As a Haitian immigrant, my parents and I would spend our family vacations in our hometown of Port-au- Prince, Haiti. I would enjoy participating in family activities such as card games, cooking, and just the quality time that we spent together. We could play these games and laugh amongst each other for hours, without a care in the world merely telling jokes and listening to the elder parables. Amongst my family I felt untouchable. Like a tree in the wind, my only cares were that of the breeze and the beauty of my foundation. In the sway of the wind I was overcome with a sense of peace. On January 12, 2010, while vacationing in Santo Domingo, DR. Tragedy hit and my strong foundation no longer stood. An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 shook and uprooted homes, places of business and my sense of peace. After hearing news of the earthquake, I rush to Port-au-Prince to check on my family. I was reassured that my family was secured and had no life threatening injuries, but the same was not said to my grandparent’s neighbor. Their neighbor suffered from a head injury and deep laceratio...
Works Cited Charles F. Walker, Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath, Duke University Press, 2008. Shravan, G. The New York Times Company. 2012. The. 0.
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
Hazards pose risk to everyone. Our acceptance of the risks associated with hazards dictates where and how we live. As humans, we accept a certain amount of risk when choosing to live our daily lives. From time to time, a hazard becomes an emergent situation. Tornadoes in the Midwest, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast or earthquakes in California are all hazards that residents in those regions accept and live with. This paper will examine one hazard that caused a disaster requiring a response from emergency management personnel. Specifically, the hazard more closely examined here is an earthquake. With the recent twenty year anniversary covered by many media outlets, the January 17, 1994, Northridge, California earthquake to date is the most expensive earthquake in American history.
Being a Hispanic have impacted all my entire life; I lived 15 years of my life in Mexico I love being there because most part of my family live in Nuevo Laredo, I was cursing my last months of 8th grade and one day my mom told me that she was thinking about send me here to the U.S to start learn English; since I’m a U.S citizen and I didn't know the language of my country, I accepted. The most hard prove was live without having my mom at my side, since I live with my aunt now; when the days passed here in the U.S I started to depressed myself because I missed so much my house and all my family, one day in the middle of the night I call my mom crying and I told her that I really want go back to Mexico, but she didn’t take into account my desire my mom just explained me that it will be the best for my future and with the time I will be thankful with her for don’t let me go back. My mom, and my grandmother are the ones who motivates me to be a better student. Actually I’m in dual enrollment and I have taken AP classes; sometimes is hard for me talk, read or write in another language that the one I was accustomed but, every time I fail I get up and persist until I’m able to do what I want.
My parents like all parents are faced with raising their children with culturally suitable morals and ethics that will not only prepare them for adulthood but also molds them into the person they are today. For my brother and I, we were taught from young where my parents, grandparents, and other ancestors were from. Even though I never went back to the country my parents or grandparents were born in I was able to gain a sense of my ethnic self. Whether it was taking my brother and me to events those in the Guyanese culture celebrated or showed us picture to keep the culture alive. I believe something simply as cooking traditional cuisines that originated from their country my parents did to show us this is what we ate. My dad hung up flags, shared stories of life growing up in the
The effects caused by earthquakes are devastating. They cause loss of human life and have effects on infrastructure and economy. Earthquakes can happen at any time anywhere. In January 12, 2010 an earthquake of a magnitude of 7.0 hit the nation of Haiti. An estimation of 316,000 people were killed, and more than 1.3 million Haitians were left homeless (Earthquake Information for 2010). Haiti was in a terrified chaos. After the earthquake, families were separated because many of the members were killed. Homes, schools, and hospitals were demolished. People lost their most valuable belongings. It will take time for the country to recover from this terrible disaster. The long damages are economic issues, health-state, and environmental issues that effect in the beautiful island of Haiti.
My family is first generation immigrants from Iraq, life coming to America was very hard. When we first came we did not speak much english. The first thing that made it so hard for us was learning a new language then having to take our citizenship test not to long after. Some of the questions that I studied for I know many native born Americans who would know the answers. This country though gave me an oppurintity that I never had before. My dad was drafted into the gulf war and during that time Sadam Hussian would have anyone killed if they did not. So my family fled to Saudi Arabia after time in the refugee camp we came to America. I feel that my story of life is so different, but I know many of us (immigrants) can relate to parts of my experiences.
