According to the 2010 census, Rolla’s population demographic was 86.71 percent White. Meaning that if one attends Rolla high school, there is a strong chance that they are an average white, American-looking kid. But for others, this isn’t necessarily the case. While Americans can be from any kind of ethnicity or people, some kids and their parents come from a different part of the world. Whether they came for education, for a better life or for opportunities is not important. What is important is that they and their families are now Americans.

Anwaar Ibrahim

“My dad was born in Sudan, and my mom is from Egypt. They got married and had me and when I was two; they left Sudan and came here. They just came here looking for a better life like most people and I definitely am glad they did. I feel like my life in America is a lot better than what my life would be like in Sudan. Sudanese culture is very different from American culture for sure. For starters, Sudanese culture is really sexist. There’s lots of stuff like men always get to eat before women, and women have to cover themselves up in front of men and women have to spend their time cleaning and cooking and stuff like that. It’s stuff like that that makes me kind of opposed it because I am a feminist, which is almost entirely a result of culture. There’s some stuff I find charming about Sudanese culture. For example, everything is very family and community orientated. Every little village is like a massive family and being a good neighbor is a fundamental of life over there. You can tell from looking at me that I’m different; I’m Muslim, black and wear a headscarf; I don’t feel ‘different’ per se but if I had to describe it, I’d say sometimes I feel like a red bead on a necklace full of blue beads. In spite of all the stuff that might make me look different, I identify as an American, and I am happy that I live here. The only thing that really makes me feel guilty in the sense of ‘not acting Sudanese enough’ is that I’m just not as enthusiastic about my original culture as my mom. For example, on [Sudanese holiday I forgot how to spell] my mom makes thousands of traditional cookies, because of how community orientated Sudanese culture is, but because we live in America without that type of community, we just have a bunch of cookies lying around.”

Yessica Guzman

“My parents were born in Mexico and left for the United States before me and my brother ewre born so that we would have more chances for a better life. Even though I wasn’t born there, I feel like I am extremely in touch with Mexican culture; I go back all the time and I am completely fluent in Spanish. I like America a lot, but one thing from Mexican culture that I wish was in American culture is how people, families and communities stick together. For example, at a dinner even if you’re not eating or you don’t like the food you’ll still be sitting at the table just so that you can be there. It’s kind of hard to describe but I think most Americans are taken aback when they see that type of thing. Like when someone comes to my house and we’re speaking Spanish or listening to Spanish music or I’m in the kitchen with my mom and we’re cooking and dancing or something, people will be like ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ and that reaction is just because Mexicans have a need to connect and work together instead of having your mom just do your cooking and laundry and chores and everything for you. We’re really independent but we all know how to work together. Also in Mexico, there’s just a lot of cultural pride and identity and stuff like that that’s just not up here. In my opinion, the biggest cultural distinction between America and Mexico is work ethic. Down there, the attitude towards work is that a job is a job and it’s part of your responsibility and personal integrity to do it well. Up here it’s more like a job is a paycheck. People in Mexico know how to work and they do it even if they’re making below minimum wage. Because of that influence, I get a lot of job opportunities and teachers look at me positively because I know how to work hard. I also understand what it is like to not have something and that really inspires me to do more up here. Mexico is not perfect though. I dpn’t likestuff like the drug cartels and the corruption and the crime. When you go there you do have to watch where you step and not go out alone at night and stuff. Because of those things I probably won’t move back and live there in the future.The fact that me and my family are American now is kind of hard on my parents because even though we all have a better life, there’s a greater culture of snobbishness up here. In Mexico people are straight up with each other so if someone is being lazy or spreading rumors about you, you confront them and just tell them that they need to stop or you will shut them out of your life. But here there’s always a type of social back-shadow and my mom especially doesn’t like that.”

