Voices of Our New Neighbors is a sampling of immigrants’ stories previously selected for print in Easy English NEWS. Since 1996, this monthly newspaper has been helping newcomers to the United States learn about the culture, customs, government, and holidays of their new home while they are learning English and building vocabulary. Each issue of Easy English NEWS prints four to six of our readers’ stories. Here you have among the best of them.
These stories illustrate the profound courage it takes to leave friends, family, pets, and community behind, immigrate to the United States, and function in a new culture in a new language. For many of us it is a reminder of the courage of our own grandparents and great grandparents.
With their limited language, the writers in Voices of Our New Neighbors portray the events and emotions that they experience on arrival to the United States. You'll go along with them on their sometimes difficult journeys, their first shocks and impressions, the traumatic first days in school, and the search for employment, mostly the hardest work offered in the U.S. and at the lowest pay rates. Seeing things through their eyes, you will experience the excitements, confusions, embarrassments, and eventual successes in learning English and becoming part of our great nation. The stories have been edited for grammar, word usage, and length, but the message is unchanged and the charm, depth of feeling shine directly from our new neighbors.
Volume One contains 92 short vignettes, written by immigrants themselves, with editorial help for the sake of brevity, grammar and word choice. These charming "gold nuggets" include stories of the arrival in the United States, difficulties at school, looking for and finding work, culture shock, and challenges with eating in their new country. Suggested audience: Everybody.