

Living The American Dream - myasmine
http://www.myasmine.com/living-the-american-dream/
What it’s like to grow up a non-citizen and have to earn it.
======
famousactress
Awesome story.

 _We don’t get to choose what country we’re born in or what socio-economic
status..._

It bums me out how few people (at least, in the US) seem to recognize this.
It's such a lottery, and there's a big difference between pride and
entitlement. The world would probably quickly get much closer to an actual
meritocracy if this particular lottery ran closer to once-a-decade or so,
instead of once-per-lifetime.

~~~
jacques_chester
The birth lottery is stunningly important.

Out of the several billion people I could have been, I was born in Australia,
to intelligent and kind middle class parents.

Really. My biggest single stroke of luck was to be born where I was born.
Everything else is going to deeply path-dependent.

~~~
pm90
Couldn't agree more. Although I was born in India (which is not a developed
country), I still think that I was lucky to be born into a middle-class
college educated family. In India, there are kids who still die of hunger .
From a very early age I realized that I could have just as easily been born
into one of the many millions of poor families that make up half the country.
It was indeed a pretty big stroke of luck

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autarch
This seems like a good example of how screwed up immigration policies are in
this country.

We should be running out to other countries and actively recruiting people
like her to immigrate here. She's smart, she's hard-working, and she's
obviously _incredibly_ motivated. But despite all this, the process of even
getting a green card took a ridiculously long time.

I really don't understand people knee jerk stance against immigration (well, I
do understand it, it's largely racism).

~~~
miked
>> _I really don't understand people knee jerk stance against immigration
(well, I do understand it, it's largely racism)._

I don't know any Americans who are opposed to immigration. I know lots of them
who are opposed to _illegal_ immigration. Interestingly, the people I know
most ferociously opposed to the illegals are themselves immigrants, three from
China, one from India, and one from France.

And racism has nothing to do with it. They just hate the fact that they came
here legally, went thru a lot of trouble to do so, add a lot of value to this
country, and then see others who drain the welfare system, etc., get a free
pass because they can be expected to vote the "correct" way when they become
citizens.

My wife is from China and there's never a week that goes by that she doesn't
tell me how wonderful America is. I've lived overseas enough to get a sense of
why she says that, but it's still interesting to see the U.S. through her eyes
at times.

~~~
philwelch
If you're opposed to illegal immigration, and you're also opposed to changing
the immigration laws so it's easier to immigrate legally, you're opposed to
immigration. Let's just be honest about this.

~~~
geebee
I completely disagree. I think it means they're opposed to unlimited
immigration.

The US currently takes in well over a million immigrants legally into the
country every year. Are you "opposed" to immigration generally if you don't
think it should be two million a year? If you think it should be two million a
year, does that mean someone who thinks it should be four million can say
you're opposed to immigration?

I'm in favor of a fairly high level of immigration, though I think our current
system is completely broken (and seems to make it hard for the people we'd
most want here to stay). But I absolutely support some controls on the sheer
number and rate of entry, and I really don't agree that this makes me opposed
to immigration in the general sense.

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lionheart
Great story.

My family immigrated as well, from the former Soviet Union, but thankfully we
had help and I got my citizenship only 5 years after moving to the US.

I really am thankful every day that my parents braved the incredible hardships
of moving to the other side of the world to a country where everything was
different from what they knew.

If it wasn't for them making this decision, I wouldn't have the incredible
opportunities that I do today.

~~~
yan
Just wanted to chime in that I recently had a very similar conversation with
my parents. Thanked them and chatted about the effort they went through to
uproot their entire life and immigrate.

Guess what I'm trying to say is, if you've been putting off giving thanks for
something similar, now is a better time than ever.