Vasilisa Shamina

“My mom and I came from Russia. I was born in Yaroslavl, which is a few hours from Moscow. My mom and I lived there for a few years. We left when I was four because my mom met my step dad and they got married and we moved here to Rolla. My mom and my biological dad were together until I was about two years old and then they split up, so it was just my mom and I. My mom was a lawyer in Russia. She met my step dad who is a professor at S&T coincidentally and they liked each other a lot so they just got married and came here. My mom also just moved here for better opportunities and stuff like that too. I feel like I’m really in touch with my heritage. I speak fluent Russian and I really understand Russian culture. My favorite thing about Russia is the culture surrounding food. It’s like having your whole family eating a meal and coming together. A dinner can last for four or five hours just because of all the talking people do. It just really brings everyone together in Russia. Overall, I’m pretty happy with my mom’s decision to bring us over here because the standard of life and government are just better here. Obviously, America just has better opportunities for me so yeah. I wouldn’t say that I’m happy I don’t live there, but I am happy that I live here. I would say that if there was a major difference between Russia and American culture, it would be that here is much warmer and more welcoming, bu it’s also snobbish here a bit too. For example, when you walk down the street here and you see a random stranger, it’s totally okay to smile at them or something. Over there, it’s a lot less friendly tightly knit than here. I wouldn’t say that my mom and me coming from Russia affects my day to day life because I’ve been living here since I was five and I don’t really notice differences. When I go over there or my grandparents come over here, I do notice differences. For example, if I go over there and I’m like, overly-friendly or say thank you or please too much, it’s just weird for people and they look at me funny. My mom really doesn’t have a problem with me growing up here and acting like any other American teenager. She acts pretty American too. My grandparents probably feel like I’m not staying true to my culture so if I were to go live with them I would probably be different. Me and my mom both speak Russian at home and on the phone and we both care about preserving the fact that we’re from Russia so I feel like I am a pretty good mix of cultures. Most people I meet probably learn that I’m Russian pretty quickly because of my name and stuff. Most people think it’s cool that I can speak Russian and am from there but other than that I wouldn’t say that being Russian affects my daily life much at all. I don’t do anything that’s really out of the ordinary that would indicate that I’m not American and Russian culture isn’t really different enough from American culture in the first place. If somebody randomly asked me if I identify as Russian or American, I would say I was born in Russia, so I’m technically Russian, but completely raised in America. Culturally I’m almost 100 percent American through customs and morals and the way I talk and the way I dress. But still, I feel like so many aspects of Russian culture play into who I am that it’s not fair to ignore that altogether.”

Adem Malone

“My dad’s from New Jersey but my mom came to America from Istanbul, Turkey for educational purposes. She had the top scores in her school so she came to MS&T. She met my dad because he was an English professor for non-natives. After my mom got married to my dad and had me and my sister Aysen the Turkish government wanted her back in Turkey because they paid for her education, so we had court trials because if we wanted to stay in the U.S, we had to pay a $100,000 fine to the Turkish government. Over the duration of the court cases, the Turkish government changed the fine for what my mom did from $100,000 to only $10,000. So we agreed to pay that amount and we’ve been in America ever since. I usually go back to Turkey for summers. I haven’t been able to go in recent years because of summer school and stuff. Whenever we go, we spend about two months there. We go to Istanbul first, and see my grandma and grandpa and a few of my uncles. Then we go to Ankara and see my mom’s sister and my cousins. We also go to a village outside of Konya, which is a big city where my other uncle and aunt live. After that we go back to Istanbul back for two weeks, then we go back to the U.S. I would say that the influence of Turkish culture has been negative on me. Me and my sister aren’t the best at English and that’s because we learned Turkish first but our experience with Turkish is limited, although my sister ois better at Turkish than me because she spent a lot of time over there when she was younger. We weren’t exposed to English as much as other kids and I’d say that knowing Turkish has affected my English skills dramatically; sometimes I have a hard time pronouncing words. I feel like I’m lacking in Turkish and English because I was never put completely into either culture, but was only half immersed in both cultures. It has definitely been positive for me too though. My Turkish isn’t that bad and normally when you learn a language in school it’s really hard to speak it fluently because you have to be exposed to it a bunch in order to actually be any good at it. Normally when you’re learning a language and you learn a new word you have to think of what that word is in English and then you use it. But since me and my sister learned Turkish at a young age we can just think of the Turkish word and then say it. One of the greatest differences between me and most Americans is religion. My dad is Catholic but my mom is Muslim and since most children adopt their mother’s religion me and my sister are Muslim. Recently, I’ve kind of gone away from that; I don’t really practice Islam anymore. But when I was younger, my mom would take us to the mosque in Rolla and we would do the prayers and play with other Turkish kids and we didn’t eat pork. My mom was never really strict about her religion though. For example, I first realized I couldn’t eat pork when I was eight because my mom had never told me and I had been eating pork all my life until then. My mom never forced the religion on us but we just adopted it because it’s our mom’s religion. I feel like other than that I have lived life that’s pretty similar to most american kids. I spend way more time here and my dad is American. If it makes sense, I’d say I identify as one third Turkish, and two thirds American. I really enjoy being American as well as Turkish. Lots of people find the fact that I’m half-Turkish to be really interesting, and when I go to Turkey lots of people think its interesting that I’m also American. I don’t even notice many differences except for language. Most Turkish people look like somebody we’d see walking around here. I classify Turkey as my second home, but my first home is America. I wouldn’t want to live in Turkey because I don’t think Turkey is exactly where it needs to be as a nation in order for me to live there permanently. America is really a great country and it is no mistake as to why so many say it is the greatest country on Earth.”

