M.A.
I'm originally from Peru. When I went to college, my major was elementary school education. I worked in Peru for five years, and I was doing great. The first year was challenging, and then my second year was much better. I had a good salary because I was working for a private school. My third and fourth years went by, and after that, I found that there was no challenge in my life. During my fifth year of teaching, I heard that the Japanese Embassy in Peru was offering scholarships to study and research in Japan, and my mom heard the same news on the radio. The principal of the school also told me about the opportunity because he had received a fax. Everyone was telling me about it, so I thought, "Why not apply?"
The scholarship application process was tough. I had to take a test and do an interview. I called the contact on the advertisement and asked if they were still offering scholarships. He told me that the requirements were having English skills, a degree, a teaching license, and at least four years of working experience. I met all the requirements, and I applied to take the test. We also didn't know what was going to be on the test, so we didn't know what to study. The test was in English. I passed the test, and then I went through an interview with seven interviewers. All of them talked to me in Spanish, and one used English. My English was awful, so I was nervous. I got a full MONBUSHO scholarship and went to Japan in 1999.
Seven students like me went to do research. Before we went to Japan, all the scholarship recipients met at the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru. There was an engineer, a doctor, a dentist, a biologist, and three of us were teachers. We had a special dinner and preparation to live in Japan. All of us became friends. At that time we had the internet, so we chatted from different areas of Japan. We are still friends because we have been in touch all this time.
We went to different prefectures, which are like American states. I went to the furthest place south, which is called the countryside. I love that place, and I had a good time. I studied Japanese, and it was really frustrating. I wanted to go home after two months because it was really tough, but they were paying me to study - that was the condition. I told my teacher that I wanted to go back to Peru and that I was quitting. I said that maybe they made a mistake in choosing the right person. The teacher told me that I had a switch in my brain that I needed to turn on to learn Japanese. It was really difficult to communicate with him because our common language was English, and my English wasn't as good as my Japanese teacher. He told me to keep trying, keep studying.
I had to make the decision to face the challenge or quit. It would have been a good time to quit because I still had my airplane ticket to go home, but I remembered that the challenge is why I came, and I liked the challenge. I stayed and didn't quit. I kept studying for six months. Then I went to another prefecture to start doing my research.
It was a big challenge that I wanted, and I got it. I stayed there for a year and a half while I finished my studies. I don't regret my choice at all. After finishing my research, I went back to Peru. That's when I applied for the job and came to America.
I actually didn't want to go to the United States. Most people think of the American Dream and that's why they go there, but I didn't. When I was looking for a job, my aunt saw a very small ad in a newspaper and told me, "Monica, look, there is an ad and they are looking for teachers." I saw the ad and said, "Okay, where? The States? Why not!" I met the person who posted the ad and she interviewed me. She told me that it was going to be tough. I didn't know how hard it would really be, and I didn’t care how hard it would be.
The procedure of moving to the US took a really long time. It wasn't like I could just go right away. The process took about a year, and I didn't know it would take that long. I had to send many documents and many papers. Then I had to wait for a principal at a school to choose me. Every month, I wrote to the Amity Institute, which I was going through, letting them know that I was really interested.
Suddenly they told me that there was somebody in Minnesota who wanted to interview me. I was interviewed by the principal via telephone. I was chosen and everything moved fast because I had a J-1 visa, which is for exchange. I went there and started teaching in September 2002, and I worked there for three years.
After working there for three years, I had to leave because of my visa. The school I was working at didn't know that I had to leave, and I had just found out, so they went to a Minnesota congressman to ask for an appeal for me to stay in the States. It didn't work.
Our daughter was born in Tokyo, Japan, and we raised and educated her there until she was 6 years old. In 2019, my husband stayed working in Tokyo. I went back to Peru again to raise my daughter there. We enrolled our daughter in a private school and she studied first and second grade. At the end of 2020, we went back to Tokyo to reunite with my husband.
I have lived abroad a lot, but it's hard for me to use the word “home” because home is Lima, home is Tokyo, and home is Moorhead. For me, home is all three countries. I love all of them. I can't say and don't want to say that I belong to one culture or another because I belong to the Peruvian group, I belong to the Japanese group, and I even belong to the American group. Asking me to choose one is like asking me to cut off one arm or one leg. I love each of the cultures. I appreciate the languages. I appreciate every single person.
The weather was maybe the hardest thing to get used to in Moorhead, and also the language. In the beginning, I was teaching third grade, and sometimes my pronunciations weren't right and the students would be confused. I found that a good sense of humor is the best thing you can do to make your life easier.
