My name is Lara, I am fifteen years old and I was born in Brazil. On average, ever since I was born, I moved every three years, meaning that by now I have moved five times.

When I was three months old I moved from Sao Paulo, my home town, to Minas Gerais, also in Brazil. On this first move, my maternal grandparents moved with us, and this made my family’s life much easier, as we were able to provide all the necessary support we needed for each other.

After this first move, moving was always harder on my family because we always had to leave people we cared about behind, and because my grandparents were not able to follow us.

In 2008, my family and I made our first international move ever. We had to move to Jamaica, a beautiful tropical island in the Caribbean. When we got there my family faced a couple of issues: the language barrier and the difference of culture. Both of my parents were fluent in English, but they didn’t understand the Jamaican dialect. My siblings and I didn’t know how to speak English, but since we were younger it would be way easier for us to learn.

At the time, my sister was twelve years old and my brother was nine. They were both very excited to move to a new country. When they first went to school, my mom had prepared flashcards for them. In these flashcards, she had written in Portuguese what they were supposed to say if they needed to go to the bathroom or if they needed help. My mom felt worried about me and my siblings because we didn’t know how to speak the language and we didn’t know anyone.

When we moved there, I had just started kindergarten. Whenever I needed help with something, I would ask an Ecuadorian boy that was one grade above me for help. He would try to translate what I wanted from Portuguese to Spanish, and then translate it to English to tell my teacher. It wasn’t as hard for me to learn the language since I was so young. It only took me three months to start speaking in English.

Soon enough, my family had already adapted to our new life. My family had become fluent in English and had formed great relationships. We had the chance to meet people from all around the world. There, we also had amazing opportunities to travel around the country and see spectacular places, meet great people, and eat incredible food.

After living in Jamaica for three years, in 2011, my dad was transferred again. This time we were going to Sao Luis, Brazil, and it wasn’t as hard for my family. My family members from my dad’s side of the family and my sibling’s childhood friends lived there.

Soon, I started first grade. Since I had become fluent in English, my parents didn’t want me to forget it. So they enrolled me in a Canadian school, where they taught half of the subjects in English and the other half in Portuguese. The school didn’t offer high school classes and my siblings had to go to a traditional Brazilian school.

After living in Sao Luis for two years, in 2012, my sister was accepted into one of the best Law schools in the country. The only issue was that the school she got accepted to was in Sao Paulo. My parents did not want her to lose this opportunity, so they sent her to live there. This was really hard for me because I was so close to my sister.

In 2014, my dad was again transferred. Now, we were moving back to Sao Paulo. My parents weren’t that bothered with moving there. I wasn’t very excited at first because I had to leave all of my friends back in Sao Luis, but that soon changed. After a few months, I started making friendships and adapting to the new environment.

I have a lot of great memories in Sao Paulo. One of my favorite things there was when my sister and I would go walking around the city. We used to walk to one of Brazil’s famous avenues called Paulista, and we went shopping or got ice cream there. We also used to go to an area called Liberdade (which has the largest ethnic Japanese community outside Japan), and we used to eat these pastries filled with meat called Pastel with some passion fruit juice.

At the beginning of 2016, I got the news that I was going to move to the U.S. I was partially excited and sad. I didn’t want to leave my home, friends, and culture behind. My sister also had to stay in Sao Paulo because she only had one year left to finish her course. My parents were worried to leave her in Brazil by herself because we didn’t have any family in Sao Paulo. But they knew they could rely on their friends.

We arrived in the U.S on August 20th of 2016. Moving here was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I had to adjust to the culture while trying to keep up with my own. I felt like I was losing touch with my friends because I didn’t talk to them as often as I used to. Soon, I started getting used to talking to them less frequently, and it made me feel like I was losing touch with my home.

As I started seventh-grade, I began to see how many differences there are inside the school. In Brazil, we only had one classroom with about thirty students and the teachers used to come to our classroom. In the U.S, I had to go to each class by myself, which turned out to be a mess for the first week. One of the things that I really had an issue with was that I didn’t have enough assistance in the school. No one told me what was homeroom or the pledge of allegiance, no one told me that we were supposed to keep our backpacks in our lockers, no one told me I had try-out to play a sport, etc.

As time went on, the only thing I could think of was going back home. I would spend my entire seventh-grade year thinking about how exciting it would be to go back home. I would see my grandparents, sister, and friends. That was the mentality that helped me go through my first year in the U.S. I tried my best to keep my hopes high and focus on what I had, and what was an opportunity that so many people wish to have. Still, this wasn’t enough.

One thing that I think is very interesting is how different my brother’s experience was. He saw everything differently, in a good perspective, and I started getting a little angry at him. I felt like he was betraying our country, which I know and knew was a totally bad way to look at it. I didn’t want to feel that way and I did want to try to see it differently, but it was hard. This was an issue for me, and I believe so many people out there must feel the same.

Another issue that had a really big effect on me was my friendships. When I got here, I started to become more of an introvert, when in reality I was more of an extrovert. This was such a big issue for me because I stopped trying to become friends with people in school. And never felt accepted for who I was.

In my culture, Brazilian culture, we have a very strong connection to our family and friends. Our stereotype is that we are always so kind, and I believe that this plays a big part in it. For example, every Sunday we would have lunch/barbecues with our families and friends, to celebrate. It didn’t matter if you did anything relevant, you’d just celebrate. Even if you didn’t have family in the city you live in, you would probably end up in one of your friend’s family’s lunch/barbecue.

Today, I still get homesick pretty often, but I’m trying to have a better mindset about things. I wrote about my story hoping it can reach out to children and teenagers that are or were in a situation like my own. It’s one of the types of experiences that you will never know what it feels like until you’re in the person’s shoes, and I hope they know they are not alone and that they can find comfort relying on each other.