Personal Experience

Donna Flynn
Ms Rhodes
English 1101 MW 2:10 – 3:25   01/22/2014
Migrating from Jamaica to the USA
Leaving on a Jet Plane a bright and sunny afternoon. It was 2:25 pm, April 27, 1982. I went back to my former school to bid my last farewells to my classmates and teachers.   I was leaving my country, all my friends, and everything that I had grown connected to for the first fifteen years of my life. This is my first experience flying on a plane. I was excited to see my father but anxious for the unknown.  
I finally arrived at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. I saw my father, who was eagerly awaiting my arrival in a jacket that looked like a padded bed with an oversized blanket. I noticed that he had an extra one in his arms which he immediately handed to me. I quickly put it on without question as an unexpected cold breeze hit me. My father looked at me with a smirk and said I was lucky to have missed a major blizzard that affected New York a week prior. I felt like I was dreaming. Everything was different around me: the people, buildings, the highways and byways.
Two days later, I got registered for my new school, White Plains High School. And wouldn’t you believe it? On the first day of school I missed the bus. It was a new way of life for me. Back home in Jamaica, I walked two miles to school each way.   Immediately I was struck with culture shock. At school, I was introduced to my new classmates there was a diverse of ethnicity background.   The students were very welcoming! I felt like a new kid on the block.
I also felt free without the school uniforms! In Jamaica, all school systems required us to wear uniforms with specific colors and design, like soldiers on a battle field. In Jamaican schools
Donna Flynn
Ms Rhodes
English 1101 MW 2:10 – 3:25

we were placed in one room and awaited each teacher’s arrival for each subjects. It was certainly not so in White Plains High. There, I traveled to five different classes. Sometimes it would take...