Flying from my home country, my beautiful Dominican Republic, to the United States was an alternative  I never saw coming especially because I was young and too undeveloped to ever understand my mother’s choice on why we were immigrating to another country. After settling down in this new environment and accepting the fact that my life is going to change  I remember telling my mother “ Quiero Volver a mi país, por favor no Quiero estar aquí” and her only feedback was “ Te Va a gustar y es para lo Mejor mi corazón”. Starting school while not knowing English was not something I was ready for. Stepping a foot onto this new school and the first thing I hear is kids speaking perfect English as the feeling of nervousness rises inside of me while trying to figure out how I’m even going to get to class. 

As the weeks passed I was having such a difficult time trying to learn the basic words of English to at least keep in mind. Every Time I was in class I would always hear the mean girls talk about my bad English and proceed to say “ y esta que no sabe nada ” for a constant amount of time while I kept feeling embarrassed and sad. I used to go home so many times crying to my mother and being mad at her because “ yo nose ingles y todos se rien de mi, ya no Quiero estar aquí”, while the comforting of her hugs and kisses telling me always to remember “ Tu eres inteligente mi corazón, no dejes que Los comentarios negativas te afecten” while always offering to go and talk to the school so kids like these stopped bothering me but I always declined. I always declined this offer from her because I wanted to show anybody who laughed at me that I can learn English and that they are not better than and since that moment I started practicing not giving a fuck what they had to say about me. I was being made fun of because my English was dreadful but that never stopped me from moving forward to keep on learning every day.  Contingent upon, the start of the week came and my class was reading a book, everyone in the class had to read a section and that’s when my turn came along. I was stuttering a lot and pronouncing every word wrong after reading my section. I felt so embarrassed but felt even more awful because I wasn’t accepting that I’m just learning and it won’t be perfect. I was always so thankful to my teacher Ms.occasio because she will always tell me “ Tu estas haciendo un buen trabajo recuerda que la práctica hace la perfección” and that gave me some peace of mind after all she knew my struggle trying to read,write and speak English  and that same day she pulled me aside  and hands me this  very pretty gift bag which had written all over it “You Rock” while telling me  the worst of “ Se que tienes muchas ganas de aprender inglés y me hace feliz al ver tu esfuerzo y quiero que le des mucho amor y uso a este regalo que tengo aquí para ti ”. I was so happy and curious about what it was, and right away opened it and it was a dictionary.  The minute I saw it Joy came to my heart. You would think that a 9-year-old would not be happy to receive a dictionary but I sure did because it was the last tool I  needed to help me improve my English and learn new words. My family at the time did not have the best economic situation and that is why I did not want to stress my mom asking her for anything because every day I would see her working hard to bring food to the table and was aware of how hard it was. Every day after coming back from school I would sit down and read the dictionary, highlight, and make side notes about sentences using the words I had learned every other day from the dictionary. I would always be aware of my surroundings and listen to the conversation my friends at that time had because I was so excited to go home and practice spelling them myself. I was so thrilled to go home and practice pronouncing words in English and having a conversation with myself all in one video that I always record to look back into and see how my pronunciation of “ My name is, how are you, and what’s your name”. This was really fun for me to assemble because I  go to my favorite corner in my room where I’ll go over the words I had learned from the dictionary,  including any self-question from school that I had heard someone else say. My favorite app was Youtube and I observed so many influencers record anything they did within their everyday life and that is why  I  would speak like I was making a youtube video to resemble how much I enjoyed these types of videos and make my English experience a fun one because it did not have to be a struggle since learning is something I love doing. My English continued to get better and I could see progress every day after all mama’s words were right and I’m always keeping them in mind “Tu eres inteligente mi corazón, no dejes que Los comentarios negativas te afecten”. Since then I always made sure to believe in myself even when I’m being doubted because this should be something that pushes me even more out of my comfort zone to prove them wrong and challenge myself and my abilities.