Overcoming Challenges Of Moving To The United States

Challanges'in üstesinden gelmek, this means “overcoming challenges” in Turkish. I was just seven years old looking out of an airplane window down on New York City at my new life. After a short period of time, I was walking in a culture so unfamiliar to me trying to find my way to next airplane that I was supposed to be on. We eventually made it to our gate after running around a crowded airport for over an hour and flew up to Rochester, NY. Shortly after I had come to Rochester I had started first grade. School brought many challenges into my life. I did not know how to communicate with my teachers or other students which made me feel left out from the rest of the class. During these times I was also not able to learn the material that was presented in the classroom due to my lack of English. I, however, challenged myself to still do homework with the help of other Turkish who lived in the same apartment complex as I did.

I did not understand at the time but people had been saying phrases such as “Go back to where you came from terrorist”. These phrases were overheard by teachers in the school who later notified my parents through a translator. With these incidents and others that followed I was feeling hopeless and constantly looking for someone to give me a hand. About one year had passed in this school before I moved to another town. At this neighborhood, I thought to myself that things would change for the better, but however, the situation worsened. In this new neighborhood I would not only be harassed verbally for my ethnic background but often other kids would vandalize the town house my family lived and pick fights with me because I was an easy target for