English. VS. Me

English is the language most spoken in the US. Everything that you read outside like signs, posters, or street names are mostly all in English. Everywhere you go, like a store or school, in order to communicate with people, you need to speak English. Children are mostly born into that language and when entering school they already know a few words in order to help them communicate with teachers or classmates. Now imagine a 3 year old, going inside a new and scary place, not speaking english or understanding it at all, without knowing what people are saying,yet still expected to do what is told the correct way, that was me entering pre-k. Even though i was born here I knew nothing about the english language. Since my parents didn’t know how to teach me english, they taught me in spanish and that’s all I knew entering school.

Entering class was like entering a Micheals store. It had a cinnamon smell and everything was colorful. I still remember the classroom having a big rug with the letters of the alphabet around them and when they told us to sit on it, I would always pick to sit on the letter “m” because of my name. Even as a 3 year old i knew i had to try to be able to speak and read English. My parents tried to teach me the best they could even if they didn’t know much. I didn’t learn to speak English until I was in first grade. I will always be thankful to my first grade teacher. Since I was a low level reader she practiced with me one on one. She tried her best to be able to teach me and show me things the correct way. She would also try to talk with my parents to tell them what they could do to help me practice my english more. She inspired me and made me believe in myself always. Especially because she tried her best to communicate with me and my parents even though she didn’t know spanish at all. I knew that if her, along with my parents believed in me and tried their best to help me, I was going to do my best, not only to make them proud but also make myself proud.

She told my parents to take me to the library and that there will be people there to help me. I still remember being there like it was yesterday. The people that worked there were teenagers and would help me with homework and teach me to read. “How can I help you?” they would say, and those words scared me because I knew I had to talk back. I always answer with “spanish please” and they would either start talking to me in spanish or leave and bring someone else. When I would read I would get confused between reading words and pronouncing them in spanish and at the end of each session I had with them they would always say “you’ll get used to it soon” but soon didn’t seem soon enough to back them. Sometimes when going home I would cry to my mom asking her why it was so hard and if I was ever going to learn. She would tell me not to give up and that we would be going to the library everyday and we did. Soon the people working there already knew me and my mom. They invited me to join the activities that they had. There was story time, game night, arts and crafts, etc. These activities helped me more than what I could imagine. Soon I started to be able to read and speak the language better and better. I was able to understand people when they were talking to me and would be able to answer back. If my teacher didn’t recommend going to the library I think that I would have had a harder time learning.

When learning to read there was one specific series of books that I loved to read called “Elephant and Piggie”. When the characters would be having a conversation, it would be in a bubble above them, kind of like a comic book. Every time i would go to the library I would pick out all the books that were there and every time that happened my mom would say “esos libros otra vez?” (those books again?), but we would still take them home. Those were the books that made me really entertained with reading and wanted to read books only like that. As I was growing ,I had to pick harder books, with more words and less pictures. I hated it because I had to change when I was still learning. The words kept getting harder to read and understand. I kept reading just because it was mandatory at school to always have books with us, it was called “book baggy”(just books in a ziploc bag) but if it was for me i would have stopped. 

Time passed by quickly and little did I know, I was 13 in middle school being very picky about the specific books I read. There are 2 books in particular that made me realize the truth about the saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. The first book had the cover with a picture of a girl with a quilt but once I started the first page, I was quickly entertained. It was about a 13 year old girl and how her life was with an arranged marriage. The other book was named “Eleanor and Park”. It’s a story about two completely different people that end up falling in love and do anything they can to be together despite their problems at home. Both books entertained me and made me want to read more. Till this day those will forever be my favorite books and I would reread them again any day.

Now that I’m in college I see that I’ve come a long way to give up. I still struggle with reading, writing and speaking english correctly but I always try to make it the correct way. I’ve struggled all my life with English and I know that I will most likely still struggle in the future but I know that with the help of the people that care about me the most and with my efforts I will continue to succeed and accomplish my life time goals.