I loved Moorhead, though, especially as a teacher, because it was my best job and it challenged me. In Peru, I was a monolingual school teacher, but there I'm an English and Spanish teacher. I am an immersion teacher. For me, that's a challenge, and I like it. When I was there I was not just teaching the language - I was teaching the culture. When we understand the other person's culture, we will understand each other. Nobody is better than anybody - we're just different.
Lots of people, by looking at me, think I'm Chinese and not Peruvian. It has been a challenge to teach English in Japan because people look at me and think I can't teach English. Teaching Spanish has also been a challenge because my face doesn't show that I am a native speaker. Hopefully, in Moorhead, I can share my experience and help break the stereotype.
I have always wanted to go back to Moorhead because I loved my job and my friends are still there. The district wanted me back and I wanted to go back, but it didn't work because of different reasons. At last, this year, there was an opening. I applied, and I was rehired. Now I'm doing all the paperwork. I'm waiting for the documents. The visa is supposed to start this year in August, but I don't have any news. Right now is kind of a tough moment because I wish I knew so I could start packing.
My husband knows the area because when I was living there he came to visit, and he came with me when I went back to Moorhead to visit my friends in 2018 and again in 2020. I enrolled my daughter for one week at the school I had taught at so she could know what an American school is like. When we’re living in Japan, she is enrolled in a Japanese public school.
I'm raising my daughter to be trilingual in Japanese, Spanish, and English. She's a native speaker of Japanese. When they start out, multilingual children have lower proficiency in each of the languages compared to monolingual children, but at a certain point, their language skills exceed monolingual individuals. Raising my daughter trilingual is maybe my biggest challenge as a mother and teacher, but I know it's worth it. It's not just a language, it is a culture, which is tougher. People don’t appreciate their own country and culture until they lose it.
Depending on where we live, I switch last names to make life easier for everyone. In the States, we use one of our family names, and in Japan, we use the other. It is easier for people to say based on their language.
Now that I've been rehired to work for the same school in Moorhead again, I have to start over. My life has been starting over. It's tough. Even though I know what life in the United States is like, it's still tough to start over.
My goal for the future is to keep teaching. I would love to work for Concordia College or Minnesota State University because in Japan I've worked at a university, and it has been a good experience.
Maybe someday I will. I would like to go there and teach, no matter the subject - it can be culture, it can be language, Spanish or Japanese. I have so much spirit, and I have so many things to share with others. Sharing and understanding are what we need in this world.
In the end, she lived happily ever after.
The scholarship application process was tough. I had to take a test and do an interview. I called the contact on the advertisement and asked if they were still offering scholarships. He told me that the requirements were having English skills, a degree, a teaching license, and at least four years of working experience. I met all the requirements, and I applied to take the test. We also didn't know what was going to be on the test, so we didn't know what to study. The test was in English. I passed the test, and then I went through an interview with seven interviewers. All of them talked to me in Spanish, and one used English. My English was awful, so I was nervous. I got a full MONBUSHO scholarship and went to Japan in 1999.
Seven students like me went to do research. Before we went to Japan, all the scholarship recipients met at the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru. There was an engineer, a doctor, a dentist, a biologist, and three of us were teachers. We had a special dinner and preparation to live in Japan. All of us became friends. At that time we had the internet, so we chatted from different areas of Japan. We are still friends because we have been in touch all this time.
We went to different prefectures, which are like American states. I went to the furthest place south, which is called the countryside. I love that place, and I had a good time. I studied Japanese, and it was really frustrating. I wanted to go home after two months because it was really tough, but they were paying me to study - that was the condition. I told my teacher that I wanted to go back to Peru and that I was quitting. I said that maybe they made a mistake in choosing the right person. The teacher told me that I had a switch in my brain that I needed to turn on to learn Japanese. It was really difficult to communicate with him because our common language was English, and my English wasn't as good as my Japanese teacher. He told me to keep trying, keep studying.
I had to make the decision to face the challenge or quit. It would have been a good time to quit because I still had my airplane ticket to go home, but I remembered that the challenge is why I came, and I liked the challenge. I stayed and didn't quit. I kept studying for six months. Then I went to another prefecture to start doing my research.
It was a big challenge that I wanted, and I got it. I stayed there for a year and a half while I finished my studies. I don't regret my choice at all. After finishing my research, I went back to Peru. That's when I applied for the job and came to America.
