Personal Narrative: My First Words

“Èchale ganas mija, estudia, para que seas alguien en la vida,” would say my parents since an early age. These words have marked me; given me the reminder that I must keep giving it my all for a formal higher education. Now, you might be wondering what do those words mean? Well, to my translation, they mean “give it your all honey, study, so that you can be a somebody in this world.” Of course, maybe some parents say similar things to their kids, but to me it’s on a whole other level. Growing up, according to my dad, who has the coolest mustache almost like Pancho Villa’s, my first words were “papa bonito.” Although my mom, the woman with a smile so radiant like the sun on a warm summer day with birds chirping and the grass so green, laughs

Every day during reading hour of school I’d be pulled aside from my class to follow Mrs. Smith, who was such a nice lady with long white hair that was so straight it could almost be passed for silk. At first, I didn’t really like her because we would go into a small separate room and she would start showing me books that had gibberish on them. Well it wasn’t exactly gibberish, they were English books, but to me it was all gibberish. I didn’t enjoy being away from my friends and doing stuff that I was completely clueless about, consequently I was stubborn and wouldn’t do anything she said. After a few try’s, Mrs. Smith started bringing this amazing bread that was warm on the inside and shiny on top due to its buttery surface. When I’d bite into this bread some of it would flake away, but that didn’t matter because the taste of sugary sweetness made me feel euphoric. That’s how my first English Learning Assessment classes started, by talking about croissants. When I went home I told my parents about these “special” classes I was in and they told me “Èchale ganas mija, estudia, para que seas alguien en la vida.” Back then, I didn’t realize that I actually never understood what my teachers were saying, couldn’t respond back to my friends with simple sentences, and that the language I spoke was in fact foreign to the country I lived

I was also learning how to speak English, but for the most part it was catching on to me naturally by listening to my classmates, teachers, and tutor. In fourth grade, during ELA we started reading the Magic Treehouse Books and I fell in love. Because I was finally, for the most part, understanding what I was reading. I felt like I was going on these mystical adventures with Jack and Annie, spinning around in the treehouse to a land of dinosaurs and seeing all kinds of them. This is when I learned that reading was fun and understood why my classmates would check out 2 chapters books in the library. Just like reading, I found writing in a different language amazing. From a small age, I automatically knew how to read and write in Spanish, it was weird to my parents because they never taught me. Therefore, when I learned how to spell and write in English I felt powerful. Not because I knew to do this skill in two different languages, but because I was going to be able to do my homework in English and share what I had written in my “weekend journal” to the class. Over the course of four years my teachers and Mrs. Smith were proud of me because I had become basically fluent in English. They told me I had improved and advanced a lot in my studies and was ready to take the final test to end with my ELA classes. I agreed to take the test and passed with a good score; back then I was