ZS. H R.

Zamaria Suyapa Hernandez Reyes

“Coming into ninth grade knowing nothing was just scary. I didn’t know any English, nothing. I just wanted to be normal like everyone else. Other students understood lessons, they knew what they were doing -- that was the hardest part, that I didn’t know what was going on in class. I’d come home saying, ‘I hate it, I don’t want to do [it] anymore. I can’t understand anything,’ and my older sister would say, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll see, there’s gonna be a time that you know more stuff than me and I’m gonna ask about it.’ Which is funny, because it actually happened. I help her to say words in English. She’ll ask, ‘How do you say this word?’ I’ll say the word, and she’s like, ‘you see?’ I remember saying to her, ‘I will never learn English, I will never talk.’ And she would say, ‘you will, and you will see, and I will tell you that I was right.’ And she was right. I remember coming in after quarantine like normal, like everyone else. I laughed that day, my first day of junior year. I came into the library and Jeri was there. I started talking to her, and she was like, ‘oh my god, Zamaria, you’re speaking English?’ I was like, ‘yeah, you see, I only need to have COVID-19 happen to me.’ It was just funny how she reacted, like, wow. That means I changed a lot and I’m very proud of it. From not knowing how to even ask for a charger to having a whole, full conversation. That was like, wow, I did something right.”