My parents were immigrants of Ghana coming into this country. Like many children of immigrants they gave birth to me here so I would have easier access to an education. For the first few years of my life, due to all the efforts my parents had made years before I was born, I had stability. I hadn’t known this was a luxury until my parents had divorced. Being the tender age of 4, I was yet to understand what was happening or why my daddy would never come home.
NO THANKSUSE THE APP Personal Statement GROUP DYNAMICS Elys Diaz Personal Statement June 27th 2010, was the day my life completely began to drastically change. At 11 years old, I left the Dominican Republic, my native country, and immigrate to the United States. I had no idea that coming to the United States of America would have such an impact on my life. Moving to the USA changed my life, me and probably my future!
Everything was different here, from the shapes of the houses to the educational system and even the people around me. I was seven years old when my family moved from Punjab, India to California, United States of America. I had grown up in the countryside with farms, a completely different educational system in which I was being trained to excel in subjects such as mathematics, learn four different languages, and being able to write only in cursive. I felt like an stranger in my new country and could not help but to compare my new surrounding environment to what I used to. Surely everyone around me were not walking around constantly making comparisons and having to form two different perspectives to their environment.
As I ponder over my life, each memory seems identical to the other, and I find myself drifting through a reality of similar events that generate the same memories and emotions. Looking back further into my childhood includes memories of my homeland. I remember entering a new world at the age of five, where all of my later memories would be formed. This was when my family moved to the United States from Peru, my native country in the South. The complete change in culture and values truly impacted me when I first moved to Florida, and I reflect over the significant effect it has had on my character during the last thirteen years of my life.
I was born in the Philippines. Living in this country was quite tough since my family is poor. My parents having to support me and my other six siblings made it more difficult and made it quite a gruesome task for them, but still, they managed to ensure that our family is able to survive and also ensure that me and my other siblings are receiving proper education. My parents, wanting all of us to have a secured future, agreed that staying in the Philippines will get us nowhere, so they decided that our family will immigrate to the United States. At first, I did not like the idea of moving to another place, especially to a place that I am not familiar with at all.
I tried my best to wake up early to learn new vocabulary and try to speak so people can understand. It was hard for me because people were laughing at me for having an accent and couldn 't speak well. I stand up and started to learn every day, finding a good friend, and fighting for the right that I must
Not in a million years would I have thought I would ever move from my neighborhood in India to another house, let alone another country. If you would have come up to me and said I was moving, I probably would've just laughed at you, blinded by my obliviousness. But sure enough, one day, and I did not see this coming, my mother told me we were moving to the USA. Just out of the blue, no warning, just bam! Luckily for me, I was near a sofa when I heard this news, so I fell down on the sofa, not the ground.
Growing up in two completely different states has been an experience that opened my mind to understand how we adapt to different ways of living. I love Wichita, KS, where I grew up, just as much as I love Las Vegas, where I lived for a while. What I have learned from living in such different states is that Wichita and Las Vegas, like most states, have differences in size, weather, and way of living. Wichita, Kansas has a population of approximately 386,000 people, which makes it the largest city in Kansas. It has five main highways, which can easily take you anywhere in less than fifteen minutes.
The decision of my family to move to the United States and their constant advices has help me to grow as a person. Advices such as to always keep studying since education is the first step to become successful has help me to accomplish steps for my future goals. There have been moments that I lose faith in myself, but when I see Lawyers, Teachers and Doctors from other parts of the world I begin to have faith again. I believe that my goals are what motivates me to become someone independent and successful and from experience I truly believe that education is the first step to accomplish those goals.
Growing up in the Philippines, life wasn’t always as easy as it comes to me now. My parents didn’t have the same resources, same teachers, or the same education. Life was harder, in many ways. This is what motivated them to move to the U.S and for us to have a better life. I know this now, I see it in my father’s wrinkles and my mother’s gray hair.
The United States of America is considered a melting pot. People from different countries, backgrounds, and ideologies make their way to this country for innumerable opportunities. In 1999, my family made the brave choice to move to the United States. I am a part of a Latino immigrant family. Being a minority, I must deal with stereotypical comments.
I had a considerably traumatic early few years of my life. At the age of 11, my Mother decided to take my brother and I back to her home country of Palestine after the death of my father. As you can imagine having lived my whole life in the United States this was a tremendously traumatic proposition. Not only had my father just died but I was now faced with the prospect of having to leave my friends and home to move to a new country.
My mind takes me back to a time when I woke up to the aroma of food from street vendors through the homes that sit in a tightly compacted neighborhood. I remember growing up as a young boy in an area referred to as “La Laguna” in Mexico. This city was dry in rainfall levels and hope, my family were in the pursuit of an improved standard of living when they decided they wanted to move to the United States. Temporary living on the border made it tempting to go across a bridge and never come back. I saw America as elysium and Mexico as fool’s paradise, where the violence was rare and financial stability was so common.
I was taught in order to learn new vocabulary words will be given a packet of the used of vocab definition to filled in the blank for the word that best fits the sentence. Also, it comes with a song for us to listens at first trying to figure out what it's talking about then write will discuss at a whole group summarizing what the story meant or song meant. I was also giving vocab to each person in the group to present in front of the class what it mean by guessing the word. The struggles is when being able to read a book that interest to me and have to a summarize of the book in paragraph to show that we have read and understand the book. Having to find the who the character, conflict, conclusion of the reading, and why you would recommend
I came from a family that values international sights, we traveled a lot to places in Taiwan and to other countries in the world. It's also one of the reasons why my family supports my education abroad even if that would keep our family apart. The identity of being the second daughter and a female is sometimes challenged by my culture and social standards. Especially when I have received education from sociology for one year and traveled to many countries, I have noticed some unfair situations and common regulations added on me.
