Personal Narrative: Look Here Comes The Immigrant

Improved Essays
“Look here comes the immigrant”. The immigrant. Oh how much I loathed that word.
As a small eighth grader, I still remember the excitement I felt about starting a new school. It was my first time studying in America and coming from another country where America is depicted as the best country in the world I was really excited. However, everything changed as soon as I got to my classroom.
“This is Claudia, she is the new student that moved from Peru.” I looked around at the group of teenagers waving my hand slowly. Suddenly I heard it, the one sentence that shattered my world “So now we have an immigrant in school”. As soon as I heard it a shiver ran down my spine. My world stopped completely. I realized it was true, I was an immigrant.
I was mortified. I had never heard that word before and suddenly it became my new nickname, “the immigrant”. I wanted to fit in. I did not want to be the person that never had a partner for projects. I did not want to be the person who never got chosen in gym class. I wanted people to choose me. Ergo, I followed the “popular” crowd around. I would act out in class; would not listen to the teachers. I became someone I never thought I would be. I became one of them and all because of one petty word. Amazing is it not? One word can change who you are
…show more content…
I had never been suspended in my life before. I was a good girl; I was the girl her siblings looked up to, I was the girl her mom would always be proud of. I asked myself, what was I doing? I was ruining my life and my future. Why? Because I wanted to fit in, because I wanted that awful nickname obliterated forever. But as I looked at my mom’s disappointed face as soon as she got out of the principal’s office I knew, I knew I had to stop being sophomoric. I could not be the immature girl everyone speculated I was. I needed to be a role model for my siblings and most importantly for

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Being an immigrant to the new world was never a simple task. Adversity, opportunity, and adaptability lurked around every corner as these foreign families sought a new and better life. Struggling with standing out as a “new immigrant”, overcoming poor work conditions, pay, and unstable jobs, and seeking out new opportunities while adapting to necessary survival strategies are some of the many trials a new immigrant would face while coming to a new land. Having lived through it all, Kracha and Dubik from Thomas Bell’s Out of This Furnace saw every aspect of becoming an American.…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For this assignment I have chosen to look more in depth at Immigration in the late nineteenth century until early twentieth century, and how this life changing experience was handled by different ethnic groups. In turn I will compare and contrast the essays of Victor Greene and Mark Wyman who both portray immigration in their own light. Victor Greens’s essay titled “Permanently Lost: The Trauma of Immigration” uses tools such as music and ballads to display how immigration effected certain ethnic groups and their families. While Mark Wyman’s “Coming and Going: Round - Trip to America” focuses on pamphlets given out in the workforce and more concrete evidence as to how and why immigration took place the way it did. To my mind Wyman’s use…

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the late 1800s, at the turn of the century, the United States experienced an influx of immigrants due to the industrialization occurring in large cities and states all over the country. However since the mid 1900s there was another rise in immigration, this time from the south. One of the large disadvantages of being a new immigrant is the lack of integration, not only that but immigrants face challenges every day. Apart from language skills, Immigrants in the United States face the loss of their cultural identity when they integrate into the mainstream society, and if they don’t, they may be subject to discrimination. This loss of identity then fuels various misconceptions of immigrants.…

    • 1467 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Growing up I faced many obstacles coming from an immigrant family. Never did I think I could overcome the obstacles and say that the little girl who went to one of the worst rated elementary schools in the area was now a rising senior at George Mason University. I grew up with both my parents and three sisters, and in my eyes we were an average “normal” family. I never saw my parents struggle or felt like I was missing anything, and not until I was older did I understand our situation. I did not fully grasp that my parents were “different” because they were immigrants until I realized they could not help me with my homework, engage in a conversation with my teachers, nor participate in all the things my classmates parents did.…

    • 214 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    My undocumented immigrant narrative I would like to tell you the story of when my grandma became a US citizen. My grandma went from chihuahua to the United States for the first time when she was 13. Her reason to go was because her mother died at age 37 and my great grandpa was not taking responsibility. She and her friend decided to go to the United States.…

