I woke up, blinked once, blinked twice, and maybe a third time. I looked to my right and saw a yellow blanket fill the horizon on top of a green bed. Fascinated by the scenery, I turned towards the back window only to find the same color fill hundreds of acres of corn. Noon approached, which meant that my family had driven for approximately six hours, and according to my parents, there was still a long drive left.

While my father drove I couldn’t help but notice the smell of corn fill the car. The fragrance of nature overwhelmed the environment. Looking back a couple of weeks, I still couldn’t seem to understand why. Why was it that I needed to live in Nebraska when my life in Delicias, Chihuahua, was perfect? Trying to be optimistic, I searched for a positive outcome. A new beginning awaited, new friends, new school, new teacher, a new everything. Suddenly a problem emerged, reality kicked in making my thoughts unclear. English!  Consequently, hundreds of scenarios materialized in my imagination:  me walking through the doors of a classroom while everyone just stares.  Walking through the doors of a classroom not reading, or understanding English, and as a result not doing well in school.

Hours passed, and I replayed a memory over and over again, the memory in which I heard my parents talk about moving to the United States for the first time.

“I have a brother in Blair, Nebraska,” said my mom sitting in the kitchen talking with my dad as they regularly did during the night.
“I know. Do you think that he will let us stay for a couple weeks until we find a house for ourselves if we decide to leave?” replied my dad.
“I am not sure, I will talk to him tomorrow. How do you think the kids will take it?”
My mother’s question echoed in my head. How do you think the kids will take it?

After that, my parents kept talking, regardless of this, I couldn’t process their words. It was as if I was paralyzed and all I could do was listen. Time passed and  I eventually gained the ability to move. I went to bed and thought of what I had heard.

Night eventually came, and after a long day of sitting in a car looking out the window, it was time to sleep. My dad stopped at a hotel and told me that we would be there tomorrow. I was exhausted and after a couple minutes of exercises and stretches I went to bed, closed my eyes and in a matter of seconds I was asleep.
The next morning, the 25th of July, 2009,  I went downstairs towards the hotel’s cafeteria and couldn’t help but be nervous about the fact that in only a matter of hours I would start a  new life. I was starting from zero just like I had done several times before; but never in a different country. I got a couple pancakes and orange juice, sat down, and started thinking of school while I ate. I thought of the way in which  I would introduce myself, how my first day would be, and how hard it would be for me to learn English.

A couple hours later we eventually got to my uncle's house. It was good to see them again, especially my cousin. What was not so good and literally nerve-racking was having to go register for school. Sure, I didn’t need to talk with anyone that day, but knowing zero English and being the only Mexican was extremely frightening.

The days passed by slowly, but time never stopped, and the day came in which I had to face the well-known primer dia de escuela. My teacher’s name was maestra Lewis a very unusual name compared to the ones I was used to in Mexico, which only demonstrated to me that this was only the beginning of tough times. Being honest, I had a really bad expectation as to what would happen to me on that the first day, having been dropped a grade for not knowing English, but my mother’s words and the hug she gave me that day before school calmed my soul and gave me the courage to walk into the classroom.

The seconds in which I entered the classroom and sat down were eternal. I recognized the look on my classmates’ faces, I had seen them several times before. The look of confusion after seeing a new student, the look that says more than a thousand words ever would. I felt every student, insect, living or non-living thing stare at me until the teacher stood up and said in an unknown language…

“Welcome to the first day of class” immediately directing the attention to her.

The day passed slowly and I only understood a few words, none which would add up to create a clear idea as to what she was talking about, and nowhere near close to understanding a complete sentence. And so it went for hours while I sat in a room and listened, trying to process an unknown language until, MATH! A language which I understood, a language in which I did not need to speak in words, but through the universal mathematical language of numbers. That language I knew far better than anyone sitting in the room (besides maestra Lewis). I made it clear in the first minutes of the subject that math was a language which I knew how to speak.

After millennia passed, I finally got to go home and share this story with my mom. A story which said that even though it was difficult I had survived. She then laughed, hugged me and said  “te lo dije.” Through her words, I then understood that I could survive through the toughest of times if I persevered, stayed focused and most important of all maintained an orderly mind. Through this experience even though I had been that kid who walked through the doors of a classroom while everybody just starred, and even though I had been that kid who walked through the doors of a classroom and didn’t know how to speak or understand English, I was going to make sure that I was not going to be the kid who did not do well in school.