Iyow - in your own words

Part three of ‘A Long Way Home,’ a series on immigration we began in April 2006.

As a native of a country that often appears in the top ranks in measures of development, wealth, education and well being, my choices have been full of opportunity. At school I could choose the sports I played, subjects I studied and people I hung out with. I could go to college, or not, and at a time when it was only a few hundred dollars per year. I could choose a career that interests me and choose where to live.

My first experience as a resident in a different country was almost automatic and unthinking. I’d guess that half the people my age went to the ‘mother country’ where we were welcomed as sons and daughters, if a little estranged. Many return home to tell stories for years to come of their OE (Overseas Experience). Others, like me, move on further — in search of adventure, further opportunity, some other fulfillment. Or, as in my case, realizing the influence of an adventurous and traveling grandmother who turned up on the shores of her new home country New Zealand in the early 1940s with a five year old daughter, no plans, and no husband, winging it.

My choice to move to the USA was sparked by a call to share a new experience — California — to dispel career stagnation and avoid traveling a standard path. It was assisted by personal connections, timing, care in maneuvering the immigration system, and, finally, luck in winning the lottery for a permanent resident visa.

I was technically never an illegal immigrant, where much focus is leveled currently, my encounters with “the system” showed me how this could both easily occur and can easily be hidden….

Part two of ‘A Long Way Home,’ a series on immigration we began in April 2006.

My parents came over in the late 1960s, my father from a poor, uneducated Armenian family in Iran (his father was a cab driver, his mother took care of the seven children), and my mother an orphan raised by her grandparents in Croatia. My mother was taking a “temporary” break from her studies at the University of Zagreb, and my father came to get an education, something that would have literally been impossible with his ethnic/religious and economic status in Iran.

Neither of my parents really spoke English when they arrived (they actually met in English language school). My father worked as a busboy at Denny’s while putting himself through night school (first English, then undergraduate, then graduate), my mother working at an insurance company as a clerk until I was born. They bought their first house in L.A. when I was born, about five years after coming into the country, a literal shoebox (one-bedroom, no garage)....

What I find most troubling about the current immigration debate is the talk of a guestworker program. Most of its proponents probably have no idea how badly this system bombed in Europe…. [I]f you think our immigrant debate is ugly, then you really haven’t lived elsewhere. It does get worse, much worse.

One of the things that gets lost in the immigration debate with all of the special interest group politicking is that it’s not just residents of host countries that feel ambivalence: Immigrants are also conflicted by this decision. Aside from war refugees, immigration is usually motivated by economic pressures on both sides. Immigrants make a better wage by immigrating; host countries get skilled or willing labor that is scarce among its citizens.

I have a bit to say on this subject of immigration and choices made, and if you do too, let us know. The risks and rewards for integration amongst people of difference races, cultures, values, are richer and more complex than any sound bite. This piece is Part One of ‘A Long Way Home,’ a series on immigration we began in April 2006.