I am an immigrant well, kind of; I wasn 't born here, but then again I wasn 't raised anywhere else. My parents brought me over when I was a child so they would be the immigrants since they made the decision to come here; I was kind of brought along. The year was 1994, I was 3(three) years old and my family and I had just been offered the opportunity to come to the U.S. my parents took it leaving everything behind. We were one of the lucky ones; our process was clean and simple. My dad worked for a religious organization, the Seventh Day Adventist Union in the Dominican Republic, as a canvasser; he sold books related to health and ministry. I don’t remember anything about those early years, but from that young age my life was impacted by the
On January 12th, 2010, the small Caribbean nation of Haiti was struck by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. This was the worst earthquake to hit the region in over two centuries (BBC News). More than fifty aftershocks measuring over 4.5 followed within the next two weeks. The earthquakes left Haiti in shambles and exacerbated their conditions. There were 3.5 million people affected and over 220 thousand killed (Disasters Emergency Committee). Major damage was caused at the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The country was manifestly unprepared for this event and Haiti was propelled into a downward spiral. The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a devastating event which furthered the country’s social, economic, and political instability.
I was born with a unilateral cleft lip and palate, this was devastating for my parents who had no idea of what was to come: years of rushing to doctor appointments, taking loans out for surgeries, having to see me being picked apart by my appearance, helping me recover from every operation, it was a burden most parents would never have to deal with. The pain of looking different was a big mountain to climb, I struggled for years with feelings of inadequacy and trying to get my physical appearance align with what was inside. Yet the NYU Langone medical center saved me. In the waiting room, I would meet many children with cleft disfigurations just like me, I was able to connect with them through the NYU medical center. It facilitated our sense of belonging, my parents were told this was the best place in the world to go for treatment. I first entered its doors as an infant, Dr. Cutting
United States usually known as the “melting pot” and it is a typical immigrant country. In the past 400 years, United States has become a mixture of more than 100 ethnic groups. Immigrants bring they own dream and come to this land, some of them looking for better life for themselves and some want to make some money to send back home or they want their children to grow up in better condition. Throughout the history there’s few times of large wave of immigration and it is no exaggeration to say that immigrants created United States. For this paper I interview my neighbor and his immigration story is pretty interesting.
Having an isolated younger-life proved to challenge and reshape my individuality, forging me into the person I am today. When I reminisce of my childhood struggle, I find motivation and strength; I feel that my current struggle can be overcome and that I can come out of it a better person. Coming to America at age five proved to be one of the most tremendous challenges I've ever encountered. My family was well off back at the Philippines; my father was a successful manager for a construction company. But he became too old and too pained to continue such labor. Looking for a better life, we came to America with only fifty dollars and the hospitality of relatives. Speaking hardly a lick of English, I had to learn the language. For the first month in America, I would reiterate the only two English words I knew: horse and house. The laughing entertained faces of my parents when I'd boast of my new-found language excited. I went to school on the first day in a confused haze, it was hard to speak to my classmates, who spoke with such eloquence and slang. Of course, their English was elementary—literally howbeit, it was over my head. In the Philippines, everyone was best friends
I can to America when I was 6 months old and lived my whole life here, but I do visit my country which is Turkey from time to time. Like everyone else who comes to America, we also came for a better life. I have two sisters and two brothers. When we came to America my brothers went to school and my sisters didn’t. They didn’t go to school here, because back then in our country girls didn’t go to school. They would stay home and help around the house. Boys would go to school and then became the money making of the house. So in my family like I have said my sisters didn’t go to school and worked in factories. So my brothers did, but one of them dropped out of high school to work and the other only finished high school and went straight to work.
When I was 9 years old,I have been told I gonna come to the US soon.At bengging I was very happy, because that means I will see my mom soon. My mom came to US since when I was 6 years old. I did not know my mom was leaving me. I only remember I took a picture with my parent. After that, my grandparents took me homw and my dad was disappered. After a day, only my dad come back to my grandparent’s house, but I did not ask my dad where is my mom. Few months after, Someone in my family told me, my mom is at United States now. I did not say anything or react anything.
It was just a normal day. I was living at home with only me, John, and my mom. My dad had died trying to protect the village from a wild animal from the forest. My mom wanted me to go to the market and get some food. So I did. As I made it to the market I could see all of the things being traded. I went to were the food was being traded and traded some stuff for some food. As returned home I noticed a couple of strange voices I didn’t notice. I walked into the house. It got dead silent. Then all last I heard were gunshots until everything went black.