My Life As An Immigrant

609 Words3 Pages
For years, my mother tried to get me involved with her culture. Since I was young and had a short attention span, I never really paid attention to her or what she had to say. Every few years, she would take us to the Philippines, where she grew up. She would attempt to get my brother and I to go outside in the neighborhood and meet everyone, including her family and friends. My mother also tried to teach my brother and I how to speak her language, Tagalog, so that it would be easier when we went back. Time passed, and finally, in the summer of 2014, a little Filipino boy had influenced my life. Regrettably, I did not know much about my family in the Philippines. However, once I got into high school, I matured and wanted to know all about…show more content…
The trip had to be about 24 hours or so. When we arrived at the airport in Manila, my mom’s side of the family was already there. They were absolutely ecstatic to see us. We arrived at my grandma’s house, and some family and friends greeted us right away. Apparently, they had been awaiting our big arrival. I enjoyed meeting everyone and making new friends. I did have some trouble understanding them, but I also learned a lot within that whole month. My cousin, McWell, taught me how to speak some of his language which helped me understand what other Filipino’s were saying. We would practice by asking “How are you?” every time we saw each other. One day, he introduced Kristine and I to a five year old boy named Chrisanto. He was the youngest of eight kids and wore the same clothes throughout the week. My Uncle Jojo gave him five pesos each day and also purchased him new clothes every Christmas. This little boy could only afford to eat something worth five pesos each day, which would get him a small handful of rice, if he was lucky. His parents were not there to take care of him, so his older brothers tried to. After a few days, I grew closer to Chrisanto, and I noticed him asking for food from another little
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