Reflective Essay: Moving To The United States

The world today is flooded with growing diversity. Having moved to different countries throughout my life, I consider myself enriched with diversity. Through my Egyptian background and my family’s relocations, I will make the university of Texas at Dallas more diverse. I spent my early childhood in Egypt, strongly influenced by the Middle Eastern culture, while also acquiring a good grasp of the Arabic language. I became rooted in the Christian faith by the Coptic church. While Copts have existed for centuries, they have only begun to reside in Dallas in the late 1990’s where they built the first Coptic church. Due to our relatively new relocation, the congregation is quite small, making me one of a few, thus increasing a varied cultural community.

There I was introduced to a new world formed by people from different regions of the globe with various languages, religions, cultural and ethnic backgrounds.The experience was surreal, despite having some difficult times. Canada is like a mosaic because it is filled with a large variety of distinct cultures; while embracing them all, I learned to become more open minded and have a better understanding of the world. After having lived there for about six years and becoming a citizen of the country, I learned that my parents were planning another move, this time to the United States. My father explained to me that a church in Texas asked him to serve as a priest there. Texas was filled with new traditions, such as the annual super bowl gatherings and the state fair; These customs helped create a pleasant and comforting American experience. Additionally, I realized the advantage I have to be able to reside in a peaceful country and leave Egypt, a country suffering with many tribulations and filled with instability and