To gain a better understanding of this transition, I interviewed my father; an immigrant from Georgetown, Guyana; on his experience as a foreign transfer in an American Highschool: 

"When I came here I had no idea about the school system, and when I got there [age 13 going on 14] they wanted to move me to the junior high...they saw the placement test results and one of the counselors pushed me to go into high school. But in the West Indies, you enter high school at age 12, so America was a bit slower than the education that Guyana provided." 

I was shocked to hear that he was being held back a school grade and wondered how the school systems differed, 

"Guyanese school was much more ahead and advanced...since I was in high school at age 12, we were a bit more ahead in the curriculum which caused age differences coming to America...I had to lose many of the commonplace expressions I would use, slow down my speech. So many of the words were spelled differently, and this definitely affected my confidence in coming into a new system."

When asked how his teachers helped him in his new school, he relays:

" Teachers did not really give support, they definitely underestimated me, and the counselors were not taking me seriously, there was so much prejudice. I thought I should have been higher [placed in my education], they could have made an attempt towards inclusion, but there were no attempts towards acclimation."

I decided to interview my mother; an immigrant from Taipei, Taiwan; on her experience as an ESL transfer in an American Highschool: 

"They didn't really care so they placed me in 10th grade [age 17], they received my grades from Taiwan however it wasn't until I participated in the class that they gave me an opportunity to move into a higher level, my math was at a senior year level. Public school math was very low, they were learning middle school Taiwan math at the high school level, and back home teachers are like royalty and to be respected, we would stand and bow when they entered and left the room, and we never spoke back to them. In America the same respect was not relayed"

There were definitely huge cultural differences from school in Taipei, I wondered how the language barrier affected her education: 

"My English was [at the] elementary level...our homeroom was all ESL kids from all over (Haiti, China, Latin Countries)...every morning we would meet together, my homeroom teacher was from Spain and had a thick accent and so I was often a translator/interpreter in both Mandarin and Cantonese for the kids in my class. My comprehension was my strongest English skill, but writing and speaking were troubling. We all had the same homeroom teacher throughout high school, I was alright but other kids in the class definitely had trouble with this man"

I figured that the one class where they were supposed to receive their main support was being taught by someone who could not properly communicate with all of the students would inhibit their acclimation to the community, 

"There were a lot of ESL kids [in my school], and they often stuck with their own groups (countries), there not a lot of mingling with other the ESL kids...we had a lot of classes mixed with other non-ESL students, but it really didn't really change much, it still felt like your own survival game, I was a lot older when I came, so I was more mature than the other kids, even when they didn't want to interact with me."

I wanted to know if there was anything that could have made her experience better, 

"The school could have done better integrating ESL kids in school, they could have built a better community, instead of keeping them separate. Even though I had a lot of classes with American students it felt like there was no communication, I wish I could have shared my experience with my American peers, I understand why they made this class to help ESL students feel comfortable but I think the best thing they could have done was create a space for us to all share our experience and create a better community." 

"They didn't put effort into understanding my level when I arrived...I was 21 when I graduated"