Week 2: Allison Miller

My mom, 2 brothers, and me last Easter
(not really sure why Kyle has his head bent)

           As I get older and reflect upon my childhood, more and more I realize how lucky I am to have grown up in the way that I did.  I have always had a stable household, somewhere to sleep, eat, and play, and I never knew anything else.  I attended a decent school system, always received adequate healthcare, and never had a problem making friends.  Most of my teachers were of my same race and gender, and thus it was easy to relate to them.  I haven’t experienced any language barriers with teachers (until college that is), and things seemed to come easy to me academically.  I played on all kinds of sports teams growing up, and my school didn’t have a problem affording things like gym equipment.  My school was predominantly white and Christian, so diversity was always a rarity for me (again, until I got to college).  The biggest change I remember experiencing around my mentee’s age was moving houses and therefore school districts, but I did not face much trouble in making friends at my new school.

AMIS

           Meet Lizbeth, a vibrant, eight year-old immigrant child from Mexico who currently attends AMIS (unfortunately I haven’t gotten the chance to take a picture of her yet, but I definitely plan to!).  Lizbeth and I share many commonalities as well as differences.  As far as similarities go, Lizbeth and I both enjoy playing sports and attending school.  When I asked her what her favorite class was, she told me that she really liked math because it comes easy to her; math (and science) are also my favorite subjects.  We both also love broccoli and ice cream cake. 

On the other hand, Lizbeth was born in Mexico and her family speaks Spanish at home.  Her mother doesn’t know how to speak English at all, much less write English or Spanish.  I cannot imagine growing up and having to translate or read for my parents in order for them to understand everyday language.  Lizbeth also started school in the first grade, simply bypassing kindergarten because of her age.  Igoa mentions in her book that she was sometimes placed in an “age appropriate grade level” as an immigrant child regardless of her actual academic ability (p. 6), and this seems to have been what happened to Lizbeth.  She mentioned that she has a really difficult time in her reading and writing classes because she’s not very good at English (it is, after all, her second language).  She has endured many changes in her life as well—she has moved from Mexico to America at the age of five, leaving behind much of her extended family.  She told me that she and her family make trips in the summer to visit, and she hates driving in the car for 3 days straight (and I thought driving to Florida was bad…).  I hope to get to better know Lizbeth and her unique story as the weeks go by!