Second Generation Immigrant Child to Future Teacher

Coming to the United States and being an undocumented human being and then having to raise twins with a very low wage job was a difficult thing for my mother. For the first year she tried her best but decided that she could not take care of us and work. She decided to send us to the Dominican Republic and my grandparents raise us. She was doing the best and only thing she knew to do. We were going to be in good hands and grow up being taken care of my mother’s family. My brother and I had a fun childhood even started school over there. Then at the age of five we came back to the United States and things changed.

We had to grow up fast in order to help my mother with supporting us and taking care of our little sister. I recall waking up at seven in the morning, putting in my white or yellow collar shirt, and putting on either my plaid skirt or plaid pants and my black shoes. My hair was always done the night before when my mother would come home from work. She would also do my sister’s hair so that in the morning after getting ready I would get my sister ready with her collar shirt and plaid skirt or pants and black shoes. Many of the time we would not have breakfast at home we would make it t school on time for breakfast. My sister would go in the cafeteria and sit with her class as my brother and I would eat breakfast and then rush to make sure we get to class on time. When school was over if my mother was not able to pick us up my brother will meet up with me and we would pick up our little sister and walk home. That was the best time of the days we would hold hands and talk about what we did at school and in the summer we would get ice creams and walk extremely slow to enjoy the ice cream and make sure the ice cream didn’t fall and dirty our uniform, but I knew once we would get home it would be the busiest time for me cooking dinner doing my homework and helping my brother and sister with theirs.

That was my routine until at the age of sixteen I started working in an after school program to help my mother pay the bills around the house. My mother being a single mother and undocumented it was difficult to have a well paying job and be there for us. So getting a job only made things better for all of us. For the past five years I have been working in an after school program. I help the children with their homework, teach them from curriculum we are provided with, and I would take care of them like as if they are my own children. I never really considered being a teacher but as I spend time in the after school program I realized it was something I enjoyed. Many of the children were having to deal with similar situations as I did when I was younger. Some were even going through worse and didn’t have anybody.That was when I realize I want to be there for these children. I want to be a teacher so that I can help all the children in the world who are having a hard time and do not know what to fight for. And to be able to show them that no matter what life throws at you, you can be something extraordinary.