I’ll tell you a little story about when I moved to New York.
I was in the middle of my final year of kindergarten when I started to sense that we were going to move… somewhere far away.
But at six years old, I didn’t really understand what “America” meant.
I had no concept of the world, or the Earth, or that there were different countries—and that this place was called Japan.
My parents were busy preparing things, and we said our goodbyes to my teachers and friends at kindergarten.
Mom told us we’d be on a plane for a long time, so my little sister and I slept a lot and played with origami during the flight.
When she woke us up and we got off the plane…
I remember seeing a world I had never seen before.
Skin color, hair color, eye color—everything was different.
There were so many people who were much taller than anyone I’d ever seen.
But the thing that surprised me the most: everyone was speaking a language I had never heard before!
“Where… am I??”
My six-year-old mind was filled with question marks.
My dad, who had gone to America ahead of us, greeted us with a big smile and was driving a car I’d never seen before.
The driver’s seat was on the opposite side, and the scenery outside the window felt so strange.
The buildings, the atmosphere of the town, the shape and size of the cars—everything was completely different!
“We’re here—this is going to be your new home!”
It was a big white house, like I’d never seen in Japan.
There was a big grassy yard in both the front and the back.
Inside the house, there were so many rooms—it was big enough to run around in!
The bathroom had a toilet and a bathtub in the same room.
I didn’t fully understand what was going on, but everything felt new.
A few days later, I was taken to school.
“This is going to be your school from now on,” mom said.
In the classroom were kids my age and someone who I assumed was the teacher.
But everyone was speaking a language I couldn’t understand.
The teacher smiled at me kindly and said something.
My mom spoke to her in a language I didn’t know, but somehow they understood each other.
Still, I had no idea what was being said.
Even now, I clearly remember the strong thought that crossed my mind at that moment:
“If I don’t learn the language these people are speaking, I won’t be able to survive here.”
That’s when my battle in New York began.
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