Personal Experience of Adapting Into American Society
Growing up in the Philippines, I did not see many differences between nearby countries, everyone seemed to share a common Asian identity. Moving to America, you are not just exposed to one culture but is expected to learn hundreds of different ones. Learning to adapt to American society was my greatest challenge as it led me to change who I once was. Moving to a different country comes with a great number of challenges. Challenges which include lifestyle adjustments, cultural differences, and learning a new language are faced when a person like me moves to America. I was seven years old when my family and I moved to the United States and at that time, I had a heavy accent and spoken very broken English.
Tagalog was the first language I had learned while moving here and as a result, I became timid because I did not want to embarrass myself in front of people. In elementary school, it was a challenge to comprehend what my teachers were teaching me which lead me to do poorly in school and it was difficult to ask for help because I could not communicate with them. During parent teacher conferences in third grade, my teacher told my parents about my poor performance in school. I’ll always remember her telling my mom and dad, “your son is a bright kid but his grades are not good”. My parents, traditional Filipinos with broken understanding of English only understood the “grades are not good” part and I was unfortunately punished harshly and I’d promised them I’d do better. It was all resulted with my inability to comprehend my teachers. Following that day, I pushed myself to stay after school for English tutoring and began reading and as a result, my English got better and began to exceed in school.
My parents made it difficult for me to live an American life. It was impossible for me to sleepover anyone's house due to my parents overprotectiveness and I was too self conscious to invite my classmates to my house because of the rules my mom made. Making sure shoes are off, controlling the noise level, no watching television on weekdays to name a few. I was also grounded and forced to read books and study all the time because of their strict rules. I remembered gaining the courage to invite one of my few friends Julian to a sleepover and it was a disaster. During dinner that night, my parents asked him all about his family’s economic status and how they lived at home. After that talk my dad pulled me to the side and told me, “You need better friends than him, don’t feel the need to make friends just to have them, make friends so you benefit from them”. Which is a common theme in Asian culture. What they said really hurt me because friends are supposed to be there for fun and support not just for benefit so from that moment forward, I kept my friends a secret from my parents. I learned that keeping my friends away from my family made it easier to live an American lifestyle.
I found it difficult to learn American culture because the things we did was not accepted here. We share similar Holidays but how it was celebrated was totally different. Going back to my childhood, I’d remember Holidays like Halloween were taken very seriously and very religiously. American Halloween is celebrated in a more playful matter, full of Trick-or-Treaters and spooky movies in comparison to Filipino Halloween were it was a day to remember the dead and to honor them. It was a Catholic tradition to visit graves if your loved ones during Halloween night and sleep beside them which showed pride and respect. After moving to America, my family had to learn a new culture. I was embarrassed celebrating my first Halloween here, not having any friends, I didn’t know about dressing up in costumes or what “trick or treating” was so I showed up to my second grade class feeling dumb and uncultured. And from then on, I tried hard to learn all about American tradition.
Wisconsin was the first state I had ever lived at and it was difficult for me to adapt to the climate because it wasn’t what I was used to. There is a massive gap in weather systems in comparison to the Philippines. Temperatures in my homeland ranged from the 80s to the 100s with a rainforest environment making it very sticky and very hot. Wisconsin ranged from the negatives to 90s. Seeing snow for the first time was beautiful and scary at the same time because my family and I had never seen anything like it, especially in a state like Wisconsin where snowfall averaged five feet a snowstorm. I had a difficult time adapting to that kind of weather because I was used to a hot short and flip flop weather to the wear everything in your closet weather. Being used to the warmth meant being sensitive to the cold so it took awhile for my body to get used to the weather.
Moving to America made me more independent. I was separated from the people I shared my first memories of life with. My grandparents who showed me what nurturing was, my aunts and uncles who showed me what family meant, and my friends the ones that showed me what adventure was. Throughout my childhood, I had more than family to fall to but moving here made me learn to depend on myself more. It has almost been 10 years since I’ve moved to America and the most important thing I’ve learned here was learning how to embed myself into American society without losing my cultural identity and values. The United States is a true “melting pot” because not only does our traditional values make up the American way of life but it transforms it into a new culture. Learning to adapt into American society was difficult but through time and hard work I am now proud to call myself an American.
