Personal Narrative: Growing Up In An Immigrant To America

Growing up in an immigrant household in America, was difficult. I didn’t live, I learned to adapt. I learned to adapt to the fact that I did not look like any of my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that my hair texture would never be like any of my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that I was not as financially well off as my peers, so I changed. Adapted to the fact that unlike other people who have families of four, I had a family of seven and numerous amounts of close relatives. That my parents, although lived in America for quite sometimes grew up in Nigeria, so English was not their first language so I adapted and changed myself in order to fit into societal standards. I learned to understand and interpret my parents’ native Igbo dialect but left that part of myself at home so that people will view me as the perfect American citizen.

It did not occur to me at the time, allowing people to call me “Chi Chi”, stripped me of my identity long before I really knew what it was. I did not comprehend back then that my name, Chidinma Ezinne, Chidinma meaning ’God is Good’ and Ezinne ’Loving mother’ was an important part of my history. These words meant so much to my parents, all their struggles and hardships coming to America had finally paid off. I was pushing aside my culture to please the people around me but I reached a point in my life that I got tired of changing. I got tired of hiding my Nigerian heritage. Hiding the fact that I, although learned to speak Spanish fluently in school, have an entirely different native tongue and can communicate with my parent in our native Igbo