My Migration To Brazil

One of the most difficult challenges I have overcome in my life was when I began school when I first moved to the United States. Up to that point, all I had experienced was life in Brazil. I had no idea what a common "American" childhood was. While the other kids were brought up by shows such as "Teletubbies" and "Blue's Clues", I was brought up with "Turma da Monica" and "Chaves". While they had grown up with hopscotch and four square, I was used to games such as "queimadinha". All this caused me to worry about what my first experience in school would be like. As I walked into the halls of the elementary school, my mother reassured me saying, "Não se preocupe filhino, tudo vai dar certo." ("Don't worry little son, everything will work out.") My first days transitioning to a
One day, as I was approaching my teacher to ask a question, I remember calling her "Teacher Farber", as it was common to call teachers in Brazil. "Do not call me that, I am Ms.Farber." said my teacher. Looking back, I realize she was just correcting me, but in my eyes at the time, I believed I was in trouble. Another struggle for me were the labels attached to me. While my English was fairly good, I would still mess up on certain words or phrases. Sometimes other kids would make fun of the way I would pronounce certain words. The words, foreign in my mouth, sounded strange and seemed impossible for me to properly pronounce. Even now, years later, some teachers have recognized a subtle accent when I prounounce certain words. Because of these labels attached to me, I believed I had to work harder to prove to them that I was just as bright as the others in my classroom. Soon enough, my teacher recognized my advanced comprehension of math, considering we had already learned the subject in Brazil. This took away some of the handicaps I had inside of the classroom, but nevertheless, there were still moments where I felt like I was the