The door opened revealing the excitement on moms’ faces as if we have won a ticket to an unknown paradise: who would know that presumption became reality…

Immigrants face many obstacles. The most difficult one for me was language. When I started kindergarten most of my classmates spoke the language and for me, it was new because my primary language was Bangla, at times I felt left out. It was frustrating, and I felt shy to say or write something wrong, but I never gave up. I felt left out because I didn’t know how to communicate with others, and I felt shy about meeting people and talking to them whenever I was with my classmates. My parents have taught me that we need to open our opportunities by fighting our fears and demonstrate to the rest that we really can do much more than what we imagine. My first time experiencing the plane ride was very exhausting because at that time I was very young, and I was a bit scared when flying the plane the first time. As the plane was moving, I will look out the window, and I will sit by the window side because I can look outside and see the lovely view. As I landed in America, I felt, so happy experiencing different things and learning different ideas, and interacting with others. As I was leaving Bangladesh, I felt very disappointed to see all my family members crying. I wanted to stay because it was my home country, it was where I lived, where I was born.

My parent’s provided us with better education by coming to America, especially my mom. She was always working, so she could provide me with the support I was going to need for my life. Immigration is what made America what it is today. For immigrants, some factors pushed them from their country while other factors pulled them toward America. Immigrants come to America to pursue higher education in our system that provides a wide variety of options to suit all kinds of needs. In reality, there would be no America if not for immigration due to the fact absolutely everyone within the U.S.A.

Sometimes as immigrants we are scared to ask for help because of the language. I ask myself why would someone leave their country with no guarantees of the life that lay ahead? Why would they move their family around the world to a foreign land, a foreign language, and start a new life? Why do people pick the United States over all other choices? My immigration story through my own eyes was when my mum and I won a Diversity Visa lottery when I was only three years old. The excitement on mums’ face was a relief for her to come to America. For some reason, people chose to come to America for various reasons, such as to live in freedom, to practice their religion freely, to escape from poverty or oppression, and to make better lives for themselves and their children. Some people already have members of their family residing in this country, and desire reunification. Through family-sponsored immigration, a U.S. citizen can sponsor his or her foreign-born spouse, parent, minor, and adult married and unmarried children, and brothers and sisters. My reason for coming to America is to have a better life, educate myself, find a job, economic opportunity, health, escape poverty, avoid prosecution. My mum worked her whole life for me so I can be an independent woman.

As I grew older, I realized that coming to America on a long journey wasn’t so bad. You are fighting external stereotypes about yourself and internal ones that are already embedded in your mind about America and the American people. Yet, it is your call on how to make your experience of living in the states positive or negative, rewarding or not, enriching or cumbersome depending on the way you define it and decide to make use of it. Initially, entering this new world felt foreign and new to me. Entering my new school immediately encouraged me to go back to Bangladesh… however, in America the culture here is different. Here it’s much more open. Here you can go out for 24 hours, you can work, easily get a job.

The most important thing that needs to be kept in mind is to embed yourself in the society, you are living in, to be a productive citizen without losing your identity and values. Being American does not depend on how you look or where you originally came from but what you give to this country. The concept of diversity and race is a shared value in the American system. I learned so much through learning all the adventures I took in the past and these lessons will remain with me through the next phase of my life, being the first generation to attend college and pursuing my passion.