Anonymous
Student
“In the long run, it's probably better for me to be here.”
We spoke to a student who immigrated from South America when her mom accepted a position at a local college. She describes the move to the United States as “pretty chill” and comparatively easier for her than others because she already knew some people here; her mother went to college in California and had been a visiting professor at a college in the Northampton area in the past. She expressed mixed feelings about coming to the United States. At first, she says it was difficult to leave her friends and faced challenges like meeting new people. She explained that after moving to America she sometimes had trouble fitting in, but her friends from the ELL (English Language Learner) room have helped her a lot and she feels welcome in Northampton and the school community. As she got to know the people of Northampton, she found it easier to talk to people and now describes herself as an extroverted person. While she said that given the choice, she would rather have stayed back in her native country with her friends, she also believes that she has many more opportunities living in America. She says, “In the long run it's probably better for me to be here.” However, she says the current national administration has made both her and her mother question coming to the country.
We asked about her actual experiences here compared to what she thought the U.S. would be like before coming. Before moving to the U.S., she says she got most of her ideas about the country from movies. She thought the U.S. was a thrilling and dangerous place with “a lot of cops and robbers” like it was in the action movies. But, she soon realized that America is not like that, at least not in Northampton. She says, “It's funny because a lot of people here probably think that of South American countries.” She says that while she feels welcomed in the Northampton community, she also feels misunderstood at times. She says, “It's easy [for others] to just assume that you came here because you wanted to or on the flip side that you came here because your country was, like super violent... A lot of times people don’t take the time to ask. But in general [the community] is good; it’s welcoming.” She told us that while she did have a family member that was killed in her native country, she does not like people thinking about it as just a “super dangerous and violent place.” She says that its challenges are just with “certain things” and describes it as “a really happy place” in general.