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citricsquid
A really cool chart on legal immigration into the United States for anyone
interested in how hard it really is: <http://i.imgur.com/yxTFW.jpg> (posted
here a few days ago, not sure who posted it though so no credit unfortunately)

~~~
fierarul
<http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf>

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rdl
Congratulations for both becoming a US Citizen and for getting involved in
tech! Great to see SE PA is developing more of a tech scene, too (I'm
originally from there).

It's kind of frustrating that the state department consular staff dropped the
ball on informing your family about applying for citizenship -- I know of
people who ended up stateless after the fall of the USSR for similar reasons.

I suspect on the west coast there would be more opportunities to go to college
without an SSN for financial aid (by using state or private grants), due to
the relatively larger number of non-citizen or undocumented immigrants.

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throawa
Just wanted to share my story too (throwaway account).

I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program,
which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the
US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American
way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former
Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to immerse 15-17 year-
olds from the former Communist bloc into American mentality, then send them
back to their home countries and let them loose into their societies.

At the time, my former USSR republic was in chaos, the Union just collapsed a
few years earlier, economy was in turmoil with ridiculous hyperinflation, food
supply failures, crime rate skyrocketting, etc. Needless to say, everybody
wanted to get out, and the competition to get into this US-sponsored program
was crazy. To get in, you had to pass 3 rounds of testing: prove your English
language skills, submit an essay in English, and finally, pass an interview.
In my high school of about 1500 students, I was one of the two people who made
it that year.

I then spent my last year of high-school as a senior in an American high-
school out in the Middle of Nowhere, USA and lived with an American host
family, who were proud "rednecks". I didn't fully understand the full meaning
of that word at that time, but in those parts of the country, it wasn't
anything to be ashamed of. Needless to say, I learned quite a bit about
"American way of thinking" during that year.

Meanwhile, the message from my parents back home was simple and consistent:
find a way to stay there FOR GOOD. Get into an American university. Oh, and by
the way, we have no money for that, so figure out how to do it for free. Which
I did, by the end of my American senior year.

I lucked out because I got into a graduating senior class, even though I was
supposed to stay with my age group and be a junior. As a senior, I got to take
SATs and ACTs, and studied hard for them, having figured out that those were
an important ticket to American education. Surprisingly, my results were
higher than national average, even though my English was nowhere near native.
It would be enough to get into most colleges in the universities in the
country.

Unfortunately, just being accepted was not an option in my circumstances,
since I had no money whatsoever to pay for college. I needed a full-ride
scholarship, nothing less. Fortunately, my (pretty high) GPA and test results
turned out to be enough to get one at only one college out of over 200-300
applications that I sent out.

In the meantime, I was back home, back from my first year in America, wanting
to go back, this time on my own, without the hand-holding by the State
Department and the chaperones. To do that, I needed to learn more about a
whole another side of the State Department -- the consular office, the visas,
etc. With my letter of acceptance, and an offer of full scholarship in hand, I
braced the throngs of my countrymen lining up at the American embassy. I did
end up getting one, a student visa this time, although with a frown from the
consular officer about the fact that I just came back from the US on an
exchange visa. At the time, that was a minor detail I should have paid more
attention to.

Fast forward several years.

I have a Bachelors and Masters degrees from US schools (both paid for by the
schools themselves), have interned at cool companies, met my wife (also an
immigrant, but not from my country) and married her, and switched from
studying on a student visa to working on an H-1B visa. At this point I've
lived in the US for over 13 years, and investigated the possibility of finally
getting a green card.

It turned out that it was nearly impossible for me to get a green card without
having to first go back to my country for two years and fulfilling the State
Department's original goal for me -- sharing what I learned in the US as a 16
year-old kid with my countrymen. This, despite the fact that Internet erupted
and connected the entire world in ways unthinkable since that time. Despite
the fact that I have shared quite a bit with many of my countrymen via various
online forums and discussion boards during those 13 years. Despite the fact
that I have started a family with roots in the US and my wife does not speak
the language. Despite the fact that my skills are better suited in the US,
which is proven by high-paying jobs I held, along with similarly high taxes I
paid along with that.

And so, after 13 years in America, after having received Bachelor's and
Master's degrees, with respected schools completely subsidizing my tuition,
and after having worked at some of the more respected companies in American
tech community, I had nothing left to do but pack up and immigrate to Canada,
who was gracious enough to take me, and glad enough to use my skills and take
my tax dollars. For me, American Dream remained a dream. Canadian Dream is not
as hyped-up as its bigger sister down south, but it has its fair share
stories. This is one of them. :)

