When I was three years old my mother decided it would be best for us to move to America so we could have better and safer lives. Before I started school, I was sheltered from American culture. I could barely speak English, I only knew hispanic songs, and I only ate “Mexican food.” By the time school started, I felt like an outsider, everyone was speaking in a foreign language and eating odd foods, I felt out of place. It wasn’t until third grade when I began to feel like I was part of my classmates. When I was fifteen, my aunt and two young cousins came to live with us, escaping the violence in Mexico. I did everything in my power to help my cousins adjust. I read them books in English so they could pick up the language, I taught the youngest