ENGLISH
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TEA C H ER S :
ALICE ANN
MENJIVAR
GEMMA
SAGE
CHRISTINA
CAMMACK
CAROL
WOLCHOK
(CITIZENSHIP)
Th i s
is
My
History
T
his is my history. I am from El
Salvador. I was born in 1968. My
mother was married to my father at the
time. They were a happy couple. One
day, my father left to work at a farm
and then never came back home. My
mother had to move far away from the
place where my daddy got killed because she thought that
we were in danger. I was only 15 months old and without
a father. I was the youngest of my siblings. My mother
found help from a man at the place she moved to. After
a couple of months, my mother fell in love with him and
then he moved into my mother’s house. He later decided
to go to the United States while my mother stayed with us
in El Salvador.
One year later, my mother decided to go to
meet him there. She left us with an aunt back in
El Salvador. This is how my nightmare started. My
aunt was supposed to take care of us but it didn’t
happen like that. She started to teach me how to
do the house chores. I was only 7 years old. It was
hard because I wanted to study but I couldn’t go
to school because I had to work. My aunt was very
mean to me. She would send me to the river to
wash the clothes. Sometimes if I left a spot of dirt
on the clothes, she would punish me.
After that she would throw the clothes on floor
to make the clothes dirtier. Then she would send me
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back to the river to wash them again. After I learned how
to cook, she made me cook for all twelve people who lived
in the house. Later she started to tell me that I had to go
sell food around the neighborhood with a hot and heavy
pot on my head. After four years, my aunt left and moved
to my oldest brother’s house. The nightmare continued.
I had to take care of all five of his children. The youngest
was 3 months old. There was no time or opportunity for
me to go to school even at this point. I stayed with him for
three years until I decided to move to the United States.
As soon as I got here, I tried to go to school but my mother
told me I had to work instead because I had to pay back the
money they spent to bring me here. So I started to work as
a nanny. Again, this kept me from going to school. After
that, I got married and started to have my kids. I felt like it
was too late for me to go to school then.
I always wanted to learn how to write and
now that my three kids are grown up I can go to
school. I started school a year ago after I promised
my daughter I would learn how to write and speak
English and become a US citizen. So now I am also
taking classes for my citizenship and hope to become
a citizen this year. I always tell myself it is never too
late to start learning and going to school and it
doesn’t matter how old you are or what happened
when you were young.