I never in my life did expect one day to write an essay for the Spanish Travel Scholarship and to write it in English! Fifteen year ago I was a typical Italian architecture student who, beyond doubt, had not yet established her role in the local, national, and global community, or her purpose in life. I spent my college years making my parents proud, and fulfilling teachers’ expectations. Nevertheless architecture wasn’t my college decision. It was my dad’s dream. When I was six years of age, he lost his engineering firm because of a stroke. He reinvented himself various times, after the stroke, but he has never been able to rebuild his engineering firm from the ashes. My architecture degree was his last opportunity to reopen his beloved studio. Trying not to disappoint him I decided to follow his ambitious idea even if I was more interested in teaching and helping special-educations students with their homework than helping my dad design skyscrapers. Since I was a little girl teaching is all I yearned to do.
During my last year of college, I met the love of my life, who was profoundly intrigued by the American way of life. We walked down the aisle and moved to Florida in less than a year. Miami captivated my husband’s attention immediately. I was, however, homesick before the plane left. The “intriguing” American way of life, to me, seemed more as an unfamiliar, confusing, and upsetting mess than an exciting, and welcoming new adventure. I was incapable of speaking or reading the English language. I was unable to communicate my thoughts, feelings, and opinions. I was lost in translation. Remembering how my dad successfully rebuilt his life after his stroke, I started to experience more of the local culture, interacting with p...
... middle of paper ...
...an improve their English language and their life in the U.S. I would love to advocate for my friend’s daughter and help her earn a higher education. In addition I am planning to take a Spanish course at Georgia southern university next semester because I believe that one should learn about another country before visiting it to avoid cultural mistakes and cultural shock. My friend’s daughter is already helping me with the Spanish language and teaching me about her culture. I strongly believe that by helping each other we can overcome the cultural challenges we experience in our lives daily and we can better connect with the world in which we live. The knowledge you gain at home before visiting a country is fundamental. But the knowledge you gain during a study abroad program is invaluable. Both will make you a better world citizen and will last for a lifetime.
I remember the first time I came to America; I was 10 years old. Everything was exciting! From getting into an airplane, to viewing magnificent, huge buildings from a bird’s eye view in the plane. It was truly memorable. After staying few days at my mother’s house, my father and I wanted to see what Dallas looks like. But because my mother was working the whole day, it wasn’t convenient for her to show us the area except only on Sundays. Finally, we went out to the nearby mall with my mother. My father and I were astonished after looking at a variety of stores. But after looking at different stores, we were finally tired and hungry, so we went into McDonald’s. Not being familiar with fast food restaurants, we were curious to try American
Life sets out many pathways to decide your future. It can give you experiences and certain experiences in your life can impact you a lot. Today I’m going to talk about how moving to America has impacted me is that the fact that the American culture has changed me completely. One obvious reason American culture has changed me is the fact that I am speaking English right now. Learning English took me awhile even tho I’m still not fluent in it.
Moving to United States of America. The important event of my life. There are various changes that can occur in an individual’s life. Some variations are very little and will not affect your lifecycle very greatly. Nevertheless, other events can be very significant and could change a person’s entire life, such as marrying, giving birth to the baby, or losing someone special.
A sudden change in one’s surroundings can result in culture shock. Culture shock refers to the anxiety and surprise a person feels when he or she is discontented with an unfamiliar setting. The majority of practices or customs are different from what a person is used to. One may experience withdrawal, homesickness, or a desire for old friends. For example, when a person goes to live in a different place with unfamiliar surroundings, they may experience culture shock. Sometimes it is the result of losing their identity. In the article “The Phases of Culture Shock”, Pamela J. Brink and Judith Saunders describe four phases of culture shock. They are: Honeymoon Phase, Disenchantment Phase, Beginning Resolution Phase, and Effective Function Phase. These phases denote some of the stages that exemplify culture shock. The four phases are illustrated in the articles “New Immigrants: Portraits in Passage” by Thomas Bentz, “Immigrant America: A Portrait” by Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut, “When I Was Puerto Rican” by Esmeralda Santiago, “Today’s Immigrants, Their Stories” by Thomas Kessner and Betty Boyd Caroli, and lastly, “The New Americans: Immigrant Life in Southern California” by Ulli Steltzer, and are about the experiences of some immigrants. This essay will examine the four phases of culture shock and classify the experiences of these immigrants by the different phases of culture shock identified.
Nobody really likes moving. At least I know, I don 't. Moving to another place you have no idea about is tough. When I was 14, my father petitioned my family to move to the United States. Upon hearing that news from my mother, I was devastated. Devastated that I have to leave the place that I grew up, leaving all my friends and family. I have to travel 10,000 miles across the glove to live in a place I have never been to. I have very little idea about United States before moving, I have only seen this place through screen, watched movies such as "High School Musical." From what I have heard and seen life seemed so much easier and happier in the US, but once I stepped out of the plane, I knew it would not be even close to what I have pictured in my mind.
I walked around unsteadily all day like a lost baby, far away from its pack. Surrounded by unfamiliar territory and uncomfortable weather, I tried to search for any signs of similarities with my previous country. I roamed around from place to place and moved along with the day, wanting to just get away and go back home. This was my first day in the United States of America.
