The Day I Left America Essay

I can still remember the day I left Bangladesh for America. “We left everything behind just so you can have a bright future,” my father said to me upon arriving at JFK. When I arrived at this country at the age of 11 as an immigrant, leaving my exciting childhood behind, I had emotional difficulty in feeling accepted into this entirely new environment. In Bangladesh, I had never gone out of the city that I lived in. For my parents, it was even more difficult since they had to leave all of their relatives and family members behind just so I can be raised with more opportunities. After arriving here, I still could not believe that I had to call this unknown place my home. When I was living in Bangladesh, I used to think that home is a place where I’m surrounded by people who share the same cultural values and religious beliefs as me. However, my definition of home changed over time through my friendship with John. John and I became very good friends since my first day of school in New York City. It's surprising that John accepted me as his

Every weekend my new friends would make plans to explore New York City. I would go with them to try many varieties of food and explore many places around the city. Since many of my friends were from distinct cultural backgrounds, they would offer me to try their own traditional foods and invite me to their cultural events. I happily attended many of their events and grew to feel at home sharing their traditions. I, in turn, invited them to try many Bengali foods and invited them to my traditional celebrations such as Eid. Since then, I started to learn more about others’ cultures and appreciate their identity. I started to feel connected to the culture of New York, which is defined by the combination of hundreds of cultural practices in a small place and grew more emotionally connected to this big