The “American Bible”

            Both of my parents immigrated to the United States in the 1970’s from the state of Durango in Mexico.  My mother came to the U.S. in 1973 seeking better opportunities for herself and her future children.  She came here only with her older sister and settled in Aurora, Illinois working on assembly lines.  My father came to the U.S. in 1978 also from Durango and left behind a well paying job for what he saw as a future full of opportunities for him and his family, he too settled in Aurora, Illinois. 

For this section I’ve chosen a copy of The New World Spanish/English English/Spanish Dictionary to represent my family's migration to the U.S.  I chose this item because it was something that my father purchased soon after arriving in Illinois and something he came to greatly appreciate.  My father carried this dictionary with him virtually everywhere the first three or four years of his life in the U.S.  Today, he jokingly calls it his “American Bible,” saying that it reminds him of the worn out Bibles older women in Mexico often tote around.  It was this dictionary that helped my father learn and master what English he could in order to help him obtain work in a town where most employers did not speak a word of Spanish.  Furthermore, it helped my father teach many of his friends the proper spelling of English words as well as proper pronunciation.  To me this represents the determination my father had to further himself in a country that was completely foreign to him and it also represents the struggle of language many immigrants face upon arriving in the U.S.  Oddly enough, this very dictionary currently resides in my personal book collection and serves as my tool to master the spelling and proper pronunciation of Spanish words.

  Author:  Lucia Luna