Transcription

Narrator: Maryam Shapland (MS)

Interviewer: Lita Malicsi (LM)

LM: I’d like you to talk about your first year in school in Minnesota. How were you accepted? Was school a happy place for you and your sister?

MS: You know, it was a very hard year. It was a hard year in terms of the culture shock, and it was a hard year because she started middle school and I started high school. So in a lot of ways, we came here at the absolute wrong time in a child’s life, because we were starting to become adolescents and starting to change in terms of our bodies and our thinking, and then to throw us into a very different environment in those years was very difficult for both of us.

LM: But did you have any language problems, any language barriers at all?

MS: Fortunately, having that year in Canada was a big help; we never really had to struggle... I remember walking in high school the very first day and just experiencing this shock that everywhere I looked was a Caucasian face. I still remember that very vividly just looking around the hall and thinking where are all the Filipinos? [Chuckles] Because I wasn’t used to it. The language, fortunately, came pretty smoothly to me. I've been fortunate enough to pick up languages pretty easily, so it wasn’t that hard of a transition. It was mostly the shock of being in such a different place than I was used to.

LM: Was this something - the unhappy social experiences that happened in school – was this something that you discussed with mom and dad?

MS: I think we talked about it. I don’t remember feeling like they could relate, though. I didn’t feel like they really could understand. And I don’t know if they really could have, because they were going through a different experience, their own immigrant experience and trying to get an apartment, and buy a car, and all these things. So I think that that was a different experience for them. So I don’t know really if they could really get what was happening.

LM: So how long did you go through this kind of experience and when did it finally end and go away? And did it?

MS: As I said, I’m a pretty social person, so I eventually started making friends. I would say maybe by my second year, I’ve already created my American self for the world, for my world. [Chuckles] And I’ve already made some friends and joined extracurricular activities and started really enjoying high school at the time; I joined student council and all these things.