DEPARTED FROM
Taipei, Taiwan
ARRIVED IN
Seattle, Washington
YEAR
2009
AGE
13
NOW LIVES IN
Seattle, Washington
TRANSCRIPT
Hello! My name is Jessica and I am from Taiwan originally and I arrived to Bellevue, Washington in the year 2009 and we moved here middle school for me and high school for my sister and we came here for better education in general.
And the first day of arrival was very strange strange because, as a middle schooler, I had no idea what was happening or, you know, why we’re here at a foreign country where my English skill was just not very well at all. And the first day was definitely really hard, but with my family, it definitely made it easier.
It’s frowned upon to have kind of poor English at first and, you know, that was really hard, but as time goes by I realize that I kind of need to change my...kind of...I had to adopt these American accents in order to fit in in a way. Knowing that there’s not many Mandarin speakers, I just kind of forced myself to go out of my comfort zone to try open myself and that was really tough.
In Taiwan, we focus a lot on school and that’s all. And I have to kind of get my mind open and kind of adopt these customs and try different things. Like I tried tennis, I tried skiing, I tried cross country and that was, you know, I definitely got...stepped out of my comfort zone to do those extracurricular things to, you know, to kind of fit in in a way because that is the norm, is to do these activities outside of school which are equally important.
