That girl in your fourth period who acts and talks like everyone does, she goes home to her parents who are first generation immigrants.

To her parents who came to America for the American Dream, they want her to push herself and do well in school where education is free and given to anyone who wants to learn and better themselves.  In the United States, public education is provided by the government at no cost.  In foreign countries around the world today, education is flawed because of the circumstances that children and parents often have to go through. To get their kids an education, parent would have to deal with overcrowded classrooms and schools that do not have electricity and places where transportation to schools is not provided. It makes it even harder to achieve an educational degree.

With foreign students, they have parents at home who push them harder to achieve their goals. In the home, academic success is reinforced because immigrant parents want their students to not take for granted what is free and given in the United States.   It is something that isn’t available in their home countries and is a privilege that they want their kids to embrace. Foreign parents work hard for their children and the extended families they leave behind in their home country might be victims of caste systems or products of situations where they are discriminated because of their race, religion, and ethnicity or even if in their home countries, they cannot find jobs to support their families.

After immigrant families have arrived here and have settled into their new lives, these first generation parents often are thrifty with their income. Immigrant parents often don’t go out to eat with their children, they stay at home and cook and save everything they have or send it back to their home country to family. 

Immigrants that often come to the United States dream and desire to become United States citizens. Some immigrants with appropriate immigration visas have a chance at becoming United States citizens and having all the privileges that citizens have here in America.  Other immigrants overstay a visa or find ways to circumvent the legal border crossings and bring their families over for a better life.