MY IMMIGRATION TALE

I was only four when my parents immigrated to England. I don’t remember much about that trip but according my mom’s story, I was very excited when we got onto the airplane. We had to move because, at that time, Vietnam was a very poor country. My mom and dad weren’t having many opportunities and they didn’t get very well paid, they wanted us to have a better future in that country. We packed up and flew to London; my brother was only a few months old when we immigrated, my mom said he was crying a lot, that people around us couldn’t sleep for the whole flight. I was very excited when the flight started, but I didn’t even say a word after we landed, I was very tired. When we arrived, my dad’s relatives were there to pick us up and we were staying at their house for a few weeks before my dad could find a house for us.

It was a hard time for my family; we were relocated to a whole new country different from our homeland, the environment was part of the many differences. English speakers everywhere, my parents said sometimes they found themselves spinning when we first settled in England, because they didn’t know a lot of the English language. As time went on, both of my parents found very high salaries, they had much more opportunities and money than they would in VN. My brother and I had the opportunities to attend at the good schools in England, they’re much better than Vietnamese schools. Moving to England gave us more chances but we also lost something much more than that. My brother and I couldn’t read or write in Vietnamese, we didn’t know the biggest holidays in Vietnam, like New Year, or Tet, and the Mid-Autumn Festival. When my dad finally sees that, he wanted us to move back to our homeland, he said the significance thing of a person is to know and understand his/her own origin country. Therefore, here we are in Vietnam for three years already and now we can read and write Vietnamese fluently. I can also speak English pretty fluently, because of my years in England; it will give me more opportunities in the future.