We moved to the states when I was around 4 years old, my mom spoke no English whats so ever (I should mention that my mom was pregnant at the time with my brother) and my dad lived in Australia for many years so he was a native English speaker.

My dad had a cousin that lived in the states, and we stayed at his home with my aunt and cousins until my dad found a job and settled in to a new country with many challenges, especially if you did not speak the language. My dad found work a few weeks later and my mom gave birth, we moved to our own apartment and life went on. During this whole time my mom still spoke no English, shopping at the supermarket was a daily challenge for her. She would try to find Greek grocery stores, (but these were deli’s not really supermarkets), because that was the only way she was able to communicate. There were many times when my mom would wait until my dad had a day off from work to go to the supermarket so that he could help her with the grocery shopping. 🙂

The apartment we rented was quite big from what I remember and our bedrooms were far from the kitchen. While my brother was sleeping my mom would spend her time in the kitchen cooking, and ironing, besides the other everyday chores that were necessary, and there was a small black and white table TV set that she would have on for a few hours during the day. I remember one day I was coming into the kitchen from my bedroom and I heard my mom trying to pronoun words in English. 🙂 My