How a 15 year old immigrant Pakistani girl mastered shyness and a new language

On her first day of school in America, Subeia Ahmed sat front and center in the Framingham High School classroom, armed with an English dictionary and a neat row of freshly sharpened pencils.

The 15-year-old was determined to succeed, but faced a far more difficult transition than most freshmen.

She, along with her mother and two siblings, immigrated to the United States from Pakistan only a few weeks before school began to join her father, Rasheed Ahmed, who moved here five years ago. A farmer in a rural village in Pakistan, Rasheed Ahmed came to the United States with hopes for a better life for his family. He works at a service station…