Week 2 : Immigrant Children - Emma Shreve

Mentee Post:
When I sat down to talk to Dayana, I wasn't really sure how to begin. Normally I'm pretty good with kids and I don't struggle for topics. Monday, however, was a different story. Dayana doesn't seem to speak much English and does much better in Spanish. The only problem is that my Spanish isn't too much better than her English. So right away it was kind of hard. I asked her if she had lived in Cincinnati her whole life, mainly because I knew if she went to this school she probably hadn't, but she said yes. Next, she said she had seven sisters at which point I thought to myself "Okay, that's a lot, but hispanic families are generally bigger than American ones". Later though, when Lisa came around to get our names, she asked Dayana where she was from and we both learned that she had just moved here from Perú a year ago. So clearly we have some language barriers. After talking to her in Spanish, though, I learned that she lives here with her mother and younger sister, who is seven. Her dad is still in Perú, but from what I gathered, he is moving here. We talked for a little longer and I decided to get a notebook and maybe we could play games or something. The notebook was a great idea. Dayana was all of a sudden so animated and we were talking about sports and drawing each other pictures. I think we're both excited for next week, I told her I would bring a notebook in that would be just for us and she seemed to like that idea, a lot...



Our Drawings!



Mentor post:

Right off the bat I knew Dayana and I lead very different lives. For starters, I speak English in an English-speaking country and she speaks mostly Spanish. I have lived in the same house my entire life, here in a suburb just north of Cincinnati. She just moved here from Perú about a year ago. I grew up with my parents, who are still married, my two older brothers, my younger sister and a few dogs. Dayana lives with her mother and younger sister and her dad is still in Perú. I think he is moving here, but I’m not positive. Except for a brief period when my dad was unemployed, both my parents have always worked. I’m not sure what Dayana’s mom does, but I assume that she has some kind of income. I can’t imagine that an immigrant worker who has lived in the US for a year can make all that much money, however. I have only been out of the country once, this past spring break I went to Italy for a week. Thankfully most people spoke English because I would not have fared well if they had spoke only Italian. I can’t imagine how hard it is to live in a country where no one understands you and vice versa. I hope through our partnership with the school, both of our language skills will be improved…

My family!