When I was about eight years old, I was told I was moving. My family never even told me where we were going until we were in the car; they told me I was moving to America! To be honest, I did not even know where that was. I thought it was just a short drive away and I would be back the next day to my grandmother’s house.
My life has changed a lot since I moved here. One of the ways is how I am living here is different than how I was living in Haiti. We were always good with money living in Haiti because my dad came to America in his 20s, and we would always get money from him. Another way things have changed is that when I came to America; I had to learn a whole new language! I did not even understand what people where saying to me and having to go to school with a lot of new kids really got to me.
Going to school in Haiti is a pain. Seriously, you have to study everything and keep it in your head or else if you do not know the lesson—the teacher would hit you with a ruler or a rubber thing. You definitely could not get away with saying you forgot to do your homework, unless you wanted to get hit. Having been a student in Haiti taught me to take school seriously. This helped when I was learning English. In just about a year, I was speaking all English, thanks to help from my ELL teacher, Mrs. Summers. She showed me so much kindness, even when I moved to another school I try to keep in touch with her. Teachers in America are so caring, more than the teachers I had in Haiti. I have seen my teachers here go out of their way for another student because they want them to succeed. In my home country, there are teachers that care, but in America it is different and they care much more.
My brother and me as young students in Haiti
I respect and am thankful that I am here and grateful for a chance to have a better life for my family and myself. I am lucky that I will graduate high school and have a chance to go to college to build up my future here and help people. In Haiti, going to school will teach you to read and write, but there is no point in going to college because there are no jobs, and parents are doing the best they can to send their children to school. It is difficult having to pay to send students to school every semester, students lose hope on how they will pay for college. Also, in Haiti, ten out of one hundred people will get jobs. Haiti is still recovering from bad earthquakes and people losing their jobs.
I am grateful that coming to America will give me an opportunity to go to college. I want to help people. Even though I know I cannot save the whole world, helping a few is better than helping none. I believe that “helping a person will not necessarily change the world, but it will change the world for that person.” I love that quote because if I help someone and that someone goes and helps someone else, that is great!
I plan to study all I can about fashion, architecture, and interior design. I would like to help my father’s business in Haiti and his hotel. Maybe when I get older I can go and make a shelter for people with no homes and jobs that hire more than just family members. I really want to help people in my home country and also any people that need help. When I was eight years old I wanted to be a singer and live rich and fabulous like I saw on TV. Now that I’m older, I realize that being rich doesn’t make you happy. For example, the richest person can have everything they want and still have a hole inside, not being happy. I also believe that the poorest person on the planet could be the happiest person because of the little things. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying being rich makes you miserable, but money can’t buy happiness. If I can put a smile on someone’s face and help them in a time of need, I would pick that over a job that pays the highest money. I feel like I was put on this earth for this journey and this it the journey I’m going to take