Personal Narrative: Coming To America

My family and I in 2008 moved from Trinidad and Tobago to America. We were all so excited to move to a new country. We heard about all the fun experiences and great opportunities that America had to offer. I must admit that I had mixed emotions about moving to a new country. On one hand, I was exactly happy because I was going to have an opportunity to go college and presume my dream of being a childhood teacher or child psychologist. On the other hand, I was sad because I was leaving all my Tobago friends and family

For the podcast, I interviewed Lina Abdulnoor, with the intention of exploring the intricacies of refugeehood by analyzing Lina’s refugee experience. Lina lived in Iraq with her family until they began receiving death threats due to their religious beliefs. Convinced that they needed to flee the country to survive, they left Iraq as refugees. After leaving Iraq, they settled in Jordan, where they waited two years until the U.N. to approve their request to move to the U.S. in 2012. Lina and her family initially settled in Virginia, where she experienced culture shock as she adapted to American culture and the English language. However, Lina did not feel accepted in Virginia; her experiences in the state led her to think that Americans treated her according to negative stereotypes of Iraqis. After living in Virginia for several months, Lina and her family chose to resettle in San Diego, California, which harbored a larger Iraqi population than Virginia did. Supported by San Diego’s Iraqi community and various refugee organizations, Lina flourished, and she currently studies at UCSD while holding a stable job.

Many people from all around the world travel to somewhere new in their life. All from a range of reasons either because they were forced to or maybe that person and their family just wanted a new life. The two short stories “Response to Executive Order 9066 by Dwight okita and “Mericans” by sandra cisneros both show the perspective of two girls who are in completely different places and situations come against challenges in their life just because of who they are or where they came from which they have no control over

We still do not know how World War I started; that is the basis the book Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark. In it he dispels rumors, raises new questions, and paints this as a sequence of unfortunate events no one country is to be blamed for. Right from the first few sentences Clark builds up the tension. He begins the book in 1903 with the murder of Alexander I that foreshadows the later assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Christopher Clark’s book Sleepwalker’s is a thought provoking piece of literature for anyone interested in the events leading up to the “Great War”.

Many people are from war stricken areas overseas looking for refuge in the United States. In numerous ways the reader can see a cultural difference in the way that Americans feel about the way that folks from overseas fit in here in the United States. Luma’s friends were afraid because, “a Muslin women from Jordan wouldn’t fit in Down in Dixie” (24). This shows the reader how a large amount of people may view those from across the sea. In a different instance, the author switches to a different family and the reader sees more insight on how the world is disconcerting those trying to start a new life. Just as Beatrice, a newly single mother of three sons, is walking home from work, “A man was following her…she felt the man’s hand on her arm…Beatrice let go of the bag…and she took off running herself in the opposite direction” (31). The reader also sees an instance of police brutality towards a Nigerian immigrant. All of these instances show the trouble that those from overseas may be experiencing. Now as the book goes on the reader gets a sense of the community around those and how those first settled

On September 24, 2010, an airplane carried me to the ground of another country, to another dialect, new culture, new places, new habits, new challenges, new people and all in all, new life. I won't describe for you a lot about how hard it was to say farewell to all my relative and my friends, because I think you can picture yourself what would it feel like to leave everybody you know in your own country and move to America. When you leave your adolescence home — the place where you grew up, your local area or your country of residence or your homeland or anyway you feel to call it — you leave a piece of you behind. Before I came here in America, I thought that I would be in Hollywood, cozy house, bunches of tall structures, however to my mistake

“Something that I never had in life, something that you have but are taking for granted, I won't stand for it.” Game controller in hand, I gulped hard, with sweat rolling down my head. My eyes pointed directly downward, not daring to look up as my mother gave “the talk.” My mother’s words echo in my head. Having lost her father during high school, she was denied her right to higher education. She married at a young age, moved to America, and gave birth to me. The first born, the carrier of the American Dream. We were what one would expect from an immigrant Indian family; working hard, valuing education, and hoping for a better tomorrow. As my parents worked hard to sustain our family, I strived to excel in school, motivated by their hardship.

