ANCA was working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters and supporters throughout the United States and affiliated organizations around the world, such as The United Nation, to help Armenian families leave all communist countries around the world to get freedom, destining America. In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14, which declares, "Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution." I was sad that I was leaving the place where I was born, but inside in my heart I was feeling happy for the new life that I will face soon. Finally we received our visas to leave the country. In order to reach our destination which was the United States, we had to stop in the city of Beirut, Lebanon as a refugee in 1968 and then we flew to our final destination which was New York in December, 1969.…
The day was sunny and warm. The children were playing soccer in the street. The lady was walking with her daughter. My sister was talking with her friends. My grandmother was cooking and the smell of rice made me hungry. I knew my day would be awesome.…
If you have ever been bullied, you know where I am coming from when I say that it is something that no one should ever go through. Unfortunately, I have gone through it before and I am glad to have fought through it. I can clearly remember the time when I used to get bullied. My family and I had just moved to Canada a few months ago and I wasn't able to speak English very well at the time. I was so excited to learn everything there was to know about Canada, especially now that I knew that everyone didn’t live in igloos. Before coming to Canada I was told by a friend in India that everyone lived in igloos, of course being six at the time I believed her without questioning it. I was also very excited to see snow for the first time because,…
I cannot say that my family has a vast American history of a 100+ years, but what I can say is that my family has grown a lot in the past 30+ years. We would not have migrated to the USA if it weren't for my aunt’s marriage. It was 1984 when the first member of my family, my aunt, came to the United States of America. From then on, the rest of my immediate family trickled into the United States of America, looking for a place to grow and expand their family lines. It wasn’t easy to get a stable household income and care for our family at the time, but paycheck to paycheck we managed to do it.…
Let me start off with my mother's journey to America. It was 1985 when her parents decided it was time for a fresh start. It was very difficult to come to America legally, so they made their journey by traveling to other countries. They left Cuba and traveled to Spain where my grandfather found a job as a farmer. They lived in Spain for almost 2 years before they gathered enough resources to travel to Mexico. The journey from Mexico to the USA was very easy for them because they had a family member who knew their way around. They struggled for many years in America but soon became legal citizens. My mother later on went to college and completed her bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Miami. My grandparents purchased the…
Leaving your country is always a difficult decision, and whoever has experienced it understands the sacrifice it entails. When I left Poland at 18, I thought I was going to be in paradise, but to my disappointment it was far from that. I had to learn a new language and work hard to provide for myself. What kept me motivated was the hope for a better future and an independent life.…
Life is a box of surprises. You never know what is going to happen or where you are going to end up. Everything can change in seconds just like when a tornado destroys a city in the blink of an eye. I was a lovely and happy girl living in my native country. I never thought that someday I would accomplish my dreams in another country. Due to economic situations, my family moved to the U.S. It is hard to live in a country where you were not born. Learning the culture, language and lifestyle were some of the struggles that I had I had to face when I first came to the United States.…
America, land of the free and home of the brave, a country strengthened with rights, equality, and justice. For Americans it’s just a regular country, with regular rules and laws, nothing special about it. Although, to immigrants it’s a country to reinterpret their lives, a better life, a life where they’re free to pursue their happiness and follow their dreams. Even though America is a great country, adjusting to a new culture isn’t easy. It took patience, support, understanding, and passion in order for me to balance two different cultures.…
Have you ever imagined that one day you had to live in a new country? You are surrounded by new people. You have to communicate to others by a new language. You have to do a bunch of things that you have never done before. How would you feel at that time? That was my story of the first days I lived in America. To me, those days were the most difficult time in my life up to now. Sometime, I even felt very stressful because of struggling with my new life. However, I did learn of lot from that. Now, I am going to tell you how I experienced the stressful time and some useful ways that I did to reduce my stress.…
One day nearly two years ago, I came back from the worst trip and experience ever in my life. Three years ago, my family made the biggest decision of our lifetime together and we had decided to move. Now the fact that we were moving didn’t bother me or my little sister, it was just the simple fact that we were moving from our home that we had grown up in our entire life. The only problem was the fact that we had eventually found out that we were going to move to Oregon. This Alabama home that we grew up in was very special to me and my sister but it wasn’t the one of best of places. We had lived right beside our grandparents and we loved to go up the hill and see them and us moving had rendered that possibility from happening any longer.…
Everybody do choose every day. Some decisions are small that don't have a big impact on our life. However, others decision is big enough to change our life that we couldn't imagine. At my life, I have been in a few situations that I had to take big decisions. But, the biggest decision that I had to take in my life was when I decided to move to the United States. This decision changed my life completely.…
On a very cold winter of 2003, my parents and four children moved to California USA. Things drastically changed I found new friends left a lot of friends in Pakistan. In the being, I felt very sad about being alone here in America. But after two years I felt very comfortable in here. The new culture I was introduced to was very interesting for me. The place I went to had many Muslims in the same school already. It was a great transition for me. To get really comfortable in my skin and carry on with life. From the beginning, I was a quiet child and shy, I usually ended up in the back of the room to observe what is happening.…
When most people think of immigrants, they seem to forget the children that are crossing over to a new life; juggling two vastly different cultures while promised with security and the essence of what makes up the American Dream. I was only 3 years old when my family moved from Nigeria in 2003; the intolerant post-election tension as well as the rise of Boko Haram motivated my parents to move elsewhere for the safety of their children.…
When I came from Africa in 2007, I was really excited. To me coming to America was like going to heaven. It was all I wanted, after all I could leave my violent country and finally come to the land of the free and the home of the brave. No matter how you put it the expectation for this country around the world is overwhelming. As for me coming to the United State was part of my everyday dreams. I remember my uncle my used to tell me, “Musa the statue of is capable of sitting down”, and due to the fact that I was just a kid I believe every word he said.…
Before I came to The United States, I worked in several jobs in my natal country, Dominican Republic. The most of them were not exactly the kind of job that people would enjoy. I have worked under the hot Caribbean sun, lifting and carrying heavy bags of sand at a construction site, I have washed mountains of plates at a restaurant kitchen, I have sweated for ten hours a day working with melted metal at a jewelry factory. But none of these compare to the nightmare…