My parents are from Russia--I am not. I was born in America and so I never really considered myself different from the other kids until, they started making fun of me because I didn't speak English. I was four years old, and so was my tormentor, a young boy who taunted me about my lack of English skills in Russian, just so that I would understand. "I can speak English!" I cried to my parents in Russian. The truth was that he was right...it wasn't until pre-school that I learned to speak English.