Sucess Stories

Musician Finds Success in Music City

by Pablo Partida
Fuente Learning Center, Austin

I came to the U.S.A. because I wanted to do better with my English and have a better opportunity for work in Mexico. When I arrived in the U.S. it was a different experience for me because I had never lived here before. I only came to visit and for vacations before. One of the different things is the driving. The second thing is that the culture is different. When you come with an objective in mind you can do it. My objective was learning English 100% and to promote my music. Now that I’m here I need to start a business to make it.

I have some business partners. I can say I have 4 partners because three are for the band and the other one is for a pool care business that I have been able to start. The band is now playing at parties. This is helping us get into the music business.

I knew some English-maybe 60% before I came to the U.S.A. I started making plans to reach my goals at the end of 2006. This was because I started thinking about being here for about six to eight months to learn good English. I knew a friend from the U.S. for about four years before coming here. On one of his trips to Monterey, Mexico he asked if I wanted to come here. I could stay with him. So I made an appointment to talk with him. He agreed and five months later I came to live with him in Houston, Texas. I started going to San Jacinto College to study English. That is where I started to work on my goal of bettering my English skills. My friend had to move to Austin, Texas. One of my roommates in Houston said that Austin was cool because of the music scene on 6th Street.

When I arrived in Austin I helped my friend start the pool care business. You may ask, Why a pool care business? Well this is the long-short story. A friend who works for a pool servicing business explained that many companies only service the pools. They don’t sell the chemicals. He told us all about the chemicals and said it would be easy. I found almost everything on the web. I made flyers and I searched the area to know who had a pool. I made and left the flyers at those places. They started calling us. Now we have our business.

Another thing is the music business I have gotten into. When I got to Austin I had a party. I met a guy at the party who used to have a band. We talked about music. I told him that I play drums and bass. We exchanged phones and he called me to play one time just for fun. We started calling friends who knew how to play other instruments and here we are – a band. We play at parties. Sometimes it’s stressful because we practice a lot. That’s O.K. since I like doing that anyway.

So the first success was starting to take English classes. Next, I helped my friend start our pool care products business. Finally, I got to work on the music business. On a personal note, I started to date an American girl recently. That’s great because we are getting to know each other. I make an effort to speak with my professor and my classmates only in English. I use the internet in class to send the work to my professor and to learn more English from the web pages recommended. I listen to music in English. I like rock, rock punk and I watch T.V. so I can learn more English. Sometimes I watch the news but, I like MTV and Spike better.

All these things make my future bigger and more successful. Well, I hope so. Special thanks to my professor, Tomas Rodriguez, for all the effort he makes teaching all kinds of people from all over.