Brian Perguachi 

FIQWS 

09/12/2021 

I was just 8 months old when my mom and dad left me and my twin brother. My mom and dad decided that leaving us, and moving to the United States would be the best option. They did this so me and my brother would have a better lifestyle, more opportunities, and bigger dreams. I really respect and appreciate this action made by smy parents. My life has been challenging growing up, especially not having a mother and father figure. Without my parents I wasn’t able to learn how to communicate very well, this made me lack friends and relationships, but then my grandmother helped me a lot and she ended up changing the way I was. After many years I heard the news that I was going to be able to see my parents again, in New York. I didn’t really know how to feel about this, but one of things I never would have guessed is that I would find Unexpected happiness in a place I don’t know anything about. I was really scared because I was going to leave everything I knew, language, friends, my family and my whole life in general. After two weeks of hearing this news I was already on the plane, I was about to arrive in a country that was very different, with a different lifestyle, a different language and a different family. When I got to the airport I remember feeling so cold, and the only thing going through my mind was “esto es igual que Ecuador” (this is exactly the same as Ecuador), this really helped me to relax due to the fact that I was really nervous and confused. I saw many people all over the place, there was a lot of diversity, but most of them had something in common, the fact that they knew how to speak English one way or another. I felt so out of place, I was so confused on what they were saying. It felt like I was literally talking to people from another planet. Before traveling to the United States my mom told me to practice my English, I didn’t really do it but I remember learning 2 words, boy and bathroom. There wasn’t any specific reason why I chose to learn these words, but I remember clearly that I called my mother just to tell her that I was able to learn those words, it was a big accomplishment for me as a kid, due to the fact that I have never spoke English in my life before that moment. My mom was so happy for me. I remember her saying “ estoy muy orgullosa de ti mijo”(I’m very proud of you) even though she knew this was a very simple and common thing to say here. A week later after I got to New York my mom put me in middle school. This was a very new experience for me, it was very different from my home country. Most of the kids only knew English and it was so difficult to communicate and actually create connections with people. This made me want to work harder and try to learn English the fastest I could. I read and wrote every day until one day, the teacher called me up to present my project to the class. This was a very scary moment of my life. I was so nervous. Until I remember how hard I worked and studied to learn English. Even though I have an accent when I talk, I did my whole presentation in English and people understood it. I felt so happy and so proud of my growth in the English language. This was a very important point of my life. Something else that impacted my life was my English teacher. Even though she only knew English she always tried to communicate with me the best way she could. She taught me so many new things, because of her my English was able to actually grow and have more potential that created more opportunities to make my social life so much better. Also this gave me the opportunity to be successful in my academics, all my classes were mainly in English. This made my grades be lower than average but after practicing I was able to improve and because of her I was able to go to a good highschool and actually try to pursue a career in life. Many of these experiences and people have really helped to understand this new language and the life in a new country that has many new things and experiences