Doreen Taylor – Malaysia
Doreen immigrated to the United States from Malaysia in 2008. She is married to John, an American she met through a friend in the United States. After many months of phone conversations between John and Doreen, John went to Malaysia and they married with a traditional Malaysian ceremony. They now live in Warren. When Doreen talked to John for the first time, she was nervous, but he was patient, and now after 3 years and many classes at the English Center in Youngstown, her English is very good.
Doreen learned English in school in Malaysia, but they didn’t practice speaking the language. She speaks Malays, Chinese, and Indian and feels fortunate that there are women from Malaysia and Indonesia in this area with whom she can speak her language. She recalls that in Malaysia, she had Indian friends, Chinese friends, and Malay friends and they would speak their language to each other while in the presence of others, and those who did not understand the language, did not feel ignored.
What Doreen misses most about home are the dinners with family. Her mother cooked every day, and her four brothers and four sisters would go home every evening and have dinner together. There they would laugh and talk about everything that happened that day. Now she stays in touch through telephone calls and Facebook where she and her family post
pictures. When Doreen saw pictures of her family’s Chinese New Year celebration, she was very sad. Although she misses them, she wanted to be happy for them. Doreen also misses the weather in Malaysia. There, the climate is tropical with warm weather every day, and this allows people to go outside and participate in outdoor activities.
When Doreen’s father died, she went home for the funeral and she found everything to be so different from how she remembered it. Expressing her feelings for this country, Doreen says “This is a beautiful country and I love the environment here in this God blessed land – everything is good…. God blessed this country – the people here are blessed.”