Coming to America about six years ago and adapting to the new world proved to be a real challenge for me. Aside from the cultural shock, I had to adapt to the usage of a foreign language in almost everything, which in turn forced me to work harder in my studies than in the previous years. My parents sacrificed a lot for their family. They left their country, their own business, and their family behind so that my sisters and I could have a better future. I came to America when I was in the eighth grade. I did not speak English fluently or understood it very well. When I got the admission in middle school my counselor gave the course selection sheet. I did not even know what courses to pick because the courses were almost alien in nature, or

The first time I’ve met my parents was when I was five. When they approached me at the airport, I did not know who they were. When I found out that they were my parents, I did not know how to react — I was excited, but also scared. Standing in front of me were two people whom I listened to the voices of for the past five years and spoke casually with on the phone, but meeting them in person was a whole different story.

In the 1990s Yugoslavia was the battlefield of Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945. This notorious culmination was a product of an interconnected chain of events which began in the mid-1980s with the deepening of the conflict and the extremely strained relations between the two major ethnic groups in Kosovo: Albanians and Serbs. Kosovo was the most problematic region in the whole federation due to the large number of Albanian population in the province and the heterogeneous ethnic picture of the area. In parallel with that,

Moving to America, was a difficult transition for me. I had come to the realization that I wasn’t going to see my friends any time soon back in Iran and that was hard to overcome at a young age. I was alone as a child because my siblings are a lot older than me, and my parents’ had the challenge of starting over because they had left everything behind in Iran. However, that wasn’t going to get in the way of me succeeding in school. I have always been a fast learner, by the age of eight I had already learned four languages. Also, I was voted most improved by my classmate every year I was in Elementary School. This might not seem like a big achievement, but as a young student in a new country it was a huge motivation boost for me to improve every

she can’t go up to one of their posts in Albania. The soldier would reply “We

Subsequently, in late 1997, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), made its appearance and conducted several hit and run insurgencies. This gave the green light to Serbia now to issue forces in Kosovo and maintain the country inside its borders. The internal situation entirely escalated when forces in search of KLA men went to the KLA leader’s house, Adem Jashari, and massacred 58 people among them women and children (Independent International Commission on Kosovo, 2000; 3). By the end of the war, forces had destroyed villages, expelled 800,000 ethnic Albanians and killed over 4,000 people (HRW, 2001: 4-7). Here as well, the international community started to see what could be negotiated with Milosevic. The international powers – composed of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia - indeed were facing legal and moral dilemmas. Meanwhile the talks were going on, the Serbian forces in Kosovo was conducting massacres, and it has been noted that one of their anthems was “a massacre per day keeps NATO away” (Power, 2007: 447). Negotiations were taking place in Rembouillet, known as the ‘Rembouillet talks,’ where little was achieved, since Milosevic was

Republic of Kosovo it’s a small and newly formed state on Balkans region and it is geographically surrounded by other small states. Republic of Kosovo is being internationally recognized and with a fast progress, expectations are that it will soon become a member of UN.

Republic of Kosovo took its independence in 17 February 2008, although it’s not known by all the countries in the world. It is in the middle of Balkan and it is bordered by the Republic of Macedonia and Albania to the south, Montenegro to the west, and territory of Serbia to the north and east. Kosovo is a very small country with only 2 Million people . Its capital city is called Pristina, a very alive part of Kosovo unlike the other cities where you can find an organized environment and quiet people. They have 6 official languages which are Albanian, Serbian, Bosnian, Turkish, Gorani and Romani, but 88 – 92 percent speaks Albanian. Since 2002 people in Kosovo were using the currency of Euro which replaced the German ‘Marka’. 95% of the population is Muslim.