The New Kid on the Block
In 2006, a 3-year-old Ethiopian boy was about to embark on a huge change in his life, one which will cause stress, curiosity, and pure joy as he grows up in a new society. As some of you may know, my name is Amha Alemeneh. I was born on July 22, 2003, in the beautiful city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. After living there for only three years, my parents decided to move to America to give me and my sister, who was one at the time, a better chance at life. Arriving in a place completely different from what I was accustomed to was such a cultural shock to me and left me curious at a young age. For starters, there wasn’t much exposure to different types of races or different communities. So it came as a huge surprise to me when I came to America. In Ethiopia, as far as I had been accustomed to, there were many activities that children would play, one of the main ones being soccer or futbol. Whereas in America, soccer isn’t as popular and has many other sports which Ethiopia never had. At home, my parents would do their best to blend American and Ethiopian culture so that my sister and I could both live comfortably while still trying to transition to a new way of life. Regrettably enough, I was beyond shy and used head nods as a means to communicate with others. By the time I was 5, I had understood English very well, but I still couldn’t respond that well and continued to keep the same communication I had always done.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Learning a new way of life was wonderfully challenging for me, and I put my mind to work. As I got older, I began to communicate more effectively and became a member of society. Confidence within myself began to grow, and I made new friends and felt comfortable with where I was at. While heading into elementary and middle school, I was able to fit in and was happy with where I was at in life, but there was a piece that felt as if it was missing, which I learned was my identity. During those years, it was more evident that there were few to no Africans in my school, let alone Ethiopians, and I began to question if I belonged and who I was. I couldn’t relate to the other kids, nor did I have many similarities with them when it came to things like family parties or everyday life for them. At home, even my parents would like to spend time showing me videos of kids my age speaking fluently and being embraced fully in their culture, along with how their lives are in Ethiopia. It started to feel like I didn’t belong in either culture; I was at a deadlock and stressed from the idea of not knowing where I truly belonged. Often this “deadlock'' made making new friends very difficult for a while, and I would tend to be extremely silent and be very nervous or worried about how others would think. Although this is what many people go through when meeting new people, I genuinely struggled as I would struggle to speak with others, and at times because I would be culturally out of the loop, there would be times where I could never understand what people were saying. Towards my later years, especially in middle school, I began to change more in my personality. Thankfully, one day I had a presentation in class about who I look up to in one of my middle school classes, and as a joke, I wrote down Shrek and made an entire presentation about Shrek while sticking to the grade book. I decided I wanted to make the class laugh, and it ultimately succeeded, although I didn’t get the best grade for it. With that, a realization came to me that maybe being unapologetically me and being able to attain my own personal sense of humor would be a great deal of help to my own personal struggle with myself. During that whole event, I felt like myself, fully loved and welcomed. Despite that, I still faced the problem of fitting in, and internally, I had the absolute desire to fit in with everyone. While being me is nice, I still struggled with it because I still believed that belonging to something or someone was too great for me to pass up. Entering high school came as a huge change for me since prior to this, I wasn’t in a school with that many people, so many opportunities, or so many clubs or sports to join that could make me feel like I truly belonged.
Given that I was a lot older and became more mature than I was as an Elementary or Middle schooler, I came into high school with a more open mindset hoping that I would be able to flourish socially and mentally. But beginning high school was way more challenging than I thought it would be as there were many people I did not know, and I began to feel the worries of falling back to my old, somewhat closed-off self. But I had decided to join cross country since it was a very popular sport in my home country, and I figured it would be a way to still connect with back home while continuing to become more of a citizen in America. When I started the sport, I instantly knew I had found my place as I found it as my comfort zone for being myself as my teammates and coaches accepted me openly and made me feel like I really had found my second home. The longer I continued to run, the more I felt like I became more developed as someone who became a part of society. Now I’ve done so much and have experienced, quite honestly, some of the best things in my life; I can proudly say I went through these things that I have gone through in my life, making me who I am today.
