Personal Narrative: My First Coming To America

I remember when I first came to America. I was ten. I was more frightened than I was excited. I was afraid to walk on the unknown road. I quickly realized that I had to adapt to the new culture, but I never imagined that it was going to be harder than anything I had faced before. The core of my problem was the language barrier. Apparently, it’s hard to understand the culture when you can’t understand their language. Anyway, I started school immediately; I had to attend a private school, since the public education system in South Carolina, especially in Jasper County, was substandard. Unfortunately, the private school did not have an ESOL program, so I was placed in regular classes. I felt alienated on my first day, as I did not have the ability …show more content…
Therefore, I was pleased to know that I would be switching schools at the end of that school year. I had an opportunity to start over. The only problem was I still hadn’t learned the culture or the language. I mean how could I have learned? I had moved to US in February, started school in March, ended it in May, so I was only in school for about two months. There was no way I could have learned a language just by hearing it for two months. During summer, I had the time to learn but didn’t have the necessary tools. I did have internet, but I had never even heard of internet back in India, so I was oblivious of the potential of the all mighty internet. Finally, summer was over, and school started. I was new in school, so I could have presented myself however I wanted, but yet again, I lacked to ability to do so. The language barrier left me so helpless that I decided to learn English at any cost. I started paying close attention to what people said, and I focused most of my energy towards learning English. As a result, I had learned to communicate and get my point across by the end of that school year. I had basically picked up the language. I was proud of