Karina Ramsey
Dr. Carrie hall
English 1121
02/07/19
Rough Draft Essay
Coming from a small island into this big country with so many moving parts it was very intimidating; not to mention attending school in America for the first time. School where I come from was basic and very religious. We had our own stuff that made it fun, however when I watched TV as a kid, school is America just seemed like so much fun. So, it’s my first day of school in America and I was super excited. I walked it in not knowing that uniform was require because on tv they never wore uniform. I met my teacher and to my surprise he was also from a small island as well, so I wasn’t as nervous, because he was kind and welcoming. I walked into the classroom and the first thing I said to myself, in my head was, “this doesn’t look like what was on tv.”
I took my sit next to the radiator with my back facing the window and sitting next to me was a young lady by the name of Kadijah. Kadijah loved to talk, a lot, but she’s not the point of the story so moving on. The teacher got in front of the class and began to teach math, my favorite subject by the way, and then he asked a question. Me, being me and knowing the answer to the question, I raised my hand with no hesitation. He called on me and I answered. Instantly I felt different. It wasn’t because my answer was wrong, it was because it didn’t dawn on me that I was different from everyone else until I talked and didn’t sound like my fellow classmates. I didn’t have an American accent.
My brother also started school that same day as me but was put in a higher grade. His experience was very different from mine, because that afternoon when we were talking about how our first day went, I noticed that the way he talked, and his English was different. Again, me being me I said to him “wha you talking in style for.” I said this because to me home was our safe haven, where we all spoke the same way, and I didn’t have to be the orange chip is a bag full of yellow chips, because at home we were all orange chips. However, it seemed like I was the only one having a hard time adjusting, because my entire family jumped down my throat and told me I need to start speaking “proper.”
My family, who mostly speaks the same exact way as me, is telling me that I need to speak “proper”. I knew what they meant by proper, they wanted me to speak like my American peers. Granted my grammar was horrible and to this day still needs improvement, however hearing them use the word proper didn’t sit right with me. It didn’t because to me they were implying that the way I spoke wasn’t right, it wasn’t ok. It made me feel like they forgot that in our home country mostly everyone spoke this way.
