Students' Immigration Stories

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My mom came here when she was seven years old to New York. My grandfather, my maternal grandfather worked for the embassy, so he was posted in New York, so they all came to New York. And she's been here ever since. So 40 something years, I think. And my dad, he came here for college, an engineer in San Jose. So he came, he studied, and he just decided to live here. And that's my story.

It starts off with my dad moving here for his job back in 2003. And that just left me and my mom back in the Philippines for about two years before we moved to join suit with him and just join-- I mean, just like live with him and my grandpa, who was already here prior. But I don't really know what year he moved. And yeah, we just been here since 2005.

Back in Philippines, we were taught English as a second language. And I thought that coming here to the US, I wouldn't really have a problem with that. However, it was really hard because all, everybody around me, literally everybody spoke fluent English, and I'm still just like, I know some words that they're saying, but it's really more complex, just trying to decipher what they're saying and all that. And it was hard going through that process. But eventually, I learned to get along with it, to conform myself to the society.

So my family comes from Mexico, both my mom and my dad. And they came over in the '90s, and they met each other four years after they came over. And they met each other at work. And then they got together and they had me, and yeah.

Both of my parents were born in Egypt and lived there most of their lives all the way until college. They got married in Egypt. And then my father decided that he wanted to come to America because it was the land of opportunity and dreaming and all of that. My mother, they were both obviously, very torn to leave their family, but they left everything to come here so that me and my siblings could have a better life.

My parents immigrated from Vietnam to here during the Vietnam War, so my dad, he came originally from China, in Guangdong, near Hong Kong. And during the Vietnam War, he escaped from China through Vietnam and all the way through Malaysia as a boat person. So he went through a lot with his family and his four older sisters and his two parents.

My dad and the rest of his sisters decided they wanted to go to America and really let their kids live the American dream. And he was very adamant about wanting to stay in America, seeing it as this wonderful country full of opportunities. So he went here when he was 21. And he had to lie about his age to be able to go to an American high school.

He went to San Jose High School, which is very close by, and he also graduated from San Jose State. And he really took his education seriously because he really wanted to provide for his family. And after everything was great, he had a good job. He went back to Vietnam. And that's where he met my mom. And my mom immigrated here, left everything she knew back in Vietnam. And here we are with three kids and a happy family.

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