East Haven High School (EHHS) junior Natalia Cantarero was honored by the East Haven Chamber of Commerce (CoC) last month, winning its Student of the Year award. Reflecting on her move from her native country of Spain to the community of East Haven, Natalia says the transition was not easy in the beginning, but it fills her with pride to see she went from not knowing much English to being among the top of her class within just two years.

“It means a lot because when I first got here, it was very difficult for me—new language, new school, and everything. It’s like a big step for me, so it makes me happy and proud,” Natalia says.

Natalia is originally from Barcelona and remembers relocating to East Haven on Aug. 29, 2020, for her freshman year of American high school. She describes Barcelona as a “really pretty” city, “all sunny and warm,” with a familial way of life.

“You will walk everywhere, and everyone knows each other. So it’s like a big family,” she says.

But moving from one’s former home country to another does not come without some cultural shocks, a few of which Natalia experienced. She mentions that while East Haven is smaller than Barcelona, transportation makes that seem like an illusion.

[East Haven] is really little, but it feels bigger when you experience it. Because you can go walking everywhere in Spain, and now I go here, and you have to use the car to go to the park, to go to shop [for] groceries and stuff,” Natalia explains.

Having moved to East Haven amid the coronavirus pandemic, she remembers the difficulties that came with that move. The global health crisis hindered the immediate opportunity to meet new friends at school and experience her new hometown.

“I thought it was gonna be like High School Musical…it was shocking because I was waiting for something different.”

As a result, Natalia had to perform her entire first year of high school over Zoom. But since then, she has risen to be an academically successful junior at EHHS, which has led to her honor from the CoC. Part of that process was overcoming a language barrier. She says that while students in Spain study the English tongue as young as five years old, “it’s like the basics—the colors, the numbers. And that’s it.”

Natalia admits that she felt lost for some time because of that barrier.

“My two first years, I was depressed, so I didn’t put in a lot of effort. I had terrible grades. My sophomore year, the last quarter, I was like, ‘I have to change.’ Because that’s why we moved—to have a better future. I was not doing that. I was wasting everything—my time and the effort my mom and dad put to move. So I was like, ‘I have to change,’ and that’s what I did. So my junior year, and my last quarter of sophomore year, all my grades were up from F’s and C’s to A’s and B’s.”

But rather than reading a language text, her brother brought her to places in town where she could practice speaking English by having everyday interactions with people at grocery stores and restaurants, which felt like a more natural way to learn.

“I also made my best friend. She was born here. So we only talk in English in practice,” Natalia says. “All the teachers were really nice. They were able to help me.”

Natalia said EHHS teachers provided resources for her in her native language, but she insisted she do work in English to further progress linguistically.

“I started having all the work and assignments in English so I could force myself to understand it.”

Now a fluent speaker, she knows three languages in total: Spanish, English, and Catalan, a distinct tongue in Spain that is spoken by many in Barcelona. Looking back on it, it makes her proud to have gone from not understanding English beyond its basics and her lower grades to now being a high-performing student in her class in a new home of East Haven to look for “a better future.”

With her junior year coming to a close, Natalia is now in the college preparation stages of high school. She is considering majoring in chemistry, her favorite subject, and has looked at schools, including the University of Connecticut and Providence College.

“And maybe Boston College. My best friend is going to Boston College, and so that’d be nice.”