Madelyn Lopez FIQWS 101115 Ms. Crystal Rodwell 9/19/18 Becoming an American The concept of identity is concerned with the questions of “who are you?” and what it means to be who you are. It’s about the different experiences that developed you into the person you are today. Being in a new country and learning their main language is the biggest struggle someone could go through. Immigrating to a new country greatly influences a person’s identity. The challenges and struggles that come with assimilating into a new society can greatly change someone. I moved to the United States on December 14, 2009. It was the most unbelievable experience of my life. I had never been in an airplane before, so being able to experience flying in one was truly amazing. I was excited to arrive to the airport and see my family. When I got to the United States airport, it was cold and raining. We ended up traveling to our new home in a rented car, but I was still full of curiosity. As I glanced out of the car’s window, everything was so different. There were lights everywhere, tall buildings instead of houses, the streets were dirty, and I even noticed that a lot of the buildings had playgrounds in front of them. We passed by a street where people were dancing on the sidewalk blasting music. This strange new music filled me with so much curiosity that I found myself rocking my head back and forth. When we finally arrived at our new home, there was a group of people outside eating on the steps of the building listening to music, drinking and smoking. I didn’t know how I felt about this new environment at the time. It was then that I realized, everything, everyone and everywhere I went was going to be a new experience. I was delighted to be in a new country and experience all of these changes, but another part of me was not prepared for what those changes were going to be. Everything here in the United States was new to me, everything was different. My home, neighborhood and neighbors, and even the way everyone dressed was very different from how the Dominican Republic. The language people spoke and the way everyone went on about their lives was different. This was something that I had to adapt to with time, but, unfortunately, I did not realize how difficult it was going to be to adapt to all of this. Not knowing the main language that used in the United States was one of my biggest struggles and concerns. Back in the Dominican Republic I was able to take a few English classes, but not the kind of English one would expect from America. Learning English had to be my number one priority because to be able to be successful, strive and develop in this country I had to know their language. This was the first step to my assimilation into American society. I was enrolled in a new school located in Brooklyn, this school was really different compared to the school I went to back In the Dominican Republic. My first day of school was really difficult for me because I did not know anyone. To make things worse, I was late to class because I got lost and couldn’t communicate with anyone in the building. After arriving to this new school, despite not knowing any English, I tried my best to understand several things. I was in a regular classroom with kids that spoke a different language, completely lost in this environment. After a few days of being lost in the classroom, I felt distressed. It was a horrible feeling not having the ability to comprehend your surroundings. None of the students were able to help me when I reached out for help. Asking my teacher for help was not much help in the end because she could not communicate with one another. Being in a classroom where I was falling behind because of my language barrier was a struggle that took a long time to overcome During my time in this school, I was enrolled in a special program called English as a second language (ESL). This Program required me to be out of my regular classroom at certain times, so that another teacher could teach me how to speak and write English. This was the first step to overcoming my language barrier. This was very difficult for me because nothing made sense to me. When it came down to my pronunciation of English words, everything came out wrong. The hardest part of this program was being able to write in English. The teacher would test my spelling by telling me English words and checking my ability to write them down correctly. My biggest problem was that every time I heard an English word, I would write it how I heard it or how I would pronounce it. In the beginning I struggled to speak even the most basic words of English. It’s obvious that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to learning English. Unfortunately, I was not doing very well in this program, every week the teacher would test me to see my progress and I would fail each of the test she would give me. The thing about this program is that if you show that you are making good progress, eventually you will be out of the classroom. It was not until I gained some confidence in actually speaking the language and being able to write in a basic manner that I began to overcome this problem. This helped me gain a piece of myself and take one step closer to becoming American. Experiencing this language barrier at such an early age has taught me to be independent. I had to be able to do things on my own rather than depend of others for help because there will be times where someone will not know how to help you and you are going to have to figure it out on your own. This also taught me to motivate myself and to have self-confidence because I realized that I had to work harder than others to reach a certain level in school. This has showed me so much because knowing two languages is important and useful for jobs and any other opportunity I get in life. The path to becoming American is a difficult one. It impacted so many different aspects of my life, like school life and my overall environment. These changes helped me become the persevering, hard working women I am today. December 10, 2018Madelyn
