When I moved to the United States from Mexico, I was six years old, just shy of turning seven. I did not speak a word of English, I barely spoke Spanish. My biological family and I are from the mountainous region of Mixteco located in Oaxaca, Mexico. I primarily spoke our native dialect. It was a culture shock for me to suddenly be thrown into a different environment. Initially, I was enrolled in the local elementary school. After a couple of months, for reasons I did not understand, I was withdrawn and moved to a different elementary school a county over. I had to take a bus that would make the forty-five minute commute to drop me off at the school and then pick me back up in the afternoon to take me home. After a year, I had to leave that school and return to the local elementary school. Again, for reasons I did not know. Except this time, I had to start first grade all over again.
Because this county had such a small population, and the ESL program was just being implemented in schools nationwide, I did not get the luxury of having a translator. I was on my own. I would sit silently during class, just listening but never engaging. It was such an isolating feeling. I didn’t have any friends, I couldn’t carry any conversations. The teachers couldn’t properly teach me because of the language barrier. I didn’t have anyone at home that spoke English to help me with my homework. For the next few years, I struggled but pick up English well enough to keep up with my peers. However, my accent was strong and I was not fluent. I’d get bullied and teased about the way I spoke & about not being a local native.
One day, I got tired of it all. I’d had enough of the teasing. I told myself from then on I would read everything and anything until I spoke fluent English. Magazines, posters, short stories, traffic signs, etc.- I read it all. English soon became my favorite subject in school. I’d get thrilled when my teacher picked me to read out loud. Then on a regular school day, I was at my school library and I came across this book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I stared at it for a while thinking what a peculiar book. Up to that point, I’d never read a novel or a book that thick before. I made it my goal to read the entire book with the agenda of perfecting my English enunciation. In taking that book home, I expanded far more than my simple language barrier. It is because of the Harry Potter series that I fell in love with literature.
I fall in love with a different character, a different world each time I pick up a book. I have been on many different journeys, but I will always go back to my first love. The Harry Potter book series is my first love. It is the one that introduced me into reading novels & book series. I know I can live a hundred poles apart lives, and travel to a hundred unique worlds if I want to. All I have to do is pick up a book.
Why I am broke 
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