During the hurried, yet gleeful, disembarkment of the passengers aboard the cruise liner with luggage in hand and sporting newly acquired sun burns from the 2 week long voyage, she bided her time patiently along the lower promenade, watching the many American nouveau riche converged with their waiting family and friends prepared to regale them with their adventures in the far off islands of the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Up until this point, not a single consideration or doubt had entered her mind as the ship neared the States and thankfully, she remained resolved in her long considered decision to return to her homeland.
As the sea breeze blew her head scarf into her face, nostalgia took her back to the earlier years of her life, a
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Even though her skin was tan and her once mousy brown hair bleached blonde thanks to the western pacific sun, no one noticed her return to the States three years after her disappearance. Fortunately for her, disguising the wreckage of her previous existence was unbelievably easy when surrounded by people who did not speak English and had no idea who she actually was. “Goodbye to what was and hello to the new!” became her mantra once she finally made the decision to change her life irrevocably once and for all.
Striding confidently through the throngs of mingling people, she glided smiling happily to the outskirts to hail a waiting taxi to carry her and her two rag tag suitcases, the only evidence of her previous life, further inland to Seattle where her new life as a science teacher in a small town in western Washington awaited her. After the driver stowed her meager belongings in the trunk, Mika settled herself into the back seat of the taxi and when asked for her destination, her reply was a simple, “Forks, if you please.”, with her now heavily Tagalog accented
The day was finally here. It was November 11, 1990, the day that our family was to go to ¡®Land Of Liberty.¡¯ I heard so many different things about this country called United States of America and I was warned that it would be nothing you¡¯ve expected. The plane ride did not seem as long as it was; partly because I was lost in my own thoughts with hopes and anxiety. I thought about what I will become in this massive country I was headed and how soon I will adapt to this new culture and people.
Life is about making choices, but some of them can even change our life. Two years ago I decided to come to America for my higher studies in Western Kentucky University. Although I knew it was really a challenge to me, this significant decision that I’ve made was going to change everything about my life and me. There are many things in life that can change the course of a person’s life. It can either make a positive impact or a negative impact on a person’s life. It’s always best to have the positive impact though. For me I have had a positive experience that has changed my life forever and that is coming to a different land and culture.
Transitions are never an easy thing to conquer. It is often hard and stressful to cope with changes to one’s surrounding, but in the cases in which one manages to conquer this obstacle, elevation of knowledge and experience are great results gained from this achievement. I originally came from Africa and recently moved to the United States to join my mother and my step father. This great change in the things I had become accustomed to in my daily life was not easy, furthermore taking into account the fact that I had never experienced a transition so little as shifting from one residence to another.
There are events in life, which can change yourself or your way of thinking. As for me, I think the major change in my life occurred when I moved from France to America. This change has entirely affected my personality. Why? I arrived in the United States during the summer of 2002. It was really hard for me since my parents had only told me about the move in April of that year. Therefore, I did not have the time to prepare myself psychologically. My parents had talked about coming here for a very long time, even before I was born. Everything started in 1973. Indeed, my parents came from Iran to Europe in order to finish their studies and then to return back home. However, even at that time, they had not set their mind as to where they
One thing was certain - I could count on was the advice of my family. Coming from a closely knit community, family support was a surety. They provided the support needed to my many cousins who embarked on this journey before me. No matter what doors being a Hamptonian was about to open, I could never forget them. Their sheer determination to see me succeed at anything I put my mind to provided me with enough motivation for the mission.
There are many significant parts of my life that have had a huge impact on my personality, but there is one that has not only affected me, but has changed me for the better. My personal life changing experience was coming to America. For me, this bridge between my old life and new life is a shaky bridge that I attempted to cross and entered a whole new realm of life which changed everything. The decision about coming to America has taught me how to respect other people, be more responsible, and be more loving towards various friends and families. It has also helped me adapt to the new life that I’m about to begin. It was so unexpected. Out of nowhere my parents broke the news: “We’re going to America!” Living in a big town of Bhopal,
My story starts in the year of 2003, when I decided to follow up on my
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.
Stepping out of my first plane ride, I experience an epiphany of new culture, which seems to me as a whole new world. Buzzing around my ears are conversations in an unfamiliar language that intrigues me. It then struck me that after twenty hours of a seemingly perpetual plane ride that I finally arrived in The United States of America, a country full of new opportunities. It was this moment that I realized how diverse and big this world is. This is the story of my new life in America.
All people seem to want the same basic things out of life regardless of race or religion. Universally, people want a good job, a healthy family, and a chance for their children to have a better life than the one they have. Families that already possess these things, whether through their own hard work or merely by way of inheritance, rely on the existing power structures within society to ensure that their future happiness continues . But what do people who do not belong to existing power structures turn to in order to secure these things for their families and children?
On her short visit home, how did her former life compare to her new life?
My γιαγιά , Catherine Fotiou, was Born in 1948, Rhodes Greece on the 26th of July. She was one of four children she had an amazing life journey across a big sea to a foreign land she had never seen before. She still remembers the sound of the wind, hitting the sails of Kirina. She had Migrated to Australia in 1951 by boat across the Atlantic Sea from her motherland home, to the foreign “Australia”.
She may have thought that her life’s purpose, all of her plans, all of her work, all of her education was now pointless. Lies were being printed about the Hawaiian people and who they were. These articles were printed in newspapers across the United States. Hawaiians were being called barbarians… uncivilized... unable to rule themselves. […] It was clear that the Americans were receiving incorrect information about the Hawaii situation […]”
As I got on the plane I knew my life was changed. The moment when I entered the US it was a new beginning for me. As most migrants would say; this is the land of opportunities, it was totally what I expected.
Chen Jenli made the selfless decision to move to New York for a few years to scope out a better life for both herself and her family. Good intentions do not always have good results. In her mind, Chen Jenli thought that this decision existed as a grand and noble one but, she fell into the trap of assumption. When she moved back home, she figured everything remained the same and all proved well again in her life. She stood blindsided and did not exercise mindfulness. She embodied acculturation and how it exists as “a process through which cultural patterns (e.g., values, beliefs, behaviors) change as a result of sustained