Driving away I saw all the memories from my childhood. From playing soccer in the streets to eating dinner with my family. I cherished all of my memories, except one. The loss of my father was hard on my family but was especially hard on me. I was named after him, Roberto Garcia, it was a name that had been in my family for many years. He was my best friend, whenever I needed help I would go to him, he taught me skills I will need for the rest of my life. It was about three years ago when my father was coming back from one of his mariachi concerts when he was struck by another car about three blocks away from our house. I was so mad at what happened that I ran away from home for 3 days and didn't talk to anyone. When I came back home my whole family was in my house, silent as the night, staring at me when as I walked through door. That was a very hard time for my family but ever since then we have been living a normal quiet life. Until now…
    My mother decided that me, my little brother Pinto, and her were moving to America. At first I didn't know what to think of it. I didn't want to leave my family and go to a place where I didn't know anybody. Then I realized all the opportunities I could have, like going to college, having a family and maybe one day becoming an astronaut. I have always been amazed by the stars and planets and hope one day to travel into space. I guess going to America could be one of the best things that has happened to me in a long time. The day was the hottest day of the year when we had to leave, probably about 101 degrees. I was drenched in sweat and my body hurt from lugging around all of my clothing. We were waiting for about 35 minutes along with four other families traveling to America before the bus arrived. It was a huge bus with almost 60 seats, there were about 15 seats available when we got on but by the time we went to the rest of the stops there was 3. We drove for what felt like 3 days making short stops every couple hours as it got dark i started to fall asleep. When my mother woke me up it was like i was in a whole new world. There were all different types of people and stores everywhere. As we got off the bus we were directed to a taxi, we drove for about 45 minutes until we arrived at our little apartment. When we got inside the apartment it was cold and empty and it didn't feel like home. The floor had an ugly brown carpet over it and the furniture looked like it was about 200 years old. There were two bedrooms, one for mom, and one for my brother and I. After we got settled in we went to the nearest restaurant with the little money we had. The food was weird and it all seemed fried, but it was edible. After dinner we went back home and went to sleep. The next day we stayed in the house all day long, besides mom going out to get a few things to cook for dinner.
“I am going out for about 30 minutes to get some food” she said.
    Two hours later she returned with a carton of eggs and some milk. That night we had eggs for dinner, along with eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next two days. My mother didn't like to go out a lot, but when she did it was only for the necessities.
     About six days after we moved in I had to start school. I was sort of nervous considering i didn't know much english but i was excited to learn. The night before schools i went to sleep at 6 o'clock and didn't eat dinner i was so nervous. When my mother woke me up I didn't know whether to act excited or scared so i just hid my emotions and told my mom I wasn't nervous at all. My school was huge, I lost my breath when I first saw it. As I walked inside kids were looking at me wondering who I was and what i was doing here. I felt lonely and weak but I knew i just had to get to my classes and try my best to learn. In my first class of the day I had ESL, my teacher Mr. Sanchez seemed to take a liking to me. He said he also moved from Mexico and I liked that I found somebody who was similar to me. The rest of the day went slow, but after last period when I was walking out of the school one kid named Kendrick came up to me. I said hi and stuck out my hand, he slapped it away.
“What are you doing here” said Kendrick.
I stood silent because i couldn't really understand him.
“Say something”...” What a loser” said Kendrick.
I walked away. I didn't know what he said but i didn't feel good.
For the next couple weeks school went pretty fast. I learned some new things and Kendrick only picked on me a couple times. But one day during lunch he came up to me and told me I should be sent back to Mexico with my family and that I understood. I wanted to punch him so badly but I realized that wouldn't solve anything and I would probably get it trouble. The next day I talked to Mr. Sanchez about it. He said that if I just ignored him he would eventually leave me alone, so that's what I did. For months I dealt with Kendrick making fun of me and telling me that I'm stupid, and what makes it worse is that now I speak more English so now I know what he is saying. But I knew if I wanted to succeed in school I would have to ignore him.
Half of the school year was over and I was doing very well in school. In America it is a lot easier to learn because in Mexico the teachers don't really care about you. I finished the first half of the year with an 87 average and was on the honor roll. Even my mother was very impressed with me, she always said I was smart but I always thought she was just being nice. I started to take an interest in Algebra and how numbers worked, I had a 93 in algebra and it was my best class. My teacher was young, he could have been mistaken for being a student if it wasn't for his long thick beard. But my favorite teacher was still Mr. Sanchez he always knew how to help me and was always there for me. One day when Kendrick tripped me in the middle of the hallway he even sent Kendrick to the main office for it and got him suspended for 3 days. It was the best feeling ever.
My mom got a job at the local grocery store working at one of the checkouts. She sent my little brother to daycare, which was really just some old ladies house who would take care of kids for cheap. But life was good at that point, my family was happy and school was going good. One day at school I talked to Mr. Sanchez about what I wanted out of life.
“What do you want to pursue after high school” he said.
“Go to college and receive my masters degree”  I responded
“What about after that” he said
“Well this might sound unrealistic but I want to be an astronaut more than anything in the world. I love space and would like to visit.” I said
“That's very ambitious of you but that will take a lot of hard work and you can never doubt yourself.” He said
“I know and I won't” I said
From that point on I studied more than I ever had and got the best grades of my life. I never really believed I could achieve my goal but Mr. Sanchez inspired me to try my best and I can achieve it. My talk with Mr. Sanchez opened my eyes that my dream is reachable I just have to work towards it. It was time for finals and I knew I would do good I had been studying for weeks before the tests. Before one of my tests I was studying in the library when Kendrick came up to me stole my notes and ripped them in half. I was so mad I didn't know what to do, so I punched him in the stomach. At first I felt proud but I then realized I had hurt him. I felt bad and didn't even realize what I had to him. He looked at me and said “You will pay for this” and walked out.
That day all I could think about was what he was going to do to me. I got about 4 hours of sleep that night and had a test the next day. I took the test that day and felt good about how I did. In the next few days I took the rest of my tests and I think I did very well in all of them. But still Kendrick did not do anything to me. It was the last day of school and we were getting our tests grades back. I did very well and the lowest grade I got was an 88. I then found out I finished the school year with a 94 average and I was so excited. Then Kendrick walked up to me, I was so scared and was screaming inside. He held out his hand and said “see you next year”. I was so confused, what did I do to make him act like this. So I shook his hand still in shock and didn't say anything. 30 minutes later the bell rang and the school year was over. I had finished my freshman year of high school very successful and was very excited for sophomore year.