“Your Mom has a beautiful accent.” “Your Mom’s accent is so cool!” That’s the first thing everyone says to me when they first meet my Mother. When I hear her, I just hear my Mom, nothing sounds off. It wasn’t until recently that I fully understood what her accent really meant: she’s an immigrant!
My Mom came to the US when she was 20. Now she’s 59 and has lived in the U.S. for almost twice as long as she lived in England. I just turned 20 myself, if I was my mother I would be moving to a different country and starting anew right now. That’s crazy! Before my Mom moved to the U.S. she spent my entire lifetimes worth growing up in another country. When I was a kid we used to visit England and go on “little holidays” to a caravan park. 
When I was a kid, we used to hunt crabs and feed ducks; I never appreciated why we did this, but like clockwork every summer – we did. We used to stand on this little bridge where the ducks would swarm us as we engorged them with bread. For the crabs, we used to have this little metal cage we would fill with meat, and then lower into a sand pit. When we would return an hour later the cage would always be teaming with crabs.
She told me about how her Dad, my grandfather, used to climb onto a little stage and sing “I'm on top of the world” to them. CLICK… “used to.” My Mom used to come to the caravan park with her parents!  Never having met my grandfather, it makes me wonder what kind of man he was and how much love he gave to my Mom when she grew up. 
Understanding my Mom's childhood has made me appreciate her being an immigrant so much more.

– Austen

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant