An Analysis Of Nancy Yanes's Life In El Salvador

In November of 1990, Nancy Yanes’s life changed when she was finally immigrating to America. Nancy, an immigrant from Sayopango, El Salvador, arrived to the US only knowing a few of her family members, with no understanding of the language, and didn’t have any money to support herself on her own. Nancy left behind a life of poverty and crime-ridden neighborhoods to reunite with her parents and younger brother.

Nancy Yanes’ mother, Rosina Guerrero had to leave her children behind and come to America illegally. It took her 8-9 years to be able to get the legal document to bring her two children; Nancy and her sister, into the U.S. Rosina believed “a small sacrifice now would mean a huge benefit later.”

Life in El Salvador was extremely dangerous.

When she first got off the plane, she was completely overwhelmed by her surroundings. The people were so different from the people of El Salvador. Nancy expressed how “it was a huge culture shock.” That was when she first realized how many adjustments she was going to have to make in order to live in America. She was going to have to make new friends, adjust to the fashion, and the entire culture as a whole. Nancy was used to a primarily Catholic upbringing and mostly everyone else was Catholic, so coming to America where there is a wide array of religious people was different. It took her some time to start to feel like America was her home. The hardest adjustment was learning the language. People would get frustrated and impatient with her at times because of the language barrier. Nancy came into the states only knowing English from ABBA songs, but not actually understanding what she was saying. She decided to go to an English school at the local high school to try to learn the language and had to walk there everyday since she didn’t have a

When Nancy first came to the United States it took a lot of time for her to get a decent job. She had already finished school since she was 19 but she wasn’t able to go to college. It meant so much to Nancy to be able to send Dilcia to American public schooling and then eventually to college. She instilled the philosophy of always working hard, do her absolute best in everything you do, and take your schooling seriously. When she came home from school, Dilcia would immediately sit down and do her homework. She would spend 4 hours everyday studying; if she wasn’t studying then she was involved in several extracurricular activities. She was involved in basketball, KEY Club, Best Buddies, and more. She always went to church every Sunday with her parents, and it helped instill good values in her. They had her get her first job a little before she turned 16. The family wasn’t surprised that Dilcia was accepted into fantastic universities because of this; she had always gotten good grades throughout her schooling and had shown her values and morals.

Though they weren’t surprised, it didn’t take away from the emotion of Dilcia receiving her first acceptance letter. Dilcia rejoiced “my grandma, Rosina, cried when I got my first letter of acceptance and I just felt so happy that I made my family so proud and that there sacrifices were worth it.” She respected her family so much for everything they had done to create