DEPARTED FROM
Culiacán Sinaloa, Mexico
ARRIVED IN
Seattle, Washington
YEAR
2005
AGE
8
NOW LIVES IN
Seattle, Washington
TRANSCRIPT
My name is Maria Alejandra Flores Cardenas, I was born in Culiacán Sinaloa México, and I came to the US in July of 2005. I was eight years old but I did celebrate my ninth birthday in California.
We actually road tripped the whole way from Mexico to Seattle. It was a really interesting way to get acclimated into the culture here because every state and city are so different from each other. It was all fun, I mean I can’t remember a single bad memory besides getting you know carsick but once we were out of the car it was really fun i got to meet family that I had never met before, so I was very excited.
I actually didn’t know I was moving to to the US I just thought I was here on vacation and then at the end of our “vacation” my dad asked, "How do you feel about staying here, moving here, going to school here?” And the whole trip had been so exciting that we all said "Yes! Absolutely!" Except for my older sister, who was at the time fifteen so she already kind of had a life in Mexico, and so it was really tough for her to move here.
I think my parents, especially my mom, she misses her family a lot and so I just wish that she was a little bit happier to be here. But it’s really nice to see that they have a better life here however, I do think that it’s really hard to see my mom miss her family and not being able to go there, it makes it really hard.
The city that I’m from is still developing there are a lot of problems and school’s very expensive and our main priority was to get a better education and I think that we have access to that here and it’s a lot harder to have access to good education over there.
