Due to the amount of immigrants entering the United States, it has become one of the most diverse countries in the world a melting pot filled with an assorted amount of cultures, religions and traditions. To some that notion may seem frightening or even unreal. Most immigrants consider America to be a utopia, where the streets are paved in gold and life has no hardships. As an immigrant I know that these are just myths and fables, they were created to give people of impoverished countries hope for a better life with more opportunities. These allegories are not completely false but they lack the facts about the hardships of immigration. I have experienced and suffered the difficulties of immigration first hand. As a child, I grew up in Bolivia and had to watch my family suffer through economic depravation. The education system in Bolivia was very poor, and there were little to no jobs available. When I was five, my family decided that they had enough; it was time to seek a better life. Through the past twelve years I have become increasingly exposed to the differences in culture, religion, and language.
This country was built upon different cultures and ethnic backgrounds. It was very awkward for me to be in a new country and I felt alone and vulnerable. Furthermore, having to deal with a culture where people were discriminated against was even more overwhelming of an experience. Immigrant children walked a fine line between two opposing cultures. On one side were their centuries of ethnic traditions on the other new friends and public school teachers who frowned on foreign ways. Young enough to learn the English language and quick enough to adjust to American customs, immigrant children often served as their parents translators and envoys to the new world. While immigrant children have left few written accounts of their growing up experiences most of them are recorded by journalists? (Unknown Ellis Island).