Personal Narrative: An Interview With An Immigrant

When I was thinking about doing this interview with someone who was an immigrant, I thought I didn't know anybody. Then I remembered that my friend Ben’s parents were immigrants. I have never thought about his family being from a different country before. I decided to interview his grandma because I thought she might know a little bit more about immigrating here and how it affected her life.
Ben helped me set up a time to talk with her and help translate her answers since she doesn’t speak English well. She speaks Swahilli which is one of the Official languages of Rwanda, Africa, which is where she is from. Rwanda is a small country in Eastern Africa.
She came to the United States from Rwanda on a plane. She came to go to her son and daughter-in-law’s wedding. She stayed in the United States with her family and has been here ever since. It just shows that some people go so far to be with their family. She immigrated here when she was 50 and she has been here for 12 years. She immigrated in about 2005. She is 62 now.
She said that her life is very different here in the United States than it was back in Rwanda.
When she was in Rwanda, she plowed fields for her job. She also listened to the radio for news and she tried to start her own business many times. Here in the United States, she now watching the television for news and she does not have to work anymore because she is retired. Now all she does it take care of her family. She likes to cook for her family and spend time with her grandchildren. This difference is the hardest thing to get used to for her. She says that one of the hardest things to get used to is that she has to take care of her family and that she doesn't have as hard of a job as she did back in
Rwanda.
I was surprised she wasn't a United States citizen. I thought that over the many years she has been here she might have already been but citizen, but apparently not. Another thing I learned about her is that she has a lot of family back in Rwanda. Something that surprised meabout this was that she has never gone back to Rwanda in the 12 years she has been here.
Those were all of the things I asked her, And those things really change my perspective on what immigration is. At first I thought it was easy to immigrate and that wasn't that hard, but now I realize that it is a hard process to go through. I also learned more about the reasons for immigration. Some of the reasons most accosiated with immigration are for a better job to get away from