Huy Chea

Cambodia

Immigrant Experience

By Huy Chea

“America has a much better environment than here in Cambodia. It also has snow and the street is much cleaner.” said my mother. I was nine when I came to America. When I landed in New York, the snow outside of the airport immediately caught my attention. It was so beautiful and white. There wasn’t anything like it in my country. I remember questioning why birds were still outside in the cold but my mother couldn’t answer it so I let the thought go. My first few months in Philadelphia were amazing because everyday was exploration and adventure. I went to different parks, libraries, stores, and restaurants. People were fairly friendly and welcoming. I was really happy until it was time to go to school. Up until then, I was always with my mom and sister, but going to school meant that I would be alone for most of the day. The thought of going to and staying in a building full of strangers who you can’t communicate with scared me. I couldn’t even understand what the teachers were teaching. As a result, I had to turn to my fellow Cambodian students to teach me english. My experience of school really went down hill when people started to bully me for not being able to speak up for myself. I felt weak because people were grouping up against me. I remember every time I left the classroom, people would steal my stuff from my desk and I couldn’t even tell the teacher. Besides, even if I could, they wouldn’t have believed my story anyways because there was one of me against multiple other students. There was even a time when I was jumped by about 10 people merely because I was an immigrant; people looked down upon immigrants in that school. As time passed, I started to become close friends with the Cambodian students that taught me English and school started to be more bearable. In retrospect, I’m glad that I’m an immigrant because my past experience has made me into a more open-minded person and sparked my desire to learn more about other people’s cultures, religions, and stories.