When my family first moved here we knew no one, I was barely a year old and my sister was still a baby. Along with getting used to the American lifestyle, my mother had to find some friends. All her friends from back in England seemed to be having such a good time while she cared for her kids alone. She made a facebook post looking for anyone with kids to hang out with. The people who responded are still some of her best friends and two stuck out in particular because they were British as well. Sally and Kirsty, with their same one-boy-one-girl kind of family. Once thanksgiving rolled around we all had nowhere to go, no American family to celebrate with. We decided to escape upstate and do our British version of thanksgiving, A big roast with Turkey, Salads, vegetables and of course, tea with desert. Every year this tradition would hold strong, sometime along the way us kids began making little short films, creating little scary stories filled with fight scenes, always having a big showing on the last night of the trip. Looking back on these movies, they documented our changes, not only physical but also in character. We became funnier, more confident and more accepting of our identity. Even the short films improved. Next month we head out for the final thanksgiving, the older siblings graduate this year and one family moves back to England this summer. The last year will be sad but we will always have the movies as a documentation of our time, our tradition and our lives.

– Oliver Austen-Brown

Relationship:  Im/migrant who arrived as a child Im/migrant who arrived as a child