My name is Emmanuel and I was born in Guanajuato, Mexico on January 14, 1988. I went to school there until I was eight years old - from Kindergarten to second grade. Then....my parents to told me that we were going to move to America. My mom wanted to see how it was in America. Her sister was already in Bakersfield, California and she really liked living there.
When they told me that they were moving, I was nervous about moving to a different place, especially a different country. I thought it was going to be hard to live there. I knew I was going to miss my friends from Mexico. I was worried that I wasn't going to know how to speak English and that school was going to be harder.
I can't really remember the first day that I got here. The first day of school I remember...I was very scared and very worried that I wouldn't know how to do the work. Fortunately, everyone started to talk to me in Spanish which surprised me! Almost half of the kids spoke Spanish. Even the teacher spoke a little bit of Spanish.
Then, after a few years, my mom decided that she didn't really like Bakersfield. So she decided that our family would move to Napa. Now that I moved to a different place in California I didn't feel as nervous as the first time. I like it here the best!
Sometimes I still feel nervous because I am still working on learning English. I understand the teachers sometimes but sometimes I don't. Sometimes the work is hard because some parts I don't understand.
I still like playing with my friends who speak Spanish because we can understand each other easily. We usually like the same things, too, like playing four-square and soccer.
When I think about the differences between American and Mexican schools, I think that main difference is that the work from Mexico is a lot harder than it is here. The teachers in Mexico are stricted than they are here in California.
If I had to choose right now between going to school in Mexico and going to school in California I would choose to stay here!
