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Waking Up American

Waking up American

Everything had changed. He still haunts me, dressed in half ripped clothes, sitting on a cardboard, holding on tight to his empty begging cup and weeping for his mother, but she was no where to be found. His pitiful cries moved me to want to scoop him up, comfort him and give him a home, but I didn't. No one paid attention to him.   I stood there attempting to figure out if this is the place I had called home for over nine years. Than, I shamefully walked away as the wails echoed in my head. As the sun went down tranquility fell upon the city as the people of Korca strolled down Parku Rinia (The Park of Young People) to meet their friends and enjoy a refreshing drink. I felt deeply moved by their lives that were characterized by corruption and leisure time. I was glad I did not live there.
It had been five years since I returned back to Albania, and everything I had ever known had changed. I could not see myself fitting in with their lifestyle. I looked down upon their cultural rituals, their music, and their life style as a whole. "Where is it better," they would ask me, "here or America?" My initial reaction was, what's better than America however, I did not want to give a sense of negligence, as if I had forgotten my roots so I replied "America is where the money is, but I do love my country, as bad as it is, this is where I grew up."
I had an accent when I spoke Albanian and this was very noticeable. You're not Albanian anymore, said one of my friends. I felt ashamed, even though I did not care about their life style.
I realized that I was the "immigrant child," a certain type of an immigrant child. I had become the type that had completely assimilated to the American culture and had lost her sense of identity. I had lost the one precious thing that my parents and my country had given me—my Albanian culture. It took me five years to come to peace with this. I also realized the great sacrifices that my parents made to move to a new...