Eliezer Gonzalez 
ENGL 113000 G3. 

A New World. 

When I immigrated to the United States with my mother and siblings, I was incredibly nervous because I had never left my comfort zone, and now I was not only leaving my home, but also my country, to go to a new environment and learn a new language, something that has always been difficult for me, especially during my first week in high school.  

I still remember my first day of school. I woke up early in the morning feeling sleepy and lost, both inside and out, because I literally got lost on the bus, but luckily I only missed one stop. When I arrived at the building, I tried to communicate with the other students to find out where I should go, but that’s when I realized the reality of the situation. You know, when you take English classes, they speak slowly so you can understand better, and luckily my teachers tended to explain things in a simpler way, but with these students it was very different. They spoke fast, I could barely understand them, and they pronounced some words differently than I had learned. One of the words I still have difficulty pronouncing is “twenty.” I learned to pronounce it as “twenty,” British style, but Americans pronounce it “twenny.” Seriously, I hate that. I would search my lineage to see if I have a British ancestor just to get British citizenship so I could justify saying it that way. Putting my hatred aside, I still remember how stressful and hectic the rest of the day was. I had to go from one class to another, which was not the case in my native Dominican Republic, where the teachers changed classrooms, not the students. I had to converse pretending to understand them, I had to learn many pronunciation and spelling rules that were unfamiliar to me, and I went home thinking I had made a fool of myself by trying to speak English (it still happens to me). Like many others, I had to enter a new world, and it wasn’t very pleasant. 

I have no doubt that many immigrants have felt or feel stressed and nervous when they enter this new world and have to speak this new language with so many different rules and pronunciations, but there is no choice but to try to learn it, as it is the only way to live and thrive in this country, especially in this city full of people seeking new opportunities.