Immigration Day
On December three, two-thousand, fourteen we had immigration day(which was when my cousin was born) where we listened to first generation immigrant’s stories. We learned about their experiences, problems and reasons to get to the US.
Maestra Suero came from the Dominican Republic to America to go to collage. After she graduated, she got a job at this place named Zeeland Christian School to teach. She currently has a visa that expires next year. Back home, she wasn’t poor or rich. Before she moved, she visited the US to see her grandparents when she was about three years old.
What confused her the most was the metaphors like “Break a leg” or “I’ll knock your socks off” because it didn’t make any sense why someone would want you to break your leg or how you could knock someone’s socks off to her(we tried to get her to talk more, but she kept giving small answers).
Fi fi is from Germany to improve her English. She is going to stay here for nine months. She had gotten here in August, expecting for it to be freezing since some one who had been here last winter had told her it would be freezing and have a lot of snow since that was the year we had ten pounds of snowfall every day and they probably thought that was normal. When she found it was hot, she was confused. She says that Michigan has more severe weather. Summer is hotter and winter is colder.
She had mentioned that in her school, she has to take three exams which she can choose what classes, except math has to one, and one single test you get six hours and you can’t leave more than five minutes or else they think you might be cheating. She also finds cars a lot bigger and she compared the cars to mount Everest even. She said America was a huge place compared to Europe. She even said most maps shrink Africa down and enlarge Europe.
This has impacted me is that many people that are immigrants have more than a few stories about their hometown that would probably interest lots of people, especially if it’s in a small group where it’s personal and you can say whatever you want and have time to ask most of your questions unlike in a sea of five-hundred people, you’ll probably never get to ask your question. You may be lucky if someone else asks it, but you’ll most likely never be called on unlike when it’s a group of four.
I’m also glad that it wasn’t like “Ok, here’s your questions. Ask them in order and you have about __ minutes for them to talk about it.” You could actually be yourself and asked whatever you wanted(kind of). My one regret that it only lasted an hour which in my head was almost quicker than you could say “hi.” I wished that we could’ve at least would’ve had another hour or ten. Sure, I’m not sure we would be able to find enough people or have enough people stay for the whole time, but I think you know what I mean.
I learned that many people of every nation might look up to America for many things. Education, “action studying,” freedom and many other things, but at the same time, there has been nasty stereotypes like you’ll be killed for shoes or everyone carries weapons, which these immigrants have figured out wasn’t really true.
I think I should stop saying “Wow. You didn’t know that. Wow…” well I don’t say that very often, but when I’m in a bad mood, I at least think it. The reality is I doubt I know as much as their country as they know about mine, and since it’s obvious to point out, I’ll point it out if you can’t see it. The world doesn’t revolve around the US because the US is IN the world.