Essay about From Spanish to English: Becoming Literate in America

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.

Again I was struggling not to let myself down and to learn the concepts of the new country. At first everything was hard; I had a lot of difficulties on all my classes due to the lack of reading and understanding the language. I remember when my 7th grade English teacher handed me the book “A Child Called It” by Dave Pelzer; I was stuck in the first page “I’d never realized so many words existed!”(Malcolm X 432).I kept solving my problems by myself, using the dictionary, searching words on the internet, and comparing some Spanish words with English ones. For some reason I didn’t like when people tried to translate and when the school tried to assign me Spanish tutors. I felt that getting help in Spanish wasn’t any good and it just disrupted my learning. Even though school was hard “I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.” (Alexie 447).I accomplished my goal of passing 7th grade. During the summer I used to go to the library and read books, because I didn’t understand most of them, and I found reading in English innocuous for the first month. After I got the handle of reading and writing once again, I felt confident of myself, and my life came back to normal.

Things was completely different but the same. The work was harder and different from the work I had in middle school even the teachers I had was also different as well. My transition going into high school was different. It happened to be a different type of scenery and I didn’t expect for that to happen to me at that time. Being a freshman opened up a whole different world for me that I wasn’t really ready for. Going into highschool, I had friends I thought I would be friends with for my entire life. As soon as I got to high school things started to change. On top of the friends I had I also made new friends as well. When I was a freshman I had to look up to the upperclassmen to guide me and to lead me by example. When I was a freshman, it meant I had to be on my P’s and Q’s. I felt a lot of pressure when I was a freshman especially from teachers. Fitting in while I was a freshman wasn’t a good start for me because I wasn’t really involved into any school activities or

From happy moments to sad moments, from having the best time to falling asleep in class. Middle school was also a place for change. As Robin Sharma once stated, “Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.” High school will definitely bring many changes in our lives. At first, everything may be difficult but, as each year goes by you will quickly realize that you are capable of handling it because, you know at the end of the day everything will be

Literacy: a simple word that rolls of your tongue, but it cannot be contained by one definition. It is traditionally the ability to read and write with the ability of language, numbers, and technology. The world may be constantly changing for the better or for worse, but society should be, especially, when it comes down to teaching literacy to students. About a majority of the generation in schools contain Latino and Latina students, who are natives or inhabitants of Latin America. Therefore, how come Latino and Latina Literacy is repressed and in need of schooling? How can society itself change to help Latins? Discourses are a major part in how Latino andLatina literacy can be improved to teach Latin students as well as including Latino literature in school curriculum and integrating

I was born in a small ranch in Mexico, and raised in Oregon .My first year and a half I grew up with only my mother and grandmother, my father in the US trying to raise enough money to send to my mom and me . I came to the United States with my mom at the time in only understood Spanish. The Spanish language stayed with me up until I was 3 , I was the only child but my older cousins taught me a new foreign language. From the moment I learned to speak English to almost 14 years later, being a year away fro graduation its been a big struggle. Fighting against the "I cant's" and "failure" it's been a bumpy ride. Something that has really shaped my life is, as I grew up I didn't quite understand the meaning of immigrant, my 7 year old mind didn't

Becoming Mexican American is George J. Sanchez’s document how Chicanos survived as a community in Los Angeles during the first part of the twentieth century. He goes into detail of how many thousands of Mexicans were pushed back in to Mexico during a formal repatriation. Those that survived in Los Angeles joined labor unions and became involved in New Deal politics.

When I first started school, I remember how difficult it was for me to make the transition from Spanish to English. My Mom left me at the door of the school in the morning, but since I was placed in an English-only classroom, the next time I opened my mouth to speak to anyone was when she picked me up again that afternoon. I didn't know what anyone was saying around me, and to make matters worse, my teacher didn't speak a single word of Spanish. That day, like every other day, I came home crying because I felt like an outsider. That year was very difficult for me because I ended up in the back corner of the classroom not participating. As a result, I had to take several years of summer school in order to catch up, something that

I moved to the United States of America when I was six years old. I could not speak any English, so I had many problems. I could not ask to go to the bathroom or make new friends. However, I was allowed to start first grade with the other six year olds, so I was not too far behind them in knowledge because first graders are not at their peak of intelligence. As I attended elementary school, I became fluent in English and began to make friends, but I could not perceive the real problem because I was so young.

In 1950 17 states were still segregated by law, the average schooling for Mexican Americans was 5.4 years, also 72% of disabled children were not enrolled in school. With the disabled children fact, every race has children born with disables, and some people are only disabled for so long, it seems crazy that they were being excluded so much.

The first days of school became the saddest days of my life. Not only was I missing my parents, but also I was intimidated. I was used to getting the best grades at my former school; here in New York, I was something different, somehow less. I neither liked nor understood what was happening to me. Because of my inability to speak fluently, and without inventing words, a few weeks after trying to fit in at school I decided to give up. I limited my social life to talk only to Spanish speakers, I did well in every subject except for English, and I lost all my interest in learning proper

At first, speaking English was a bit difficult because I did not feel confident using it with others. The most advanced students sometimes made fun of my English. The students who spoke my own language made more fun of me than the ones who were fluent in English. The teasing by the students made me feel embarrassed and shy to speak the English language, giving me a fear of being made fun of or looked at differently. Practicing the English language with my own siblings and playing with the neighborhood kids who already managed the language gave me more confidence to speak English. Taking Spanish courses in school was also an advantage, which helped me to get better at my native language and kept me from losing it.

How are Hispanics getting help with English and what obstacles or barriers are they facing? That is an extremely good question. Everyday, more and more Hispanics are making a move to the United States in hopes of a better life. The only problem is that many of them can not speak any English at all. Since the United States is basically an English speaking nation, it is important that Hispanics learn English to be able to adjust to life within the United States. But, that is easier said than done because it is not easy to get Hispanics the help that they need in learning English. There have to be people who are willing to tutor and fund programs. Of course, there are always obstacles or barriers that stands in the way of progress.

the day and English at night, but my transition was harder due to my poor foundations of the English language. I now had to speak, write, and read in English, when I preferred my native language, Spanish. Immaculate Heart Elementary School provided a tutor to help me read from the textbooks in my third grade class. I had difficulty communicating with the teacher and classmates. I felt embarrassed for not understanding English, and sad knowing that it was hard to speak with my Spanish accent. Even though I was placed in such an unfamiliar and difficult situation, I enjoyed the educational atmosphere. I felt safer in an environment where I had some individual attention. I began to write essays about various social studies related topics such as the 41st President of the United States and the Statue of Liberty. I recall spending a lot of my time thinking about the ideas I should mention in those essays, but I spent even more time trying to get those thoughts on lined paper. I wondered whether I was saying things the correct way. I felt behind compared to the other student in my class. I didn?t know the basics of grammar, like when to use ?is? and not ?are?, when everyone else had mastered that area of study. I struggled thinking in Spanish and

I am in high school now (9th grade) and a lot has changed over the years. I had friends that I was forced to hang out with and some that just grew with me and now we are in same school or classes.