199. Battling Discrimination and Discovering Self-Worth in a New Country

In this Immigrant Experience interview, we’ll hear the story of Marcelo Silveira, who moved from Brazil to the U.S. for work. In this interview Marcelo openly talks about his experience as an immigrant and the rough start he had when he first moved to the U.S. He talks about the loss of identity as an immigrant and the need to reinvent himself. He also talks about what it was like to be facing small incidents of discrimination, that affected his self-worth and confidence. But most importantly he will tell us about overcoming all obstacles and reinventing himself in this new country. Marcelo is an inspiration and an active member in our community, and I’m proud to call him our student.

Every immigrant has a story. A story about their journey, their identity, their accomplishments and struggles, and of course, the place of English in it. Many of my students are immigrants, I was an immigrant myself. There are commonalities, for sure, but each story is unique, a story worth telling and listening to.

If you’d like to share your English story as an immigrant, we’d be happy to hear it (click here https://bit.ly/3GSp6d4). During the next few months I’ll share some of your stories, answer questions you might have, and host immigrants, as well as people whose work involves English and the immigrant experience.

Some videos on the things we talked about with Marcelo:

• How to gain confidence in your English https://hadarshemesh.com/magazine/confidence-in-english/
• Why it’s not cool to talk about people’s accents https://www.instagram.com/p/CRCErfFCplG/
• DON’T ASK me about my ACCENT https://hadarshemesh.com/magazine/dont-ask-about-my-accent/

Other guests of the Immigrant Experience Series: 

• Rita’s Immigration journey https://hadarshemesh.com/podcast/192/