Essay On What It Means To Be An Immigrant

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I wish that American’s understand what it means to be an immigrant of this country. What it means to completely uproot your entire life to move to a country so vastly different from one’s own. The current political climate got me thinking about when I moved from the Philippines to the US. How much things have changed since then and how much they have stayed the same. The Philippines is a country of contrasts. A 5-star hotel can exist on the same block as a shantytown of straw houses. One can go from a city of a half-million people to sandy white beaches reserved for moneyed tourists simply by crossing a bridge. The biggest contrast might be between the rich and the poor. In Cebu City, where I’m from, this difference is incredibly stark. The poor lived in the shantytowns which were …show more content…

We always met up on Sunday for mass. Then, all of us spend the day eating, singing karaoke songs, watching tv or talking about our week. Sometimes, if we feel especially joyous, we go get satay (skewered BBQ) that was sold in a shack by the roadside. If money wasn’t something we could count on, we at least had our strong family ties to help us.
However, my dad wasn’t part of my family then. He was a presence that seemed remote since he lived and worked in Hong Kong. It didn’t seem like he was interested in my life or the lives of anyone in my family. The only time he visited, he came to deliver news that would change my life in ways that still effects me to this day.. I remember the moment that my father told me that we were moving to the states. I was busy eating my bowl of chocolate porridge.. He turned to look at us and told us that he had something to tell us. “You’re moving to America!” he smiled. It was news that my brain had a difficult time understanding. America was a country only seen on TV and occasionally talked about. I never once dreamed of moving from Cebu. What was there that was so important that our lives had to be

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