There is a saying, “ The falling of yesterday are the learning of tomorrow ”. This quote is wonderful and inspiring for whomever is afraid of making a mistake. I never thought one day I had to take this quote as my motivation in life. I could still recognize the time when my parents told me to move to from my hometown to Florida. In that moment I knew that life was changing in someway. I was so excited and wondering which way would my life go. Moving to the unknown place is the biggest challenge. It has taught the significant lesson that I would never learn in my own country.
As I boarded the plane to move to the United States, the beginning of September 2005, I couldn’t help but think about all that I left behind; My family, my friends, my school, my clothes, and all of the awesome cultural food. Then again, I looked forward to this new life, a new beginning. I imagined it being like life in the movies, where everything seemed easy and life was just beautiful. After all, I was going to the States; the place where most people only dreamt of. I felt very blessed to have this opportunity because I knew that it wasn’t given to everyone. Coming to America marked my coming of age because I left behind my old life, I started life afresh, and I became a much grateful person.
“Achievement of Desire”, an essay written by Richard Rodriguez, which describes the struggle a boy, has to go through to balance the life of academics and the life of a middle class family. As a son Rodriguez sees the illiteracy off his parents, and is embarrassed of it, and as a student Rodriguez sees the person that he wants to be, a teacher, a person of authority and person of knowledge. Rodriguez tells his personal story of education, family, culture and the way he is torn in-between it all. In this essay, Rodriguez uses the term of a of a “Scholarship boy” meaning a “good student” and “troubled son”, he believes that being a scholarship boy makes him feel separation and isolation as he goes further in his education and Rodriguez insist that the feelings of separation and isolation are universal feeling.
“ You want to be the same as American girls on the outside.” (Tan, Amy) Like Tan in her narrative “Fish Cheeks”, everyone has had a time in their lives when they wanted to fit in at school or home. Sometimes it is hard to try to blend into the surroundings. Moving from Boston to Tallahassee has taught me a lot about such things like honor, pride, and self-reliance. Such is related to us in Wilfred Owens’s “Dulce et Decorum est” which is about his experience in World War I. Sometimes experiences such as moving can teach more about life than any long lecture from any adult. As the old saying goes: “Actions speak louder than words.”
The challenges of immigrants often extend beyond getting acclimated to having much to do with the trials encountered from immediate family members upon arrival in the United States of America. It was the summer of 2006 when I met my husband at a sporting event while he was vacationing in Jamaica. I was suddenly smitten by him masculinity and enticed by his charisma. Our relationship grew at a rapid pace and soon thereafter we repeated our pledge for better or worse. Having lived as a single mother for a number of years, being married was my fairytale, the tropical Jamaica climate had never made me felt better and it suddenly seems like the golden sunlight was even brighter. I was now humming to tunes of love songs and at times even singing
It was a beautiful, sunny day in South Florida. I was six years old, playing by the pool with my new puppy. I loved swimming in the pool almost every day after school. I also enjoyed going out on our boat after school or crossing the street and going to the beach. My father came home one evening with some interesting news. Now, I do not remember exactly how I felt about the news at that time, but it seemed like I did not mind that much. He had announced that we were going to move back to my birth country, Belgium. I had been living in Florida for five years and it was basically all I had known so I did not know what to expect. I had to live with my mom at first, and then my sister would join us after she graduated high school and my father finished settling things. I remember most of my earlier childhood by watching some old videos of me playing by the pool and dancing in the living room. It seemed like life could not get any better. However, I was excited and impatient to experience a new lifestyle. I realized that I could start a whole new life, make new friends and learn a new language. Belgium was not as sunny as South Florida but it has much better food and family oriented activities. Geographic mobility can have many positive effects on younger children, such as learning new languages, being more outgoing, and more family oriented; therefore, parents should not be afraid to move around and experience new cultures.
Coming to America, by far was not what I expected. However, after living here for four years, I have learned to adjust to the surroundings. I was not mentally prepared for the culture change that I was exposed to in the beginning but as days turned into months and eventually into years, I realized that I grew accustomed to the culture and eventually became a part of it. I have gotten accustomed to calculating distance by miles and not kilometers, temperatures by Fahrenheit not Celsius, weight by pounds not kilograms. I have also been influenced to see beauty in different content unlike home where thick women are considered beautiful, healthy and happily married unlike here where everyone is trying to lose weight to enhance their beauty and health. However, not even a decade in America can make me forget the extremes I experienced when I first arrived.
Here I sit five years later, at the age of seventeen dreaming of becoming an architect. If it wasn’t for that specific day I don’t know if I would ever have realized one of the reasons I hoped to become an architect. I want to be an architect for many reasons, but I am very driven to in order to break that gender stereotype of boys being architects. I wish that when I was sitting in that chair next to seven boys, listening to a male architect tell me about his job that I would have remembered that society does not tell me what I can and can’t do. If you have a passion for something and you put your mind to it, you can achieve it. I will always remember this lesson throughout my future. I don’t want my children to have to be scared to be who they are because of what society believes is
Starting a new life in a different culture is not easy, but instead, it is very hard to overcome some of the challenges that one may encounter. When visitors first arrive to a striving country, like America, they are excited to live the life they have been dreaming about for years. But after a certain amount of time, they start fee...