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 At the age of four, you already know how to speak and begin to write in your native tongue. Moving to another country sets this path astray as you now have to relearn everything. 

In Nepal, we would be taught English further along in school, I was much too young so I only knew basic words or phrases such as “Hi/Hello”, “Thank you”, “I love you”.  Since forever ago, the idealized standard was always being western and as a result people would try to regularly use English when speaking or writing in their sentences to the best of their abilities even if it didn’t make sense. Anyone who knew English would be regarded as someone attractive or cool simply because they seemed American. Unbeknownst to little ole me, this was a far bigger problem than just idolizing. 

 First grade was an “okay” experience. There were definitely other students in my classes from drastically different countries that faced similar obstacles and experiences as me. However, what set me apart was that I am Nepali. Being Nepali was equivalent to being the black sheep, since I never found people who spoke the same language as me, leaving me to never bond with anyone. Since I lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, the students in my classes were predominantly  Hispanic and they all had their own cliques, where they were able to speak their own language and help one another learn English.

Then I moved again in the same year, to New Jersey, near some mountain far from a town, a mall, schools, etc. Killing the socializing aspect that a child is typically expected to have in their neighborhood, which increased the struggles of trying to learn English. When we settled in and I began school again, I still did not understand English especially to the extent everyone knew at this time. Unlike before where I was surrounded by multicultural people who were so closely connected to their ethnic backgrounds, who were also new to this country we call the United States. I was now in a rural-ish town, in a school full of white Americans who have never been exposed to any other minorities.

Polar opposing experiences; Nepali people are so accustomed to and familiar with Western culture vs in America, the lack of awareness for the existence of others outside of their tiny town. I don’t blame them when all the famous people on TV and magazines consisted of one race, white. Since the dawn of time, western culture has been the expectation. This was reflected on the big web that is the internet, which is where I was primarily raised. My introverted personality caused me to rely on the internet as a form of connection. The friends I made all were online and for the most part anonymous. During the introductory phase of the friendship, the question, “What race are you?” would always come up. Nine times out of ten, the friend would be white. So my response would be to try and change the subject or be hesitant to answer. I feel like many people can relate when I talk about how trying at a young age to disassociate with my race and ethnicity. I grew out of this phase and now love who I am, but the lack of representation in the media influences so many young minds into being shameful of their culture. 

  Spending the majority of my time alone and unable to communicate with anyone led me to never making any fond memories to reminisce on .The time I wasn’t alone was when I had mandatory ESL classes. It was ostracizing being the only one that would get pulled out of class to learn vocabulary, grammar, speaking, listening, writing, and reading. The ESL teacher, I remember her being middle aged and gentle but that’s it because I never really felt close to her. 

  Before I got to finish the school year, my family moved back to New York in Grand Ave. New neighborhood, new school, new people. Even though I never completed first grade, I ended up just going to second grade. 

Can’t say if this is a common practice in other schools or not, but in mine we had reading levels. Man…I hated books so much during this time. My teacher, Ms. Averna, gave me a sort of fear and hatred for reading. Everytime we had English, a small group of kids would be assigned to only read during that period. The groups would rotate throughout the week until each student in the whole class read for a full period. I would dread this part of school so much because of my incapability to read and process sentences in the book. “Amelia had awoken from her deep slumber and had an assortment of tasks assigned for her to complete by the end of the day.” Sure I can read the sentence, but did I understand anything I read? No…To put it quite plainly I never understood a single book I read, which is why my reading level was the lowest. While everyone was reading chapter books, with high vocabulary (for a second grader), I was stuck with picture books that had barely five words on each page. When the stars aligned in my favor, the ESL class that was still mandatory would take me out of English class. A group of international students would get pulled out of class for around an hour and we would learn grammar, reading, etc. Same thing I did back in first grade. Then after school, we would review and make sure everyone thoroughly understood what was taught.  

Ms.Cook, my second ESL teacher, is the most memorable. She poured so much effort and attention into me and I started coming out of my shell. For the slightest improvement I made, she would praise me and validate all of my efforts. For instance, the usage of ‘they, there, their, and they’re” are words that even native speakers continue to struggle with, but I apprehended it quite easily. I so vividly remember her handing me sweets as a reward during the lessons and I would be so overjoyed and motivated to continue learning. Whenever I made mistakes, I wouldn’t be reprimanded for being slow or dumb, rather I would be taught to learn from it. 

“Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly”

-Robert F. Kennedy

It’s so cliche to say it made a big impact, but it genuinely did because it taught me to never be discouraged and always try. Instead of simply just giving up and being scared that I made a little mistake. 

Outside of school, I did KUMON (a child’s nightmare), an educational tutoring center in Elmhurst, NY that I enrolled in to help with English for six months. I started from level A and had to build myself up level by level. Since I only went on weekends, I would receive ten mini packets of homework to complete by the next time I came back. It was so overwhelming and I ended up never completing all of the pages. I definitely got teased when they asked for my assignments. I’m sure it helped with my grammatical structures, nouns, verbs, etc, yet the feeling I had in my stomach everytime I entered through the doors was like no other. Everyone starts off somewhere, but no one at my age was at my low level. It made me feel slow and dumb to be quite honest to the point where I just completely stopped going.

Which quite literally goes against the quote I put above; however, I never gave up on learning English in general. The path KUMON took me, wouldn’t have been healthy mentally and emotionally. I still was willing to do anything to improve my English outside of school. At home I would speak a combination of Nepali and English to my family as certain words I was still unsure of. Believe it or not, it really did work. I began incorporating words that I learned from ESL and my older sister would help me if I was right or wrong. Gradually attended more classes during and after school  in second grade and it was scheduled that I would take the test to determine if I needed more lessons in third grade. 

I finished second grade and began third grade. I would attend a few more lessons until mid way into third grade. Then I took the test and PASSED. I was showered with compliments because of my fast improvement and only needing one year of ESL, making all of my efforts so much more rewarding. 

Remember the reading level nonsense back in second grade? Yea, it still traumatized me up until the end of senior year in high school. However, I picked up a book that was highly recommended on TikTok for being an emotional killer and I thoroughly enjoyed that so I bought another book. It took me a long time to finish the book, but I did it because I tried.

It’s honestly so hard grasping a new language regardless of if you’re young or old. Having a good support system helps more than you would expect. Personally, if I didn’t have the aid of Ms. Cook or my sister, I genuinely don’t think I would’ve done as well. Trying is also what made me fall in love with the world of books, romance only though. Failure hurts so much but learning and overcoming the turbulence life hits, beats the hurt by ten fold.