I actually didn't want to go to the United States. Most people think of the American Dream and that's why they go there, but I didn't. When I was looking for a job, my aunt saw a very small ad in a newspaper and told me, "Monica, look, there is an ad and they are looking for teachers." I saw the ad and said, "Okay, where? The States? Why not!" I met the person who posted the ad and she interviewed me. She told me that it was going to be tough. I didn't know how hard it would really be, and I didn’t care how hard it would be.
The procedure of moving to the US took a really long time. It wasn't like I could just go right away. The process took about a year, and I didn't know it would take that long. I had to send many documents and many papers. Then I had to wait for a principal at a school to choose me. Every month, I wrote to the Amity Institute, which I was going through, letting them know that I was really interested.
Suddenly they told me that there was somebody in Minnesota who wanted to interview me. I was interviewed by the principal via telephone. I was chosen and everything moved fast because I had a J-1 visa, which is for exchange. I went there and started teaching in September 2002, and I worked there for three years.
After working there for three years, I had to leave because of my visa. The school I was working at didn't know that I had to leave, and I had just found out, so they went to a Minnesota congressman to ask for an appeal for me to stay in the States. It didn't work.
Our daughter was born in Tokyo, Japan, and we raised and educated her there until she was 6 years old. In 2019, my husband stayed working in Tokyo. I went back to Peru again to raise my daughter there. We enrolled our daughter in a private school and she studied first and second grade. At the end of 2020, we went back to Tokyo to reunite with my husband.
I have lived abroad a lot, but it's hard for me to use the word “home” because home is Lima, home is Tokyo, and home is Moorhead. For me, home is all three countries. I love all of them. I can't say and don't want to say that I belong to one culture or another because I belong to the Peruvian group, I belong to the Japanese group, and I even belong to the American group. Asking me to choose one is like asking me to cut off one arm or one leg. I love each of the cultures. I appreciate the languages. I appreciate every single person.
The weather was maybe the hardest thing to get used to in Moorhead, and also the language. In the beginning, I was teaching third grade, and sometimes my pronunciations weren't right and the students would be confused. I found that a good sense of humor is the best thing you can do to make your life easier.
I loved Moorhead, though, especially as a teacher, because it was my best job and it challenged me. In Peru, I was a monolingual school teacher, but there I'm an English and Spanish teacher. I am an immersion teacher. For me, that's a challenge, and I like it. When I was there I was not just teaching the language - I was teaching the culture. When we understand the other person's culture, we will understand each other. Nobody is better than anybody - we're just different.
Lots of people, by looking at me, think I'm Chinese and not Peruvian. It has been a challenge to teach English in Japan because people look at me and think I can't teach English. Teaching Spanish has also been a challenge because my face doesn't show that I am a native speaker. Hopefully, in Moorhead, I can share my experience and help break the stereotype.
I have always wanted to go back to Moorhead because I loved my job and my friends are still there. The district wanted me back and I wanted to go back, but it didn't work because of different reasons. At last, this year, there was an opening. I applied, and I was rehired. Now I'm doing all the paperwork. I'm waiting for the documents. The visa is supposed to start this year in August, but I don't have any news. Right now is kind of a tough moment because I wish I knew so I could start packing.
My husband knows the area because when I was living there he came to visit, and he came with me when I went back to Moorhead to visit my friends in 2018 and again in 2020. I enrolled my daughter for one week at the school I had taught at so she could know what an American school is like. When we’re living in Japan, she is enrolled in a Japanese public school.
I'm raising my daughter to be trilingual in Japanese, Spanish, and English. She's a native speaker of Japanese. When they start out, multilingual children have lower proficiency in each of the languages compared to monolingual children, but at a certain point, their language skills exceed monolingual individuals. Raising my daughter trilingual is maybe my biggest challenge as a mother and teacher, but I know it's worth it. It's not just a language, it is a culture, which is tougher. People don’t appreciate their own country and culture until they lose it.
Depending on where we live, I switch last names to make life easier for everyone. In the States, we use one of our family names, and in Japan, we use the other. It is easier for people to say based on their language.
Now that I've been rehired to work for the same school in Moorhead again, I have to start over. My life has been starting over. It's tough. Even though I know what life in the United States is like, it's still tough to start over.
My goal for the future is to keep teaching. I would love to work for Concordia College or Minnesota State University because in Japan I've worked at a university, and it has been a good experience.
Maybe someday I will. I would like to go there and teach, no matter the subject - it can be culture, it can be language, Spanish or Japanese. I have so much spirit, and I have so many things to share with others. Sharing and understanding are what we need in this world.
In the end, she lived happily ever after.