Success Stories

We Look for Our Happiness

I want to say a little about my life. Why are we here in the U.S.A.? We are here because we want to start a new life for my husband and my children. My husband and I lived in different places in Mexico and when we decided to come here. We thought that this was going to be easy, but it wasn’t. The first barrier was, but I don’t talk about fences or walls, I talk about the barrier of language and tradition. Many many people come here for a better future for their family in Mexico, but my history is a little different. We came here to be together. We have lived two years in Austin, and I was scared because I don’t know where are the stores, where I wash clothes, where we going to go to the hospital, where are the bus stop? What was I going to do when my son was going to go to school? We didn’t have family that gives support for anything.

Every day was more difficult because I wasn’t being very sociable and I met few people, but they were selfish. I remember that they only tell me “you take the bus and you go” that was all. They didn’t explain, I thought as the people changed here also remember when I went to my son’s school for first time. I felt good because I heard a teacher speak Spanish, it was as if a closet door opened, because I didn’t speak English. One day I went to pick up my son and a women told me “do you want go to the school for learn speak English “ I says maybe but give me the information please. In this moment I didn’t like the idea, because I didn’t like to speak English, I felt very frustrated, I didn’t have family and I couldn’t work because we had a 3 years old daughter and didn’t have care for her. But I decided to go to the school. I remember that first month of school. It was terrible. A different language for us and it was the worst for me, I went to my house frustrated because I didn’t understood nothing. I felt my head was a balloon that would swell, swell and wanted to explode, I thought I’d never learn to speak English, my husband asked me “you learn English “ I says “yes” but wasn’t true, I didn’t want to say nothing because I needed to learn English. And I didn’t leave defeated, each day I learned one word and I felt better. I could talk with my teacher and other people. But not everything was better. My husband only worked and he couldn’t pay for all the things we needed. Whereas I started to work, I started to clean in a store and practice speaking English. In one month my boss said “I want you help with the cash” I felt better knowing that was a good opportunity for me. But I tell you an anecdote. One day there was a customer in the store, and when he listened to me talking English he shouted at me “you aren’t speaking English, you speak Spanish “ How do you think that I felt at this moment? I cried but thought he or other people think that I don’t speak English. I’m going to learn more. I’m not going to fail. I’m going to wake up and I’m going to look forward for me and my family.

Brenda is an ESL student in Carrie Fountain’s multi-level class at the Austin Learning Academy.