Jesse Liu

“My parents came from southwestern China and they both came here mainly for college; my dad went to Queens University in Kansas, because that was the only school that would give him a full ride scholarship and pay for his living costs. He got his bachelors degree in China then went to Queens to get his masters. After that, he couldn’t afford to get my mom over so he had to get a job. When he first came over, he had one empty suitcase, one that was half full and twenty-three dollars and thirty-three cents; he specifically remembers counting it because it was all he had. So he worked here for a year and a half, then my mom came over. They were already married and they kept their relationship going on monthly phone calls because it was really expensive. They were living at Queens University but my mom hated Queens University because it was cold and the part of China they come from is pretty hot. So my dad transferred to Texas A&M and got his Ph.D there. My mom got her masters and Ph.D there too. What made my dad special was that at the time in China, the cultural revolution didn’t allow anyone to go to college but his year was the first that they allowed to go to college, so that year the standards were crazy high and he had to get really high scores on a bunch of tests to come over; he did though and that’s why I’m here today. Having grown up with Chinese culture at home and American culture everywhere else has changed my life a lot from most kids. On the outside I know I look like a normal Asian-American kid, but really I was raised in a more traditional Chinese culture. For example, I was never able to go out and play with friends when I was a kid without asking my parents first. I always had to study first and focus on school. My parents are stricter than most of my friends parents, but they are definitely not as strict as most Asian parents. To an extent, I think it has been hard on my parents to see me grow up so differently from them culturally wise. Of course they love me, I’m their child, but they don’t like some aspects of American teenage culture. In Chinese culture, being a good kid means you study a lot and you don’t go out and act independently. But American culture is so much more relaxed and not really as caring, and that really goes against Chinese culture which focuses on listening to your parents, respect and doing what you’re supposed to. Confucius taught that young people need to listen to their elders and respect their parents, so that’s really prevalent. At first when I would act independent it was hard for them cause I would be like ‘I wanna be with my friends! I do what I want! I’m strong, beautiful and independent!’ That was hard for my parents because they were like “Oh, we weren’t like that! He’s a punk!” But they’ve done a really good job of adjusting to that. My mom and dad are both very intelligent people and they read a lot so they’ve gotten pretty familiar with American teenage culture and I’m feel really fortunate to have parents who understand. Another thing is that they are really liberal towards movies and music because their parents were really restricting, so in response to that they are like ‘You can watch and listen to whatever you want! Be happy!’ with me. Another thing that’s great about my parents is that they feel like, ‘You live in America so it’s okay to be American but you still need to respect Chinese culture.’ I really respect Chinese culture and I love my Chinese heritage so I still represent that in a lot of ways in my life. Sometimes I feel pressure to be more true to my heritage; like I should be eating some noodles instead of a burger. I feel like I’m a pretty good mix but sometimes I still feel like I’m not really acting Asian. It bothers me when I see other Asian kids and they’re just acting like white kids. In my personal opinion, I feel like if you’re Chinese then you need to respect Chinese culture. You can be Americanized because you were born in America and stuff, but remember that you’re Chinese-American or Asian-American; Asian and Chinese are still in there, and you have to respect that. If there was anything I don’t like about Chinese culture, it is definitely their system of discipline. In America if you don’t turn in a homework assignment then you get a zero or the teacher yells at you. But in China you go up in front of the class and they yell insults at you and throw things at you and in some more rural areas teachers can hit kids with rulers and stuff. Discipline wise I don’t want to be Chinese but American cause I feel like that’s a better system. Overall, I couldn’t be happier with my heritage. I know its part of the stereotype, but I think that my parents coming from China has made me try so much harder in school. The thing people overlook about strict Asian parents is that most of them grew up in really terrible times; starving and working their butts off every day without ny results. So when they come to America where people can shape their own destinies they try so hard to make sure that their kids are as far away from poverty as possible. They just want to make sure that their kids have a secure future and lots of Asian parents see going to a good college as the best way to guarantee that for them.”