audio essay reflection

I had mixed feelings about this essay. I really enjoyed listening to my peers’ essays and learning more about them. But on the other hand, I was afraid to put myself out there and tell my story and to hear my voice was a very strange feeling to me. However even though I had mixed feelings about this essay overall, I really enjoyed the experience of sharing my story and listening to what other people had to say about my story. I was also able to give my input to my peers’ story as well and got to interpret their story as well. Which gave me the opportunity to have an outer body experience where I put myself in my peers’ shoes and saw how It was like to bilingual from their perspective. I found that there were a lot of hardships with in their lives from being bilingual. Whether It be from not being able to communicate to Americans correctly or not being able to communicate with their own families correctly. When I heard Nazims story I was shocked to the fact that when she was in her mother country and spoke the mother tongue of the country her peers laughed at her. Which made her feel like a outsider and not very comfortable in the classroom. I can loosely relate to this because when I first came to this country I had to introduce myself in a class room and people laughed at me as well because of the way I spoke English. Which made me feel ashamed of being an immigrant from Brazil just how Emily said that some Russian immigrants feel ashamed to say that they are Russian immigrants. I felt that most immigrants when they first come to America they feel ashamed because they do not speak the language and the natives judge them for that. Which I have mixed feelings about because in one hand the immigrants live in a country where mostly everyone speaks English and I believe it is their responsibility to learn English not the natives to feel sorry and be understanding. However, if that immigrant that was being judged was me or even worse my mother I would not want the natives to judge her and to be understanding of her situation. As Rapsang mentioned in his audio essay learning English came with a price to him. As he developed and got better in English he started to forget his native language and felt isolated from his own people. Which has also happened to me. However, I saw that happening to me with my family and I quickly just strictly thought in Portuguese and spoke to my mother in Portuguese.