In the passage, “The Good Immigrant Student”, Minh Nguyen writes about herself growing up and learning the difficulty immigrant children have. She had to fit in school and act like the other kids there. From an early age she had to “Americanize” because her mother believed that the American culture will take over. She could not live the double life like other immigrant kids because she wanted to go through school unnoticed. As she grew up, she forgot who she was. She became anxious and shy because she had to act like the “good immigrant student.”

In paragraph 28 Nguyen states, “I would like to make a broad, accurate statement about immigrant children in schools. I would like to speak for them (us). I hesitate; I cannot”. The meaning of this is that she wants to send a message to all immigrant students who struggled just like her growing up, but she cannot. Her experience can be different from those who went through the same thing. She realized she cannot speak for everyone in her community, because they could have gone through something completely different like her sister. Nguyen states, “My own sister for instance, was never shy as I was – she chose rebellion rather than silence.” This clearly points out that even though they had the same backstory and were raised the same way, she went through a different experience than her sister.

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