I cried almost every night, ‘I want to go home, Mom, I want to go home.’

Thananya Mektrakarn graduated from Canoga Park High School with honors and is a freshman at California State University, Northridge. When she came to the United States six years ago from Bangkok, Thailand, she knew little English and wasn’t too happy with the move.

I didn’t like it very much when my mom told me that we had to move here, because I just graduated from sixth grade. It really hurt me a lot, knowing that I was going to come here and start all over again. At 12 you want to be close to your friends. You want to be secure. When we got here, I cried almost every night, “I want to go home, Mom, I want to go home. I hate it here!” The school year in Thailand ends in March. We came here in March, and they put me in school in sixth grade. That three months, I was very quiet.

The language barrier just held me for some time. I was shy, and I didn’t want to talk, because I was afraid people would laugh at me. And then the person within said, “This is not you.” There is no way I could ever be shy, ever. So I said, “Just go ahead. If you don’t know how to say something, just ask somebody or say it, and they’ll correct you.

I had a fit because I had to wear a dress to their sixth-grade graduation. In Thailand I hung around with boys, and I didn’t care much about dresses and dolls. All the kids were crying because they weren’t going to see their friends, and they were all excited about junior high. I didn’t have close friends to cry over, so I just watched.

In junior high school, I felt more comfortable. I was put in English-as-a-second-language classes, where they could speak as much as I could. I picked up really fast. They kept putting me in more advanced classes. In the second semester of the eighth grade I was transferred out of ESL classes. And that was it. I went to regular classes with normal kids. They didn’t treat me differently. They just thought of me as one of them. That was when I began to feel like I was myself again. In the ninth grade, when I graduated, I really cried, and I knew what those people were crying about. You had all these friends, and you weren’t going to see them.

In high school--that’s when I really put it all together. It was 100% me now. I really enjoyed my friends and my teachers, and I really learned something and applied it to my personal daily life. I became more active in school. If something happened, I had to be there. The first day of high school, I took this journalism class, and I told myself, “Someday, I’m going to be editor in chief.” In my last year the teacher named me editor in chief, and I was so happy. I was on cloud nine the whole year. I worked hard, and I knew what I was doing. He appointed me because he knew I could do the job. That was the first big thing I accomplished. I had a lot of fun in high school. My last year was a blast.

I hate to be left behind. When I started here, I was 12, and I didn’t speak very well. I felt like I had 12 years of catching up. I worked twice as hard as other kids. I had to do twice as much just to keep up with them. Maybe that started the whole thing of pushing myself.

I’m not committed to a profession yet. I’m still shopping around to see what I do best and what I like best. I thought about becoming a doctor. One summer I was in this program called Upward Bound at CSUN for six weeks. Someone opened a door and banged a girl in the eyebrow, and it started to bleed. I went cold. I felt this strange feeling starting from my tummy. I said, “No way I’m going to see this 24 hours a day for the rest of my life.” That’s when I decided that I was never going to be a doctor.

I don’t think I would fit in at home, I mean in Thailand, anymore. I started working a year ago, when I was 17. If I wanted a jacket, I could buy it for myself. I didn’t have to wait. I didn’t have to beg. People in Thailand at 17 don’t need a job. Their parents provide everything. Even if you are not so well off, you can afford a couple of servants. I wouldn’t fit in where you have someone wait on you all day long.