My Migration Narrative

At the start of the course, I interpreted “migration narratives” to be inapplicable stories of conquistadors who undertook the task to come to the Americas in search of gold, glory, and of places to spread the word of God. However, I soon began to realize the relevance of the seemingly outdated stories to my personal experience as the course progressed in time towards present time. It is established that no two people will ever have the same perspective of their environment, given the multitude of variable factors involved with one’s upbringing and education. […].

In order to better understand my own story as being a first-immigrant child, I had the liberty of interviewing an international student attending University of California at San

In his response, Anon promptly remembered having to adapt his accent and his paradigm on humility and respect. He related his transformation as giving up lifestyle choices in hopes of better assimilating into a different society; this is understandable as we often seek the confirmation of larger populations. In fact, the idea of familiarizing with two lifestyle choices is communicated in Sandra Cispero’s collection of poems; namely one titled “Original Sin”. A woman is onboard a flight and is faced with a predicament: “in Mexico they don’t like hair / under your arms only on / your legs and plan to / shave before landing…” (Cisneros 6-9). Just as the subject of the poem—the woman—is tasked with shaving her legs for her family, Anon sought to change a few of his behaviorisms to better associate himself with a new population. Coming from a multicultural city, Anon grew up learning a diverse conglomeration of languages—Tamil, English, and Bahasa Melayu—in Singapore, and therefore is new to having to restrain his communication to the vocabulary of only one language. However, some things he learned to adapt were not as difficult as adding constraints to his thinking. Anon recalled undergoing a shift in paradigm regarding humility

Though sad to hear, this is not the first time I have heard the story of individuals who undergo the process of reevaluating their perspectives and are still unsuccessful at properly integrating themselves into social communities. Reading Yen Espiritu’s Positively No Filipinos Allowed exposed me to the micro-aggressions minority populations are forced to bare simply based on the fact they originate from a different place and were raised in a different lifestyle. By definition, a community is a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society. Therefore, it makes sense for immigrants to first find communities comprised of members with backgrounds and upbringings similar to theirs’ in new locations like San Diego, in hopes of facilitating the process of adjusting to a new life in a new country. Espiritu mentions the struggle involved with assimilating when quoting “Dario Villa 'found comfort in the company of Mexicans, other FOBs, open-minded Filipinos, and others who accepted me unconditionally’” (Espiritu 3:22). Likewise, Anon found his first group of friends to be a group of international students he met when he attended the Triton Edge summer program hosted here at UCSD. However, beyond that, my interviewee found that it was difficult to make more friends, despite being a relatively social and amiable person. Anon relays