“The Trials and Tribulations of Leaving Your Country to Find Opportunities”

Diya Goyal

In this speech I will be talking about my journey from India then Singapore and finally to America. I will talk about feeling like an outsider everywhere I traveled to; because of the color of my skin, because of my accent, because of my morals and lastly because of my standard of living. The key points that I will be discussing are stories from my lived experience as a brown, Indian girl from a small town, how I came about to love English as a language and pursue it, how my parents did not initially support me but came around eventually, how I found opportunities for myself to create space where I enforced agency and was surrounded by people who were open-minded and willing to accommodate me into their space despite our differences and lastly, all that it takes to be away from home is creating a home for yourself.