I had no idea I was moving to the US. My dad moved to NYC when I was 13 and I stayed in Ukraine with my mom. So, one day my mom told me that we are going to visit my dad and I thought “wow, so cool I am going to see NYC” but I had no idea I was leaving my county forever. I think I can relate to Linscott’s and Tan’s experience. I “moved” here at 14 and I didn’t speak English at all. All I knew was how to say “hey”. I remember my first year in middle school, in this country. Honestly, I can say it was the worst year. I realized that kids can be very mean. I remember there was one boy that used to make fun of me because I didn’t talk to my classmates and I could not say anything when someone would ask me something and he would say I am stupid. When I was trying to ask them a question about homework or an assignment they would make fun of how I say/pronounce things and make a fake sound of my accent.  Since than moment, I started to be ashamed of my accent and I don’t like to talk to a crowd because I think they will make fun of my accent. Sometimes people ask me where I am from and I always take it as an insult. Well, I won’t say much about it but I was sad about this and I wanted to go back to my country so much and I thought that I hate the English language and I am never going to understand or speak English. At some point, I realized I should be stronger than this and If I want to stay here and have a bright future, I have to do something about this. So, I started to watch more movies and read books, it helped. It’s been 5 years since I came here, I think, I know English, but I still struggle to explain my thoughts because I know much more in my language than in English. So, I really understand this quote:” that is because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect” Something I feel like I want to say so much but I just can’t because I don’t know much and my thoughts are in Russian and I think It would be much easier if I can understand English as good as Russian”. Even now I feel like this paragraph could have been better if only it was in my language.Â