Immigrant Beginnings
When my family and I first moved to the United States in 2005, I was about five or six years old. Having only lived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for those preliminary years of my life, I surprisingly recall many things when it comes to knowledge about extended family members, places and events I experienced in Ethiopia. My first language was Amharic, the native language in Ethiopia; however, I had an extremely limited vocabulary because I stopped learning the language when I immigrated to the United States. Although Amharic was my first language, I think English has largely taken over its position. Similar to many immigrant families, the language I speak at home is the language my parents primarily speak, and the language I speak outside my home, is English, the primary language of the United States.
The main reason for leaving Ethiopia for my family and I was similar to the reason almost every other immigrant leaves their country of origin, to find better opportunities and live a better life, elsewhere. The first place I lived in when I came to the United States was Atlanta, Georgia; this was primarily because I had extended-relatives there. While living in Atlanta, I attended the first grade at a school named Sagamore Hills Elementary School, which was located in Dekalb County, one of the biggest counties located in the state of Georgia. Transitioning straight into the American public-school system was initially strange for me because of the significant change in my environment. I believe that starting out in the first grade was beneficial to the creation of my American identity because relatively around that age is when children are understanding the world around them and by me being in a new environment at that age, it drastically changed the way my identity was forming. Having that been my initial experience of being in the American public-school system, it was pleasant from what I could remember. After living in Atlanta for about one or two years, my family and I vacationed to North Carolina for about two weeks to visit other extended-family members who were living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Having enjoyed our visit and the city of Raleigh in general, my parents chose to move there. While living in Raleigh, my American identity continued to increase over several years, while my Ethiopian identity stayed the same.
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Start of College
The day that I got accepted into North Carolina State University was extremely exciting for my parents and me. One of the reasons my family moved to North Carolina was so that my sister and I could have more opportunities for colleges, such as Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and of course North Carolina State University. While at State, the method I used to substitute for the absence of academic support by my parents was by using university resources such as my academic advisor and tutoring sessions. Meeting with my academic advisor every week helped me throughout the whole school-year was extremely valuable for me, in my first year, and I would also assume for all other first-generation college students.
Before attending NC State, I knew about academic advisors previously, but I did not think they would be very helpful to me other than providing me assistance with signing up for classes. I was surprised to find out that exploratory studies’ academic advisors go beyond helping choose college courses; they also did things such as, perform semester grade check-ups, inform students of beneficial community events and services, and continually asked about course impressions to their advisees. Luckily, because I was in exploratory studies, I had a more accommodating academic advisor compared to an engineering advisor, because they have fewer students to counsel. This led to me having a more personal advisor who understood me better. Having a personal academic advisor improved my confidence in making college career decisions because I had someone other than my parents and relatives providing me guidance.
Having an additional person to back up your decisions or inform you of better ones is tremendously valuable to me and everyone else who enjoys making positive decisions. Although I doubt I would have the same amount of confidence a non-first-generation student would have on making college decisions, my confidence would definitely be closer to theirs, with a personal academic advisor rather than without.
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The “Comical Dilemma”
Living as a bicultural person comes with various benefits and challenges. An early, lighthearted memory that outlined the first time I experienced a clash of my two identities is when my parents discovered I had eaten pepperoni pizza at school. A majority of Ethiopians, including my family and I, are Orthodox Christians, and similar to Judaism and Islam traditions, Orthodox Christians cannot eat pork. After I had accidentally revealed to my parents that I ate pepperoni pizza at school, they politely told me to not eat it again. Being a curious child, I asked my parents, “why not?” They simply replied by informing me that eating pork went against our religion. This story is more of an example of a common negative effect of being a bicultural person who belongs in orthodox religion. Although it is a slightly comical dilemma, it is a vastly common one for many immigrants, especially ones who come from conservative areas of the world such as the middle east.