English was not my first language, I was born to two Dominican immigrants who had no knowledge of the English language at all. Up until I started pre school I was never asked to speak english, making my first year there hell on earth.

I went to a small pre-school on 106 and Amsterdam avenue named Bloomingdale. The school was separated into three rooms. There was the yellow room for the new kids, the pink room for the kids in their final year and the blue room for spanish speaking kids to learn english. Even though I only spoke Spanish I was put in the yellow room, I have no clue why they would do that but they did and my first year at pre school was insane. Since I didn’t speak english I couldn’t communicate with anyone in my class, I would point if I wanted something or I would try to say it in spanish and get weird looks from my classmates. Going through my first year alone with no friends taught me how to enjoy my own company. During activity time I would draw or paint which planted the seed in my passion for art. I would play with the toys there and create scenarios and characters, I would be so zoned out that not having friends was the least of my worries.

Being the only child in my household made it even harder for me to learn english. My mother moved here from the Dominican Republic when she was 12 in the 70s but she never finished school due to her having to take care of her younger siblings. She knew english but it was “broken” english, so she wasn’t the best teacher. My favorite show as a kid was the wiggles, 4 men in different colored shirts singing about fruit salad and a big red car amused me

when I was 3. Every morning I would get up and watch every episode they streamed. I started to sing along to the songs, memorizing them and singing them throughout the day. I didn’t realize but I was learning english. I would take the songs back to school and sing them with my classmates who were also big fans of the wiggles. I started to make friends and they would speak to me and I would respond in English! I was not yet fluent but I could understand what was being said.

When I turned 4 years old I was moved to the pink room which was the room for final year kids. My classmates remained the same but I had new teachers, Josh and Ramona. Josh was my favorite teacher. He was a tall white guy with a scruffy beard who always wore shirts with cartoons on them. Josh and I clicked. He was so fun, he would play his guitar for us and he taught us how to make play dough from scratch. I was still in the process of learning English and to my luck Josh was bilingual, He would work with me everyday on how to pronounce words and put words together in a sentence, I was catching on slowly making conversation easier. Not only was I learning to speak fluent English but I was also learning how to read and write in the process. I graduated from pre school and headed into elementary, the rest is history. Now I speak better English than Spanish and feel more comfortable speaking english.

The moral of the story is that you will never learn nor prosper if you stay in comfortable situations. Being the only non English speaker in an English speaking class was one of the most uncomfortable situations in my entire life especially for a preschooler who does not understand pressure or how to handle it. I say that being bilingual is my greatest asset in life. I can speak to countless people and I can pick up certain words in other languages as well such as Portuguese, French and italian. That specific time in preschool most definitely shaped the man I am today, someone who isn’t afraid to learn new things. Being forced to learn english was the best way to learn, I had no other option but to pick up the language fast and I did. Now my

primary language is English which might not have been the case if not for being put in the wrong classroom.