My 3am alarm buzzed. I turned over and groaned. It was June 20, 2010, a day I had been dreading since the beginning of the school year. And what I mean by that is, that August my parents met with my middle school vice president regarding the matter of a kid I was sponsoring. However, it went a full 360 degrees, from them simply asking about the organization, KidsAlive, to them applying as part time missionaries overseas. They were approved and set to leave ASAP. As you can imagine, this did not fly with me. I liked my American life, my friends, my big house, and my private school. I was as happy as a clam in my secluded sea of paradise. So the night before this execrated day, the evil-genius within my 11 year-old self devised a plan; I was …show more content…
Good thing I did. Twelve hours and 1,862 miles later, I took my first footsteps into what would be my second home, the Dominican Republic. The transition could not have gone smoother. It downpoured nearly everyday. Mice, cockroaches, spiders, ants, and ticks overran our house. Wild, ravage dogs roamed every street. The tap water was filled with bacteria, the native food made us sick for weeks, dryers didn’t exist, hot water as well, and best of all everyone spoke a slang-filled, improper foreign language (something my Spanish classes could never prepare me for). Moreover, I was exposed to the reality of how most of the world lives. In the Dominican, you were considered wealthy if you lived in a concrete house with one or two bedrooms and a working bathroom. But for the middle class, most lived in wooden huts barely held together by mud - with seven to twelve people occupying an area the size of small trampoline and no source of running water. Education was of the least importance. Kids generally attended school till 6th grade and dropped out. Boys would then try to find work out in the fields, but usually end up hanging out on the streets. And girls, only a couple years older than me, resorted to running off with older men and having
get older they start to realize what is really going on in the Dominican Republic. This book takes you
Alvarez, Julia. "An American Childhood in the Dominican Republic." American Scholar 56.1 (1987): 71. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
He grows up to become a nerdy, fat, and awkward adolescent with few friends and even less interest from girls. This phase persists throughout his life and he never develops out of the nerdy boy he was as a child. The Dominican Republic was a hostile and poor place during the time of the novel. The dictator Trujillo controls the lives of the people of the country. This influenced the de Leon family’s present and future.
The novel ‘The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao’, by Junot Diaz gives a very entertaining insight towards many social dynamics that are relevant to Dominican culture, and it fits very well within the scope of the course; and, although it is a work of fiction, this novel is set in New Jersey, and deals specifically with the Dominican Republic experience under the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. From what I’ve learned after reading the first half of this book, there is certainly a lot that can be discussed. Thankfully the book’s versatile portrayal of vivid topics that are seldom discussed shine light upon these many issues that face such an overlooked culture, especially for the American audience.
The book “In the time of the butterflies” by Julia Alvarez teaches us the role of a woman in the 1940s to 1960s in the Dominican Republic. Society sets gender roles for everybody, even children. The role of a woman in India is difficult, she has to take care of the household, and the rate of illiteracy in women is high. Women are suppose to be married, if not, then people give bad stares at the. Women are not supposed to divorce, they have to put up with everything their husband does to her, even if it 's having children out of marriage. Some Teen girls have to sacrifice themselves after getting pregnant and have to drop out of school in order to provide food for their baby. Society has to know that women deserve the same equality and treatment as men do, that it is a myth that women are less strong and less smart than men are, society has not changed enough that women are treated equal to
I walked around unsteadily all day like a lost baby, far away from its pack. Surrounded by unfamiliar territory and uncomfortable weather, I tried to search for any signs of similarities with my previous country. I roamed around from place to place and moved along with the day, wanting to just get away and go back home. This was my first day in the United States of America.
