My First Year in America

How can I forget?

My first year in America felt like stepping into another world—one with no fences, no guards, no one to stop me from going where I wanted. I could walk, run, drive—forever if I wished. The open road stretched out like an invitation. After years behind barbed wire, that freedom felt almost unreal.

I still remember my first snow. It was late at night, maybe three in the morning. My younger sister, younger brother, and I were huddled at the window in my mother’s bedroom—though really, it was all our bedroom. We all slept together in one cozy space, our breath fogging the glass as we pressed our faces close.

Outside, the sky was letting down a gentle shower of white. The flakes floated silently under the streetlight, piling on the dark pavement, softening the world. My little brother’s smile was wide and bright as he watched it fall, as if magic had finally found its way to us. My mother was happy. We were happy.

We didn’t have much—just a two-bedroom apartment we shared with my older sister, her husband, and my little nephew—but it was a new beginning. I was in 9th grade. My brother and sister were in school too. We were learning English, learning how to be part of this new country, learning how to dream again.

I loved America from the start. I loved the people who helped us settle here. I still remember them, even after thirty-nine years—the retired Caucasian couple from the church who welcomed us with warmth, the Vietnamese man sent by the church to tutor me in math every Sunday. Their kindness was a gift I will never forget.

I loved everything—the smell of new grocery stores, the hum of cars on the freeway, the strange magic of daylight saving time. It was all so new, so full of possibility.

And yet, beneath all that joy, something darker still followed me.

Even as I sat in classrooms or walked through quiet suburban streets, the refugee camp haunted me. During my college years, I often had the same recurring nightmare—that I was still in Thailand, still trapped behind the barbed wire, unable to leave. I would wake up with my heart pounding, the walls of the camp still fresh in my mind, only to remember I was free.

Freedom, I was learning, is not just about where you are. It’s also about where your mind is.