When I was 7 years old I moved to the United States, along with my sister, Magda and my parents, Agnieszka and Robert S. I was born in Grojec, Poland and I grew up in Bialobrzegi, Poland. My whole family is from Poland. There I went to preschool, kindergarten, and started first grade before I came to America.

My parents decided to move to Chicago because there were a lot of Polish people living there and a lot of Polish people still live there. We had no reason to leave Poland, but there wasn’t anything stopping my parents from moving to America.

One day my parents heard that there was a lottery to win a green card to come to the United States. They didn’t think there would be any harm in applying for it so they did. Not that long after, we found out that we had won the green cards. That fall, in 2004, my dad came to Chicago in order to find a job and find a place to live so when my mom, my sister, and I came over to Chicago we wouldn’t have to worry about those things. I went three months  without seeing my dad. It was the longest I have ever gone without seeing him. Within those three months I had celebrated my 7th birthday. Even though it was my last birthday in Poland, it was the worst birthday of my life because my dad wasn’t there. Not only did he miss my birthday, but also Christmas and New Years. That is why I was so happy when the day came that I was finally going to go to Chicago and see him again.

On January 8, 2005, it was my turn to come to the United States. That morning my sister, my mom, and I woke up at 4am. We got ready, did some last minute packing and said goodbye to all the family that wasn’t going with us to the airport. When we go to the airport my mom took care of papers while our grandparents watched us. It didn’t take long before we had to go through security and wait in the waiting room. This meant we wouldn’t be able to see our family anymore. We all hugged for about 10 minutes before we had to go. I remember there was a big yellow line that only the people who were going to go through security were allowed to cross. I remember the moment when we crossed the line and I looked back and almost everyone was crying. I didn’t understand at the time why everyone was crying. I didn’t realize that I wouldn’t see them for a very long time. We were in the waiting room for about an hour before we boarded the plane.

The airline that we took was Lot. We were sitting in the back of the plane in the middle row. My mom sat in the middle between my sister and I. The plane ride was 10 hours long. The first few hours we didn’t do much. Eventually, the sleeping hours came along and we tried sleeping, but we couldn’t fall asleep. After that my sister and I watched a movie that was being played on the plane. The only thing I remember about it is that it was about fish. After that I got a stomach ache. My mom went to the back of the plane and got me medicine for it along with some apple juice.

When we arrived at the airport, I was overwhelmed with how many people there was. A lot of the flights were delayed because of snow and they were arriving at the same time as our plane was. Everyone from our plane went through security and made their way to baggage claim within minutes except for us. We had a lot of paperwork to go through because we were planning on living in the United States permanently. While my mom was taking care of that, my sister and I were standing there being bored. I remember my feet hurt from standing so long in one spot even though moments before that I was on a plane sitting for 10 hours. After the paperwork was done we went to get our luggage. We had to find at least three carts to hold our nine suitcases that we brought with us from Poland. Due to the snow and the late arrivals, it was impossible to find carts. It took us another hour just to find carts and our suitcases. After we found them we were able to go out the doors where my dad was waiting for us. Once Magda and I saw our dad, we left the nine suitcases with our mom and ran to him. Our family was finally reunited after three months.

I started school five days after I came to the United States. I didn’t know any English. However, I didn’t face any discrimination. It was hard for me to figure out what the teachers and other students were saying. I remember on my first day of school, we had a spelling test. I was so happy because I understood what was going on and I thought the test was so easy. Later that week I got my test back and all the questions were marked wrong. I realized that spelling things in Polish and English are very different from each other and that learning English would be a lot harder than I thought. The first year was the hardest for me to learn English because my friend was Polish and we always spoke in Polish. Also, my teacher that helped me learn English spoke Polish and a lot of the time she would talk in Polish to me so that I would understand better even though it would have been better for me if she spoke in English to me and let me figure things out on my own.

After a year of living in Chicago my parents decided to move to the suburbs. My parents wanted to move so my sister and I would go to better schools. We moved to Niles and we went to Field Elementary School. Since then we have not moved.

My family took a chance in moving to the United States. I miss Poland everyday and I wish I could visit my family. However, I am blessed with everything that came from moving to the US. The best thing that came out of it was my little brother, David. He was the first out of my family to ever be born in the United States of America.