Success Stories

What Brought Me Here

My story is not a tragic, heroic, nor survival story. My story is about feeling scared and feeling insecure. My story begins in my memories. I had been living in a peaceful city, in a city where you felt comfortable. But the most important for me, was feeling secure, secure about yourself, about your things, and about your family. I remember that in my city you could be walking during the night around the streets and nobody tried to do bad or dangerous things. People could keep their things such as: bicycles, cars, tools, furniture, and other things outside their home and nobody would steal them. The children could play outside too, and they felt protected. It was strange if you heard in the news about assaults, robberies, drugs or other crimes.

Nothing is forever. Time passed and I grew up. Unfortunately, my city did too. Suddenly one day, I started to watch people who came from other cities. I saw the streets full of cars, and at night it was full of noises such as: buses, cars, people fighting, and persons who were drinking beer. The number of factories increased and my old style of life began to crash-down and my heart too. Not only hard working people arrived in the city, bad people arrived too. Since that time my city changed its face. Now it is showing its ugly face. I felt that ugly face near two times because I was a witness to a bank assault and another at a restaurant. Both crimes used guns. Another time my house was robbed.

The level of stress increased in my life. I felt scared about my security and of my family. Every day I prayed to God to give me the opportunity to move to a safe city. Because I felt sad and anxious all the time, I did not want my boys to go outside. I started to be overprotective with my children, and I worried for my husband. I never thought about coming to live in the United States, so I did not have resident status. One day my prayers were heard. My husband received a job offer in Texas. I did not even think about it. Immediately I accepted to move here. Good things have a price and the price of my change is that I arrived not only to another city, but to another country with a different style of life, ideas, culture, and different language. My children have been studying here for two years. Sometimes they needed my help with their homework. Unfortunately, I could not help them because I did not speak English. When I went to stores people spoke English and I felt bad for not understanding them. When my husband had a party with his friends, I felt sad, because I could not discuss any topic with them. But life is a constant development, and we should take our problems and fight against them. I needed to study English in order to help me to communicate with others. I could help my children in their projects and homework. English will increase my opportunities in this country, but the most important thing is that I will be proud of myself. If someone wants to grow up and feel good themselves, they need to look for the opportunities that this country offers, one of those is to study. Now, I am studying English, I feel very good, step by step; I am beginning to build my present and my future, but not only mine, the future of my children’s, too.

As you can see, this is not an incredible story. It is a real and maybe very ordinary story, but I want to share my spirit of hope. However now my life is full of peace, I don’t feel scared and I don’t feel sad either. I feel happier than when I lived in my native city. I want to tell you that it is never too late to study. I am an adult like you. Growth begins at the moment you want it to. Only knowledge can give persons power and make them feel proud about themselves.

I was born forty years ago and grew up in Juarez, Mexico and I am married. I have two little children, one of them is eight years old the other one is six years old. I’ve have been living in El Paso, Texas since 2005, and I began to study English one year ago. Now I am studying English in the advanced level at Ysleta Community Learning Center. I wish to become a teacher, and I know that I will do it.

Sonia is a student in Elizabeth Moya’s ESL class at Ysleta Community Learning Center in El Paso.