“When I first arrived in America, I was surprised by the school system. When I was in Haiti I used to watch High School Musical and I thought, ‘wow, this is what school in America is like’. I wanted to go to school so bad so that I could dance and sing like that. That wasn’t the case. For a newcomer, I did excellent in school. Even though I had a language barrier, I was able to earn mostly A’s in all of my classes. However, I didn’t do as well as I wanted to in Language Arts due to my language difficulties. My response to anything anyone would say was ‘No English’. In class I was always eager to read. I would stand in front of the class and read in French. The only words in English I knew were ‘whispered’ and ‘that’. Whenever I would get to these words I would speak loudly with great confidence; little did I know I was reading it all wrong. Fortunately, the class didn’t laugh at me but instead applauded. I had many friends and people to help me do my work.”