Growing up in Marin I had very few worries; each night my mom would prepare a warm meal and I always had a safe place to sleep at night. After 13 years of living this way such luxuries became so normal to me that I was under the impression that everybody lived this way. Along with me on this trip was a boy named Noe, a well groomed caucasian kid who seemed to be not much older than I was. From what knowledge I had of my life back home I assumed that the structure of his life would be very similar to mine; growing up with a loving family and nothing more to worry about than how quickly he could get his homework done before going out with friends after school. I remained under this impression for the first week of the trip and it wasn’t until one night around the campfire as a group that I learned the truth about Noe. Since the beginning of the trip the rest of the students and I had become a tightly knit group of people who worked well together and had gained one another trust. While sitting around the fire the topic of our lives back home started being discussed and it wasn't long before Noe jumped in the conversation. As a group we learned that Noe had spent his childhood living foster home to foster home and had no existing relatives other than an Aunt suffering from Alzheimer’s.
You know nothing different i have been in that situation where i miss my home but i had to make a new one here and try to learn everything about America so that i could fit in and till this day i am still learning everything.
It was a very cold morning on November 7th, 2000; my family and I walked into the big busy building not knowing what to expect, it was my first time ever being in an airport. It was also the first time for all of us to fly on an airplane. I was a curious six year old and the youngest of all my siblings. I would ask a lot of questions to my mom like “When will I go to school? What language do they speak in America? Will we have a big house in America?” We were all very nervous but, excited not knowing what to expect when we arrive in America. My parents took a big chance
Everyone lived in what looked like huts to me. The room where I stayed was big enough for a twin size bed and a dresser. It did not have an air conditioner, just an old basic ceiling fan with no light switch. Not to mention there was no WIFI whatsoever in Mexico. All these are things I take for granted in the United States. The food was not over the top either. For breakfast, I went a small corner shop where they served a cheese sandwich with coffee or juice. For lunch, it was rice and beans with a choice of meat and a side of tortillas. The menu only consisted of breakfast and lunch. Any car that I saw was old school, but it worked and got them from point A to B. These people seemed to be less fortunate than me, but why did they all seem to be happy?. It reminded me that I used to live a similar life growing up in The Dominican. I realized I should be more appreciative for living in a house with all the amenities and how different my life is
The effect of this move on me was profound. It would be one of the defining moments in my personal development. Again, this was my first big move, and it was to another country. I was so grateful for the opportunity to start somewhere new, that I did not consider what I was leaving behind. For example I never considered, leaving my friends, family, and the United States in general. I assumed everything would just work itself out, like everything else in my life.
None of this occurred to me when in January of 2015, I was informed that the list upon which I had hastily scrawled my signature a few weeks prior, was not a sign-up sheet for the Providence Church band at all, but for a month-long mission teaching children in the Central American nation of Belize. This was not a happy little accident. This was a mistake, and a monumental one at that. Now not only did I lose an audition opportunity I had been waiting months for, now I had to spend a month in the middle of nowhere, working with children who do not even speak English? Naturally, I informed them of my mistake and requested that I be removed from the team. I was informed right back that if any one person left, we would fall below the required number of team members and the trip would not run. Belize was no longer a mission trip; it was a guilt trip, and I had just been handed a non-transferrable first class ticket to a month of work.
On May 21th, 2006 my life was changed forever. One day in kindergarten my teacher got a call on the intercom saying “Can you send down Hamdi to Ms. McCarthy's office”. The whole class started teasing me and saying “Hamdi’s in trouble, Hamdi’s in trouble” and I immediately bursted into tears. Imagine how I felt when I get called down to the principal's office then get mocked by my peers for getting in trouble. In kindergarten, I was the “goody two shoes” to the point where even my teacher was shocked when I got called down. When I got there with my puffy red eyes, there Ms. McCarthy was waiting at the door with a big smile on her face. She went down on her knees to the point where our were eye to eye and said “Honey don’t worry, you aren't in trouble”. I was so relieved, then she had me come into
When I was seven years old, my parents made the decision to move from Puerto Rico to the United States in search of a better life. This change of country was the beginning of a completely new life for me.
The landscape was really different, I thought it was really nice. We arrived at our new home and paced out. My dad got a job after just a couple of days, but my mom was struggling more. She had no education at all and we all needed money.