Janaina

I first met with Janaina at Union Grounds this week, and I was completely unsure of what to expect. I had no idea how old she was or what she looked like and I was worried I wouldn't be able to find her. Luckily she found me and we enjoyed a nice conversation about everything from her family to her english studies here at TCU.

Janaina is 40 years old and lives in Wetherford, Texas with her two teenage children and her husband (who participates in horse competitions!). She has only been living in the U.S. for less than a year and came here knowing next to no English. This amazed me because although she clearly was still learning English, her speaking was surprisingly good.

She is from the north of Brazil, the "amazon" as she called it, where she lived with her family on a ranch. Janaina said that she and her husband moved to the U.S. so that her kids could learn English while they were still young. Her kids go to private school in Wetherford where they sometimes don't like all of the religious teachings in class but nonetheless still enjoy it all. According to Janaina, her kids have picked up English much faster and easier than she has. They are also much better at multitasking as she pointed out multiple times, something she says is a generation thing.

Janaina has struggled with learning all of the different English pronunciations and writing, but she exclaims just how far she has come since she started at TCU. She loves her professors, remarking that they are so helpful with everything. In her free time she loves to ride horses, read (although now she tries to only read in English, which is still difficult for her), shop, and go to the movies.

One of the things she said multiple times about Texas is that everyone must follow all of the rules, and she feels much safer here than in Brazil. Her example was that in Brazil if there was a sign saying to not park somewhere, everyone would still park there. Here, she didn't realize this and got a ticket. Good ol' TCU campus police and their love of parking tickets. Also, in Brazil her teenage son could walk into a bar and be served alcohol, whereas here he cannot, something that she really likes. She thinks that all the rules are good for her kids growing up.

Overall the whole conversation was very fun and unique. I love that we are getting this opportunity to meet people from other cultures and learn about their new experiences here in Texas.