Personal Narrative: My Life As An Immigrant

I interviewed a beautiful and courageous woman, of African descent. Born and raised in Monrovia, Liberia on May 20, 1969. In addition, she has one biological brother and three step siblings. Currently she resides in Loganville, Georgia, where she lives with her two children. By the same token, she and her husband been married for twenty-one years to her loving high school sweetheart husband. Due to unfortunate circumstances, she lost her husband in the line of duty. Causing her to become a widow, continuing to survive life without her husband. When I conducted this interview, had one topic in mind that I wanted to learn more about her life as an immigrant and how did influence her life.

It was a wonderful eye-opening experience to interview Carmen Anton, a Spanish immigrant for this project. I learned so many things about how she arrived in American as a small child with only her sister by her side and her strive to become American. The emotional struggles of Carmen and her sister, Elena, were real and I didn’t realize it was that emotionally draining to come to a new country. Her experience showed me how hard it is to fit into a new society knowing absolutely nothing about the world she was dropped into. The fact that she flew here with her younger sister and then live for three months without her parents to guide her in this unfamiliar setting, shows me how strong and brave Carmen was at the young age of eight. When she first came, she assumed it would be like

In the memoir “The Distance Between Us” by Reyna Grande, the author highlights her immigration story to the United States from Mexico. Throughout the immigration process, Reyna and her family suffered through many problems regarding family, assimilation, and the future in America. She discusses these details throughout the book. Assimilation has detrimental effects on Reyna and her family, as it does on thousands of families who look to seek a new life in the United States. As we can see through the mental health problems as well as family problems that arise in Reyna’s family, the system should be changed in order to prioritize children.

When reading through the different perspectives in Cristina Henriquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans, each perspective provides a different sense of emotion as each individual travels to the United States in search of the American dream. In Alma, Arturo, and Maribel’s case, the family travels in search of more adequate health care and better school systems to suit Maribel’s needs after her accident. By taking in their perspectives, it is nearly impossible not to root for their characters. Although immigration is such a pressing and more challenging topic to debate in the United States, the book raises the question of, “Wouldn’t you do the same for your family?” There are a numerous amount of influences in making this decision that tell what we should and should not believe when addressing this issue including family, friends, the media, politics, etc. With these influences, it is difficult to make an unbiased decision.

Living as an immigrant in the United States is one of the most difficult circumstances one may encounter. In the story, The Distance Between Us, by Reyna Grande, Reyna tells the story of the difficulties and experiences she lived through as an immigrant child with immigrant parents trying to create a better life for themselves in the United States. Grande’s experiences with her parental figures through the years, shows how she has shaped into the woman she is today, by speaking on her behalf as a child separated from her parents due to immigration in her memoir. Throughout the story, Reyna explains how difficult it was for her and her siblings to have a strong, loving relationship with their parents. One of the most difficult things immigrant

“Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us (p. 111).” These words, spoken by Ántonia, the protagonist of the novel ‘My Ántonia’, give light to the situation immigrants found themselves in after moving to the North America’s Western frontier. This novel reveals how immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s had to overcome numerous obstacles on the path towards ‘The American Dream’ which those native to the area did not have to face.

Growing up with parents who are immigrants can present many obstacles for the children of those immigrants. There are many problems people face that we do not even realize. Things happen behind closed doors that we might not even be aware of. Writers Sandra Cisneros and Amy Tan help us become aware of these problems. Both of these authors express those hardships in their stories about growing up with foreign parents. Although their most apparent hardships are about different struggles, both of their stories have a similar underlying theme.

Growing up as an immigrant I view the world in a much more different light than most people do. Whenever an opportunity presents itself to me I am willing to put in the effort if I know it will better my life. This trait of resourcefulness originates from my family who, over the years have created a life for themselves out of virtually nothing. I moved to America at the young age of two years old with my father. Though he didn’t have much to begin with, my father decided to move to this country in hopes to lead a better life and follow on the path of the American dream. I vividly recall being in the backseat of our car while my father trained me on the importance of remaining perceptive and hardworking in school and abroad, I remember he would

On a random Thursday morning in the middle of October, I became an orphan. I have always been independent and mature from a young age, but all that changed on a crisp day in November when I learned what it means to grow up. Something typically marked by a Bat Mitzvah or the acquisition of a driver’s license was, for me, marked by the arrest of my single mother.

It is not uncommon to hear one recount their latest family reunion or trip with their cousins, but being a first generation immigrant, I sacrificed the luxury of taking my relatives for granted for the security of building a life in America. My parents, my brother, and I are the only ones in my family who live in the United States, thus a trip to India to visit my extended family after 4 years was an exciting yet overwhelming experience. Throughout the trip, I felt like a stranger in the country where I was born as so many things were unfamiliar, but there were a few places that reminded me of my childhood.

So, I decided to document this experience to check some myths and facts about immigration and the American dream, through the life of eight immigrants.

They all have kids making me an aunt of 6 nieces and 2 nephews. For me being an aunt is like being a mother. I’ve learned to care for them and nurture them as if they were my kids. I always try my best to set a good example. Pushing my older nieces to their limits is important simply because as a child I never had the help of my siblings in school nor my parents since they didn’t speak fluent English, understanding my homework was as hard for them as it was for me. My parents arrived to this country at young age from Colombia. Not knowing one English word, but that didn’t stop them. They had responsibilities and the hope of one day living the American dream. My parents have lived in Queens ever since. If it wasn’t for my parent’s decision to arrive to this country where would I be now? Would I have had the opportunity to sit in your classroom? Maybe not. So I’m grateful for what I have and what I’ve learned and proud of who I am now thanks to the courage of my parents leaving their family to begin their

At the young age of 10, my native born Filipino mother was adopted by her aunt in Canada and shipped across the world to a place unknown to her. The reason behind this adoption came for two reasons: the first being poverty and the second being favoritism. While my mother wasn 't unloved, she certainly wasn 't the favorite among her siblings. This, along with her family 's deepening poverty, was the catalyst for a life changing event. Scared and inexperienced with any culture other than her own, she looked for answers and comfort before leaving. I can distinctly remember her telling me the story for the first time; her father bringing her to the airport, holding her while she cried and begged to stay, and slipping a small

Everyone with a job in my family put in money to get my aunt and her 3 kids to come to the US. I remember when I was about 13 being really excited to have my cousins and my aunt here with me. My aunt, cousins and anyone from a third world country would love to come to America. My aunt or “Tia” as you would say in spanish, would look forward to working and be in better living conditions than she was in the DR. At times there was not any light or water to shower in her village. My cousins would always dream about coming to school here and going to college for anything they wanted to study in their future.

My parents did not come to San Diego with a lot of money, they only had ten million dong when they came, which to me sounded like a lot but my mom laughed and told me it was a thousand dollars in the U.S. For my parents, this meant they would go homeless in two months if one of them did not find any sort of work. For the first month, it was very difficult for them to find a job because they did not know how to find one. My mother would tell me how my father was a very strong man and yet no one would hire him because he would not know what to say during the interview. My mother would tell me how there were many nights she would fall asleep crying because she would think back to Vietnam when she was with her family and friends, where she did not feel limited or restricted by anything but money, and how now that she was here in San Diego, it was not only money but also her opportunity to socialize and communicate with many of the people around her. Even with my father by her side, she felt helpless and excluded from the community, like she no longer had a voice. Fortunately, near the end of the first month, one of the Vietnamese neighbors actually noticed my parents and greeted them. This man had a family and welcomed my parents greatly. He even helped my father find a job and get access to government services such as rent assistance, Medi-Cal and Food Stamps. Many immigrants share the same experiences my parents