Until the summer of 2018, senior Luisa DAquino Lazarini and freshman Clara DAquino Lazarini lived in São Paulo, Brazil, in a cozy, blue house surrounded by fellow Brazilian neighborhood kids. Due to a better job offer from their father’s company, Luisa, Clara and their parents moved over 5,000 miles to the United States into a larger, modern house where they continued to speak their mother language, Portuguese. Since it was the middle of the summer when they moved to America, the sisters spent their summer together as they rarely had opportunities to interact with other people their age. 

“Our age gap was more apparent in Brazil, and I didn’t think of her as my friend. I’d just thought of her as my sister. Once we moved, since we didn’t go to school and meet new people, I only hung out with her all the time. Also, since we didn’t speak to other people, she was the only person I had to speak to in Portuguese, except for my parents. But she was the only person that understood what was going on at the time,” Luisa said.

When they first moved, Clara tried to stay positive despite moving thousands of miles away from the rest of her family, including her cousins and grandparents. Their family keeps in touch and tries to visit everyone in Brazil during the summer.

“My family is the number one thing in life. My family lives in the same city, and everybody would go to my grandma’s house. [They] live close to each other, and now we’re so far away, we miss birthdays and celebrations. I miss it so much,” Clara said. “I like to think that I got the opportunity to come here and have new birthdays and celebrations to do here.”

For Luisa, being apart from her family was hard, along with the distance from her friends. In Brazil, Luisa and Clara had one class for the whole year, and the teachers would change per subject. Compared to the U.S., taking multiple classes a day for each subject made it difficult for Luisa to develop friendships. However, similar to her sister, Luisa kept an optimistic attitude. 

“At first, I watched my friends [from Brazil] go out and post stuff, and I was just watching them from afar. It was upsetting to me, but I tried to make it positive. I [thought] ‘I love the US; it’s gonna be so cool,’” Luisa said. “I felt like a kid in a candy store because I could try everything out [because] I didn’t know any of the stores. [While] it was very upsetting and I missed everyone, I just tried to make the best of it.”

Luisa began learning English in sixth grade as part of the school curriculum in Brazil. On top of the English class she took in school, Luisa also took a private English class before she arrived in the U.S. Because she already was proficient in English, Luisa began eighth grade at West Middle upon arrival.

“It was weird at first because I thought everyone was speaking fast, and I was asking [people] to slow down a little bit,” Luisa said. “I didn’t know some of the terms and words people were saying all the time, so I had to ask them what they meant. I feel the best way to learn was by speaking it, so I got better over time.”

Meanwhile, Clara began learning English two months before the move. After moving, she enrolled in the English Speakers of Other Languages program at Green Trails Elementary for fifth grade. Then, Clara attended Central Middle, where she continued to improve her English, and because of her improvement, she transferred to West Middle for eighth grade.

“It was complicated, but I feel like it was so much easier because I was in the English learning program at school. Not only was I learning English at a slower pace than the normal English class, but I was learning with other people who had the same struggle as me. I think that since there were so many immigrants in the area, it was easier to communicate with everybody,” Clara said.

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Courtesy of Luisa DAquino Lazarini

Reading aloud “O Patinho Feio” or “The Ugly Duckling” in English, Luisa and Clara play at their grandparent’s house. Often when they visited their grandparents, the two spent quality sibling bonding time together. “My grandparent’s house was really small, so we had to learn how to play in that little apartment,” Luisa said. “My grandma loved playing with us. We’d play kitchen and cooking, and she would get uncooked rice, beans and stuff like that and put Tupperware around and [we’d say], ‘Oh my gosh, we're making our food.’”

Due to their family’s Brazilian accents, sometimes Luisa and Clara experienced microaggressions and have been asked stereotypical questions.

“Especially at restaurants, people would lose their patience easily when I was trying to say something and couldn’t get it out. Other times people asked, ‘Oh, would you live in a forest with monkeys and stuff?’ I get that people wanted to know more, but there’s very stereotypical things that people assume,” Luisa said.

Despite the negative interactions, they discovered a Brazilian community which they made close friends with. It started through a mutual connection and a party invite from their mom’s Facebook. At the party, Clara’s family introduced themselves and got along with the other Brazilian families. Life in the U.S. has been easier for Clara since gaining these friendships. 

“My Brazilian friends here had the same experience of moving because of their parent’s jobs in Brazil. It was more helpful and welcoming, especially because they were older than me, and they had already gone through what I had gone through,” Clara said. “I like having people who I can share experiences with because it’s nice to have a connection to someone you relate to.”

To stay connected and help within the Brazilian community, Luisa, Clara and their mom volunteer at Viva Brasil STL, a nonprofit organization that hosts cultural events and classes teaching Portuguese. Luisa manages the marketing for their Instagram, volunteers at their events and teaches young children Portuguese.

“My friend Bia and I were working at this event called Festa Junina. It was fun. We were talking with other people in Portuguese because most people were Brazilian there. Plus, we met a bunch of people our age that were also from Brazil,” Luisa said. “I’m getting a connection for my culture, but also, volunteering, in general, is good for the community. And I’m helping kids that might not have the opportunity to learn and speak Portuguese in their homes. Maybe they don’t have parents that speak it all the time or don’t want them to speak it. So if I’m [teaching], I’m helping them keep their culture too.”

When Luisa first made close friends in high school, she would often invite Clara to hang out with her and her friends. Now that they are both in high school, Clara has separate friends, but the two sisters still enjoy spending time together, such as watching movies every Friday.

“I have really bad anxiety, and I’ve worked on that, and it’s gotten better. [When] I was shy, my sister tried to include me in the things that she did, so that helped me, and she made me more outgoing,” Clara said. “It feels really good [to be included] because high school is very different. Not everybody’s going to try to include you, but I know that my sister always has my back and is always going to try to make me fit into the situation.”