    • 345 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sanchez George J. Sanchez is Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity, and History at the University of Southern California. The main idea is that we must weave together the insights of previous generations to begin to tell a whole story of immigration to the United States that includes everyone while taking account what pushed them to leave their nations and the factors that affected their integration into society. The reading was assigned to give us a broader view of immigration history, and to bring to light the conversation of assimilation into American society. Race and Immigration History was published in 1999. The text discusses the interconnected aspects of immigration and how the factors have dramatically changed with every new wave of immigrants.…

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    I am an Immigrant, And I am a Refugee My family choose to move But my family was forced to move Moving was hard for both of us…

    • 252 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Being an immigrant and having arrived at the United States when I was already a teenager, I consider myself to be a disadvantage applicant. My parent came here, like many other immigrants, to work hard in order to give me the opportunity to have a better future. They did everything on their hands so that I could focus on my studies, but the money never seemed to be enough. Thanks to the assistance that the government gave us with food stamps we were able to buy food, however, health care was not as available to us. My parents did not have money to pay for health insurance, and even though my mom is a diabetic, once they took the Medicaid away she was not able to continue her treatment.…

    • 249 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Growing up in a family with immigrant parents was not easy. Watching my parents freeze up every time a police officer pulled up next to them was anything but pleasurable. It was an anxiety felt by the whole family not just my parents. My parents, brother, and I endured many of these times throughout the years I’ve been growing up. Even though these were unfortunate moments, we all learned positive things from them.…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Son: I am my parent’s only child. I am their son and I was named after my father. I chose this as the first noun that describes me because I love my parents and I am everything I am today because of them. Student: I am currently a student at Perimeter college and am trying hard to get my associates degree.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    For most of American history immigration has been confronted; not too differently it remains a current debate to such degree that it has brought to light the reasons for massive immigrant movements and incredible measures used to stop immigration flo. The constant controversy of immigration has brought both authors to dispute the fact that immigrants have made a great impact on our society. In “Imagining the Immigrant : Why Legality Must Give Way to Humanity” (374), professor John J. Savant discusses the reason that caused the immigrants to flee from their country. In this manner, he encourages citizens to perceive their hardship and accept that immigration has always been part of American culture.…

    • 1076 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout my life, there have been multiple places where I faintly see God. One day that I felt his presence more than ever was the day after the 2016 election. On the day of the election, there was a lot of tension in Marquette University High School. I do not know how many people felt it, but I know that I did, and I could see that some classmates acted a little out of the usual, and ignored me in some cases. Later that night, the election seemed to be going in favor for Mr. Donald Trump.…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In “Should immigrants assimilate?”, Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou address the pressure to automatically assimilate that continues to hound second generation immigrants. They weigh the costs of this automatic assimilation and the effects of evident discrimination of a second generation immigrant that follows if assimilation is refused. Mary C. Waters’ article, “Debating Immigration”, acknowledges the inconsistencies of public debate and credible studies dealing with second generation immigrants and their assimilation. Waters’ argument widens the scope of Portes and Zhou’s take on the process of assimilation by providing a positive perspective and hindsight on the topic. Waters takes into account Portes and Zhou’s argument on how a second generation…

    • 1577 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Some people where so shallow that they would not allow their kids to play with me nor my brothers for the simple fact that we were “immigrants”, making it seemed as if it was a terrible thing to be. Another woman once told my mother that if my brother was to make it through the university, she would call immigration on our family just to avoid him graduating. Just imagine being a child subjected to those kind of comments, people like them forced me to believe that my parents had burden me with a horrible life, being called an immigrant made me feel ashamed of my roots; it made me feel the need to lie about my identity. By the end of fifth grade, my peers believed that I was born on the island, that my parents had money and that I was spoiled rotten, when in reality I was none of those. I was just so afraid of being segregated for the mere fact that I have a different birthplace than others, I spoke a different language and I was going through a whole different lifestyle than most of them were.…

    • 1364 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Before throwing light on the trauma of immigrants, Hall discusses two positions of identity and relates it with cultural influence on the identities of immigrants.…

    • 1711 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays