Culture shock

I have experienced a lot of culture shock in my life. My first memory of culture shock was when I moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Austin, Texas.

Albuquerque has a lot of crime. My middle school had a gang problem. Some kid was shot after school one day because he was dressed in rival gang colors. We had to walk through metal detectors to come to school, like at the airport. Once a kid used mace in the cafeteria and we couldn't eat there for a week. It was a tough place. At my school in Albuquerque, I could not leave my backpack anywhere because it would be stolen. Kids were very, very tough.

Then I moved to Austin. At my new school, kids went to lunch and everyone threw their backpack into a big pile of backpacks in the cafeteria. I would not leave my backpack with the other backpacks because I thought it would be stolen. I didn't leave my backpack there for several months. I was also surprised because people were nice to me. I expected the other students to test the new girl, so I tried to be extra tough. I thought, everyone will know not to pick on me if I'm extra tough. But no one picked on me. They helped me and were super-nice.

It took me a long time to trust that people didn't steal. I liked that there was no violence or gang problem at the new school, but I missed my old school for the following reasons:

1. In Albuquerque, almost everyone spoke Spanish and knew about Indian cultures. At my new school, people were ignorant about Indians and hateful of Hispanic people.
2. At my old school, the English and Spanish teachers taught us interesting books and let us choose what we wanted to read and write. In Austin, they only taught us grammar, which I found boring. I hated my new subjects in school.