Sophomore Yoon Lee has never felt more alone than when she first immigrated to America. For Lee, the distance from her home country, family and friends, coupled with the seemingly insurmountable language barrier made her transition to a new life in the United States a difficult one. 

“I immigrated from Korea with my family after my dad was assigned to a new job overseas in the United States,” Lee said. “I still remember my first few weeks here. I didn’t understand much English, and I had no friends. It was a struggle getting around a school so big, and making friends, and sort of adjusting to this new life.” 

Lee is like many other immigrants who struggle with the transition from their home countries to new, foreign places. In fact, according to the Migration Policy Institute, the United States has the largest international migrant community in the world. According to the US Census Bureau, the number of people who spoke languages other than English nearly tripled from 23.1 million to 67.8 million, the most common languages being Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) as well as Tagalog. According to AP Spanish teacher and immigrant, Fernando Yanez, language has a tremendous impact on the U.S. culture as various words are borrowed from other languages and integrated into vernacular English in the form of a “loanword.”

Yanez said, “When immigrants assimilate, they often leave a mark of their own culture as they borrow traditions to integrate into American society. For some that means food, language or even celebrations.” 

Senior Sara Perez, a Colombian immigrant, agrees with this sentiment. Perez said she speaks Spanish at home and with her friends, but also speaks fluent English and takes part in American traditions on a regular basis. 

“It is like balancing identity. To be honest, they don’t clash as much as people think. I feel that I have a diverse perspective now, because I come from two different backgrounds: my Colombian heritage and my American one. 

Junior Marcos Rodriguez, an immigrant from Venezuela, said many Americans don’t understand his culture, but he said he realizes that it is not vital for everyone to recognize his Latinx culture and heritage.

“Although I don’t feel that my culture is celebrated and recognized on a broader level, in my opinion that is completely okay,” Rodriguez said. “America has its own completely different culture and it is more than enough for my beliefs and culture to be accepted and not criticized, but I don’t think it should be celebrated by others who don’t feel connected to it.” 

On the other hand, Lee emphasized that while many people don’t necessarily understand her culture, they still often consume fragments of it. 

“I think Korean culture is becoming more and more mainstream especially with things like K-pop, K-dramas and Korean food becoming popular,” Lee said. “While people may not really understand the cultural significance of these things, they often enjoy a lot of the products that are ‘hallmarks’ of Korean popular culture. Personally, I want to share my culture and deeper traditions with my friends to help them learn more about the cultural aspects.”

Although Yanez said he believes stereotypes about immigrants, especially of Latinx descent, may exist, he said he believes most people realize that many immigrants are actually assimilated into American culture, but still retain their sense of identity. While both Rodriguez and Perez acknowledge the challenges that come with adapting to American culture, they also reflect on how they’ve found ways to integrate their own cultural values with American society. For Perez, that means blending Colombian traditions with American celebrations. 

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“We usually mix them together,” Perez said. “For example, on Thanksgiving, we don’t only have turkey; we add Colombian plates that go well with turkey. Our Christmas is also on the 24th of December, not the 25th. We open presents that night and wear pajamas the next day to spend time with family.”

Perez said she believes her experiences highlight the complexity of balancing cultural preservation and integration into American society. Yanez said he believes this blending of cultures often occurs naturally. 

“I think the most important tradition is the food, so I think that I try not to eat a lot of purely American food, especially fast food and try to put my own stuff in,” Yanez said. “Traditionally, we eat a lot of soups in Spain, so I try to integrate that cultural aspect into my life here.” 

According to Perez, Rodriguez and Lee, one of the biggest challenges they faced when coming to the United States was the language barrier. Perez said learning English can be a difficult process for many. 

“The nine months that I was learning English were the hardest nine months I have ever lived,” Perez said. “I have never felt so out of any zone, away from my family and away from everything I lived with for nine months. After nine months everything became easier and I started to feel like I was part of this country and part of a new society and culture.” 

Rodriguez said he echoes that sentiment, explaining that learning English was a difficult transition for him. 

“The language barrier was difficult to overcome, it’s never easy to learn a new language, especially when I knew none of it,” Rodriguez said. “The culture is very different too, adapting to the American school system was very challenging, especially for those like me as I have been adapted to only one school system which was back in Venezuela.” 

Yanez, who works closely with students whose first language is Spanish, said the transition can be especially difficult in an academic setting. He said it was easy to imagine the hardships associated with learning English in a new environment as he had similar experiences growing up. 

“The main challenge I faced was the language,” Yanez said. “It took me a good couple of years to be comfortable with the language. Day to day life, to work in English, to live in English was very difficult. I first learned English when I was in school in Spain, but it is a completely different story when you have to live in a different language.” 

Lee found that after finding her confidence in the language, life in America became easier. 

“Although I barely knew English when I first came to America and this school system, I found a friend who made every day a little easier. As I became more confident with the language, slowly I began to find a home here in the United States.”