Personal Narrative: Immigrants In The United States
When most people think of immigrants, they seem to forget the children that are crossing over to a new life; juggling two vastly different cultures while promised with security and the essence of what makes up the American Dream. I was only 3 years old when my family moved from Nigeria in 2003; the intolerant post-election tension as well as the rise of Boko Haram motivated my parents to move elsewhere for the safety of their children.
I was told by my parents that life here in the USA would be easy as long as you had motivation to succeed, but why didn’t they admit that sometimes, it wasn’t enough or as easy as it seems? The memories of my childhood were clouded with my mother leaving for work or sleeping because her second job starts at
7 and watching my father’s eyes sting with defeat as he’s called off from work four days in the row. My older brothers were slowly becoming numbers in the society’s high rate of the incarcerated black youth. What was left for me?
In my environment I had to grow up fast, the simple innocence of being a kid was almost entirely erased to view the harsh reality of my surroundings. “Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams, we all have to sacrifice things to be happy.” my mom said to me one night while tucking me into bed in her work uniform. Even though I was translating for my parents to the insurance company things I couldn’t even understand, my mother always told me to stay a kid as long as I could. It didn’t stop me being more aware to my parent’s multiple conversations of how they were going to pay this month’s apartment bill.
My family tried really hard for my success, even if it was to help me with my ESOL classes because being bilingual was seen to hinder my education growth. My parents took the advice of teachers and stopped teaching me Yoruba because they thought English would be better for me to master and that it would open more doors. It was like I was subtly stripped of my Nigerian identity to conform with the expectation of being American everytime I left the safety of my house.
I remember being very patient at elementary school one day with eager kids crowd around me asking me if there was houses in Nigeria or if we lived in trees with our pet lions. The media even then never really portrayed Nigeria, let alone Africa, with the accurate representation it deserved so I didn’t mind changing that. One boy was not impressed with me being foreign however, he scoffed at me and said, “You’re not American, what are you doing here?” Baffled, I explained my parents wanted a better life in strings of stutters and mispronunciations but his mouth just twisted into words that told me, “I think America is for people with dreams.”
The dream of achieving great things in the USA is a tune I heard many times to the point that I knew the melody and it keeps on playing in the hearts of my parents; because the reality is, the immigrant’s American Dream lives within their own children.
I was told by my parents that life here in the USA would be easy as long as you had motivation to succeed, but why didn’t they admit that sometimes, it wasn’t enough or as easy as it seems? The memories of my childhood were clouded with my mother leaving for work or sleeping because her second job starts at
7 and watching my father’s eyes sting with defeat as he’s called off from work four days in the row. My older brothers were slowly becoming numbers in the society’s high rate of the incarcerated black youth. What was left for me?
In my environment I had to grow up fast, the simple innocence of being a kid was almost entirely erased to view the harsh reality of my surroundings. “Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams, we all have to sacrifice things to be happy.” my mom said to me one night while tucking me into bed in her work uniform. Even though I was translating for my parents to the insurance company things I couldn’t even understand, my mother always told me to stay a kid as long as I could. It didn’t stop me being more aware to my parent’s multiple conversations of how they were going to pay this month’s apartment bill.
My family tried really hard for my success, even if it was to help me with my ESOL classes because being bilingual was seen to hinder my education growth. My parents took the advice of teachers and stopped teaching me Yoruba because they thought English would be better for me to master and that it would open more doors. It was like I was subtly stripped of my Nigerian identity to conform with the expectation of being American everytime I left the safety of my house.
I remember being very patient at elementary school one day with eager kids crowd around me asking me if there was houses in Nigeria or if we lived in trees with our pet lions. The media even then never really portrayed Nigeria, let alone Africa, with the accurate representation it deserved so I didn’t mind changing that. One boy was not impressed with me being foreign however, he scoffed at me and said, “You’re not American, what are you doing here?” Baffled, I explained my parents wanted a better life in strings of stutters and mispronunciations but his mouth just twisted into words that told me, “I think America is for people with dreams.”
The dream of achieving great things in the USA is a tune I heard many times to the point that I knew the melody and it keeps on playing in the hearts of my parents; because the reality is, the immigrant’s American Dream lives within their own children.