Personal Experiences of Immigrants

I wanted to include a section about the personal experiences that come directly from immigrants.  I think hearing the story from them can give someone a different perspective and understanding of what it is like.  I wanted to get stories from different immigrants who originate from different areas around the globe.  This gives us the chance to see the similarities and the differences between each unique immigration story.

Dharushana Muthulingam

Dharushana Muthulingam is currently 38 years old and lives in Los Angeles, California.  Both of her parents are originally from Sri Lanka, but later moved to the United Kingdom where Dharushana was born.  This is when she and her parents then moved to Los Angeles, California due to a civil war that was going on. 

Dharushana said that they were not wealthy growing up, so money was short.  She knew that there were jobs out there that would provide financial security for not only her but her parents as well.  These were your typical high paying jobs that required high levels of education such as a lawyer, doctor, and physician.  Dharushana’s parents owned several small businesses, but this did not garuntee their financial security.  For a lot of immigrant families, financial security comes from their kid’s success.  Dharushana wanted to work hard like her parents did to show that the move was worthwhile. 

Moving forward, Dharushana went to college, completed medical school, and is now married with two kids.  She is moving toward the typical goal of achieving the “American dream.”  Dharushana states that her parents wanted her to get one of the financial security jobs, which she did, and would not be taken seriously if she wanted to be something else.  One time when Dharushana was younger, she told her mom that she wanted to be a writer.  Her mom responded by saying you can be a writer after you are a doctor.  Dharushana is proud of what she has done, even though the journey to that point was very challenging.

Photo by: Jhon David via Unsplash.com

Melody

Melody is currently 25 years old and moved to the United States as a young kid and has stayed here ever since.  The reason her and her family were able to move here is because of President Clinton’s visa lottery.  Melody and her family are originally from Ghana and moved to Columbus, Ohio.  They chose to relocate to Ohio because they had a lot of friends who also immigrated from Ghana that live there. 

Her dad came to the United States first at the beginning of 1997, Melody and her mom then arrived here later that year in May of 1997.  When her parents got here, they had to restart their life over from scratch.  Her mom attended nursing school and became a registered nurse (RN) and her dad worked as a forklift operator for 10 years.  After that, he went back to school and got his nursing degree as well.  Melody, her parents, and her brother all lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Columbus, Ohio.  They were then able to save enough money and move into a $300,000 in the suburbs. 

She believed her parents’ success was not solely based on their hard work, she thinks there are other additional factors that helped them succeed.  There was a Ghanian woman who lived in their apartment complex.  She acted as a caretaker for melody and her brother when her parents could not be there.  They also had a very strong support system to fall back on.  This support system was their Ghanian friends who had also immigrated to Ohio. 

Ana Maria

Ana Maria is currently 45 years old, and she is from Mexico.  Ana and her family left Mexico and arrived in Los Angeles, California in the early 1960s.  Like many other immigrant families, they are not always in the ideal financial situation.  This is something her and her family had to battle as they were trying to reach success.  This is not something they really discussed as they grew up given their situation.  Throughout her childhood, whenever Ana or her brother asked to buy candy, toys, or go eat at a restaurant their parent’s response was “no hay dinero.”  This means that they did not have enough money to buy whatever their children were asking for.  This response is something Ana and her brother got used to growing up because they heard it so often. 

Ana’s parents saw getting an office job as “success.”  Her mother’s goals for her were to go to college and then get an office job.  Ana now works as a lead for product, design, and engineering teams.  These teams she leads build software and websites that are used by many people.

One thing Ana struggles with is the concepts of enough and more.  By this I mean that most of the time she is satisfied with what she has accomplished.  She was able to complete college and get a good paying job, sounds good right?  However, sometimes she feels like she can do more.  Ana sometimes fells like she should be the one to go out and be a great well-known role model for other young Latina girls interested in tech.  This is something that a lot of children of immigrants struggle with.  Even though they may have worked hard and reached success, they may still feel what they have done isn’t “good enough.”  They feel a pressure to do just as good or even better than their parents who sacrificed so much to move here.

Sources:

Edwards, H. S. (2019, January 24). A close look at migration and the people risking everything. Time. Retrieved March 14, 2022, from https://time.com/longform/migrants/

Petersen, A. H. (2021, June 28). What the American Dream Looks like for immigrants. Vox. Retrieved March 14, 2022, from https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22548728/immigrant-american-dream-middle-class