big change in my life and for my family too, my family is made of 8 members; my dad, mom, 3 brothers, and 2 sisters. I was born and raised in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Out of all my siblings I am the only one that was born in Mexico; all my siblings are U.S. citizens. I have managed to overcome the obstacles due to not being U.S citizen, with the help of my parents.

Before I enter to this internship, I know nothing about translating or interpreting. I thought that interpreting from one language to another was easy, just interpret like you are another person. Wrong, when interpreting for a client, I had to be the client – said exactly what they told me to the USCIS officer. An example would be when the client said “I am not a citizen of the United States”, I should tell the USCIS officer, “I am not a citizen of the United States” instead of “he is not a citizen of the United States”. When interpreting to a client at his Naturalization Interview, I had to speak clearly and slowly, be careful with my word choice, and keep sentences short and simple (“Interviewing”, 2013). There were more points that I need to remember as an interpreter, but to prepare myself, I read the USCIS journal: Interviewing - Working with an interpreter (suggested by my supervisor), and I brought a small notebook with me to write down what both parties said. Interpreting is a useful skill for me to have because after this internship, I want to be able to interpret for my parents sufficiently and as well as for the Hmong community.

I was four years old when my parents decided to move from Mexico to the United States. We did not travel far from our hometown Mexicali, Baja California to Palm Springs, California, however, I understood the move was harsh on my parents. They had a stable life in Mexico. They were college honor graduates working in their desired work fields, but they did not settle. Instead, they sought more in a foreign country with minimal financial support and understanding of the American lifestyle. I did not realize how powerful my parent’s strength and ambitions for success was until my father lost his job. My dad was not home and would not be for a year. I was fourteen when my dad lost his job which caused him to return to Mexico for employment. Immediately,

My story beings as many others do in my generation; I was brought to America by my parents because they wanted me to have a better life than what was available in our native country, Peru. I now understand the sacrifice my parents made leaving everything and everyone behind for my brother and I, and it is a difficult change when one comes from a closely bonded Latino family. This in itself forever changed my family’s life because

I was born and raised in Tijuana, Mexico. But when I was eight years old, my life transformed completely. I was no longer the smart little girl sitting in front of the class, but the English learner in the back of the classroom. My transition to the United States was not easy. For the first months, I have no friends, no one to sit with at lunch, and most importantly no idea what was going on in class. Even though I had years to learn the language, reaching that goal seem unreachable. However, I slowly improved and each year I had new accomplishments. Even though I have now spent more than half of my life in this country, I will never forget those days in the beginning. The confusion I brought along everywhere I went as I was introduced to a

About eight-years ago, my family decided to moved to the U.S for a better future which also the day that marks my history. It’s very challenging to assimilate into a different culture and to learn a different language. My parents had a tough time finding a job to keep food on the table because they had partially education with no English. As time goes on, everything

Both of my parents emigrated from Mexico as young adults. As a first generation Mexican- American and the oldest of three, I had to face many obstacles in order to accomplish a higher education. Spanish was my first language but I was enrolled in a bilingual program from pre-K to third grade.When I needed help with my homework I had to make sense of it on my own or would seek help from my mother who did not speak English. As a nine-year-old, I would have to translate my homework from English to Spanish and then translate it back

The person I interviewed name is Javier Gonzales. He is his Hispanic and is from Spain. He has been living here in America for 30+ years. He states “he feels more like an American than his own culture”. He is now 49 years old. He goes back to visit his family yearly because he still have brothers and sisters that lives in Spain.

As a daughter of an immigrant I always felt that I was in the middle of a tug of war between my Mexican culture and my American culture. However, I learned that it was actually the construction of a bridge between the two and that the two sides where not as far apart as I thought. By getting to know more people, I realized that I was not alone and brought on a passion to teach about the Hispanic culture, the importance of perseverance, and power of optimism.