Trying to fit into society after living a life of culture shocks is the reality sophomore Paola Farias has had to face her whole life. Moving from Mexico to Maui at the age of seven, Farias has to reconstruct having to learn new practices, languages, cultures, and so much more.
Farias moved to Texas when she was 13 due to her mother marrying a U.S. citizen. The reason her family came to America was because her parents got divorced, and then her mom got married to a U.S. citizen.
When I first moved here, it was a crazy culture shock because I was getting to see how the U.S. really is, like the movies. When I was a little kid watching Disney Channel I would imagine the high schools being just like this, and now I’m in a high school that looks just like the ones in the movies. I’m often like “woah this is crazy.”
With so many wanting to enter the U.S., the list for processing becomes long additionally on top of the tedious process. Those two factors make the average immigration procedure take years.
“The immigration process is so long and so complicated, you have to go through a lot of screenings and processes,” Farias said. “Usually you have to travel to go to certain offices which usually can be quite expensive. It took around three years from the beginning to end to get my green card. Getting my citizenship is going to be another three years, so it’s like a whole process and definitely a lot.”
Coming directly from Mexico to Hawaii was not only a huge culture shock, but also came with the challenges of adapting to a different society. A society that was a whole new world geographically, diversely, and spoke a whole different language.
“I actually didn’t know English that much, I learned English when I got to Maui,” Farias said. “I had to learn English so quickly because as soon as I got there I had two weeks until I had to start school. So I had to just go to school, not know anything, have to learn through hearing other people talk. I kind of grew up with pigeon English which is like a whole different language, it’s basically Hawaiian and English mixed together, when I got here I was surprised people didn’t understand what I was saying. But in my head that’s what I thought was English, because I didn’t know anything else.”
While Hawaii and Texas are technically in the same country, Farias says they couldn’t be more different. The food, the clothes, the people, the environment was all so different causing a major culture shock.
“I’ve had 3 different culture shocks I would say, and I feel like eventually you kind of just get used to it, you learn how to move through the world,” Farias said. “I grew up with a very cultural group in Mexico, a very traditional Mexican family and I moved to the U.S., I moved to Maui. Maui is much much different than living in the mainland. Maui has a whole culture of its own, it’s a mix of Hawaiian culture, polynesian culture, and oceanic culture. It’s really beautiful and really powerful, and then moving to Texas was a big flop. It was like moving to a movie-like city where there are long highways and no trees. There’s nothing that’s connecting you to nature, I feel very isolated from nature. And travelling, like cars have to go 15 minutes on the highway to get anywhere.”
There are many differences in the U.S. compared to in Mexico, one of the major ones is the financial situation. With one peso equaling out to one U.S. dollar, the cost of things between the two counties couldn’t be more different.
“Now I feel like the price differences are crazy, everything is so expensive here,” Farias said. “In Mexico I never cared about money, and here it’s like I’m worrying about rent and other expenses. My mom telling me that I need to help with rent was a big shock, because I was always like “we’re fine, I don’t need to worry about money.” I think I definitely was more stable in Mexico because of the financial differences, especially the place I was living in because it was very safe. Whenever you think of Mexico you go “oh scary” but in reality I was in Mexico City in this really nice apartment. So seeing the amount of things I had back then with the amount of money we have now versus what I have here with the amount of money we have is so drastic.”
Financial differences can also reflect on the lifestyle differences such as education, because though there are many challenges with immigrating from a different country with a whole different culture, there are also benefits.
“I think for high school I’m going to stay here, because the education system here is better,” Farias said. “In Mexico if you’re not in a private school you get no educational benefits at all. I love Mexican culture so much but I know it’s important for me to stay here for my education.”
