Vocabulary:

isolated

immigrated

migrant

inclusion

citizenship

foreign

bilingual

act

Primary Sources:

government documents and laws

Secondary Sources:

bibliographies about immigrants' lives and experiences moving to the United States

Hi, my name is Marianna. I am eight years old and I was born in Brazil. In Brazil, my family lived with my abuelo and abuela. I immigrated to the United States this year because my parents were concerned for my safety and knew a better life was possible for me and my younger brother, Marcos.

My padres told us that the United States gives us more opportunities to increase our quality of life. We moved to Southern Florida because my dad found a job there. My papa now works as a migrant worker in an orange grove. My mama is a maid for a nice lady. We like to play with the lady's children when we go to work with her.

We don't get to see papa very often. But when he does come home, he brings home delicious, juicy oranges for our family to enjoy. Sometimes it makes me and Marcos sad that we have to stay home by ourselves while our padres are at work. I do not mind helping mama and papa by watching Marocs, because I know mama and papa cannot afford to pay for child care. However, we miss them a lot.

Walking into our new school, Marcos and I were very scared. We didn't want to leave Mama. My teacher, Ms. Smith tried to talk to me and Mama, but we didn't understand. The words on the wall were foreign to me. The language was so different. The other kids looked different too. All of them stared at me, and tried to talk to me in their language. I felt so isolated.

I tried my hardest in school, but I didn't understand this new language. The homework I got was very difficult and my parents couldn't help me because they didn't know English either. I didn't know what to do.

Hola!

Then, one day, I heard my language...

A familiar, kind lady took me by the hand. She took me to another classroom with other students who looked and talked like me. I recognized the words on the walls in this classroom.

I felt so excited. This new class had kids who were just like me, who understood what I was going through. I started to make a lot of new friends and was able to learn English faster.

Soon, I was put back into my old classroom. Now that I knew some English, I was able to talk to my teacher and my classmates. I was able to tell them more about Brazil and the different culture there. They were all very excited to learn about me and I finally felt included in the classroom.