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Life in a new world
Life in Utica took some getting used to for Jasmin Jalca Mendoza. When she moved here from Ecuador last summer, she was a little shocked, she says. All of the signs were in English, she only saw Americans and everything from the food to the language was very different from what she knew. But in the year since her family came here — after winning a visa lottery they had applied for years earlier —Jalca Mendoza has come to appreciate her new life. Here, there is security, she says. People look out for one another. The elderly are taken care of. And children can ride their bikes in the streets without their parents worrying about them. “We live better here,” she says. “If I have this opportunity, I cannot waste it.” When she gets older, she wants to become an architect. But in the meantime, she’s having fun just being a teenager. She loves to study math and art at Thomas R. Proctor Senior High School. She hangs out with her friends. And recently, she learned to fish. She even shares her favorite Ecuadorian food and music with her new friends. “It’s a perfect life,” she says. |
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