Corona Arts and Sciences Academy

Hey, my name is Alberta and this is my story. It was the year 1999 and I was 18 years old when I arrived here in the United States.

 

Many people ask me “Was it hard to leave all my family and everything you had in Mexico behind?”

 

My response is always “Yes because I didn't know when I was gonna see my parents again and also because it was like a new start for me.” 

 

One thing that I forever remember was the night I arrived in New York. It was a Friday night and my older sister was home. We spent the whole night talking about everything I went through on my way to the United States and everything that she had missed out on. I even asked her “Do you have a boyfriend?” 

She responded “of course not I mean there is one guy but it’s nothing” 

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The next morning I went straight to work. I remember it was an Indian woman with one boy and one girl. The first day she showed me around her house. It was very beautiful by the way. After that she showed me where I was gonna stay. It was a small room but it was fine because it was just me. That first day I cleaned the house and meanwhile the woman made dinner for her family. I remember that on the first night I got to eat what was left from what the lady had cooked. It was weird at first but as time passed by I got usd to it. My days off were on Saturdays and Sundays. Those were the only days that I got to get home and see my sister and two other uncles that I lived with. It was a Saturday when my uncle took me out to eat. He said he was sorry because he wasn’t there to greet me but I understood he was at work. That was the only thing I thought about. I remember it being a fish hamburger, the taste was weird because it had never tried something like that before. 

 

My uncle said “my girl do you like it? 

 

I responded “it’s not i thought it would taste like but it’s not that bad” 

 

A year later  I met Nicolas. I would say he is the love of my life. Well I had already met him back in Mexico. He worked for my father when I met him. He was a construction worker. He was brown eyes and is about 5’6 feet tall. With black hair. At first I didn't like him but as time passed by I fell in love with him. So we started dating. I would say that I’m glad that I met him. He is funny,loves me and we have created such a beautiful family together. Anyways back to the story. A year after dating I became pregnant with my first daughter. I was 21 by the time I didn’t know anything about having a baby. But that was when we got kicked out of our apartment because we were five and we were only supposed to be two. If I'm being honest it wasn’t by choice for me and my future husband and three siblings to live together. But it was because we couldn’t afford a bigger place. So we got kicked out. The worst part was that we weren’t able to take our things out. I was pregnant and with a bleeding nose. We spent the whole day looking for an apartment until we found one. The owners were Mexican like us. They were married.  Like we weren’t able to take anything out of the old apartment we were dirty. The wife told her husband to not let us in because we were probably never gonna be on time with the rent. But the husband didn’t think the same way he actually gave us a change. As time went by my belly started to grow and so did the trust of the homeowners. We were never  a day late  to pay the rent. Eventually the wife apologized to us saying that she was sorry for not believing in us. Nine months later we found out that we were having a baby girl. My husband was so excited to have a baby girl. Now it has been 22 years since i had my first daughter and 14 since i had my younger daughter. I feel like building a family has been one of my biggest achievements in my life.

 Many people say “The US will change you” and I agree because it did change me. I learned to not let money get in the way of happiness or my family.