~~~
rdtsc
Thanks for sharing. Yeah the program was called Freedom Support Act. And you
probably had a J-1 visa. That was a great program and I wish there were more
of those kind of programs that would bring in kids from other regions of the
world.

It is unfortunate about the 2 year requirement for your particular case. Since
it was a US govt. sponsored program they paid for your stay, travel and
allowance while here. It was not just a program to benefit you personally and
to eventually help you integrate into the American society, but rather it was
to create future leaders in your country that would support and follow
"Western" ideals, and to have you spread your knowledge about the American
culture in your own country. As they see it, you have failed that task since
you came right back for college.

~~~
throawa
Overall I agree, it was a positive program, although with its own quirks and
downsides. That said, my "issues" with it are:

\- That "task" was never clearly spelled out to mostly immature, 16 year old
minors. The attached strings were slowly revealed much later into the deal. I
don't want to call it a "bait-and-switch", but it does have many attributes of
it.

\- There's no way to repay the State Dept for the expenses if you don't want
to "do the 2 years".

\- As I already mentioned earlier, communications mechanisms were
revolutionized since then with the advance of Internet. Most communication and
spread of informal knowledge now occurs online, even in my home country. Most
ideological "debates" over Western ideals, etc., happen online.

\- I wonder what the failure rate was for the program. Most people I know
either came back to the US immediately, or eventually. I believe the program
is shut down now. Unfortunately, a failed program to a government official is
just that -- oh well, time to move on. To a participant, it's a life-altering
experience, for better or worse.

~~~
rdtsc
Very good points. Yeah at no point in the process did they make that explicit,
and that is unfortunate.

And completely agree, someone should have the option to basically repay all
the expenses associated with the 2 years and get a waiver in return. Heck, you
have probably already repaid it many times over just by paying taxes and
producing value in this country.

Looking back at my experience I did actually do some of the sharing. I was
only 15 at the time and so I had 2 more years of high-school before heading
back to US for the University (also a full ride scholarship). There were a
number of times when teachers from my high-school back home invited me in for
a round table discussion so I could share some of the teaching practices from
American high-school. For example I told them about how frequent quizzes and
tests are used to make grading more objective and it keeps tracks of students'
progress. Or how group and research projects are used. At least in that one
high-school some teachers chose to implement that. I encouraged my extended
family members to study English (2 of my younger cousins followed in my
footsteps). Also remember tutoring some classmates in English and telling them
about American culture informally. I would like to think I made some
contribution at least.

Yeah you made a good point about how Internet sort of made this obsolete. I
agree 90%, the other 10% are reserved for the case when actually meeting
someone who have been abroad and has acquired some of the culture and ideas is
still different than reading it from a magazine or seeing it online.

~~~
throawa
Ha, I should have realized you were an insider. :) Your timing was much
luckier, since you had those 2 years built-in, although I'm not sure whether
you got to skip a grade when you came back, or had to "downgrade" and sit
those two years with lowerclassmen, while your classmates remained a grade
ahead. That would have sucked.

Anyway, the fact that you also went back to the US after graduating validates
my last point -- yet another "future leader" failed the "task". ;)

~~~
rdtsc
> or had to "downgrade" and sit those two years with lowerclassmen

Good guess! Yap had to to that. But it was a fun time. I already knew all the
material and didn't really have to work. Had more time to hack on my computer
which is what I really wanted to do.

> yet another "future leader" failed the "task". ;)

True. Not much of a future leader more of a introverted nerd who likes to
code. It worked out great for me though.

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jorgem
The nice tone of comments on this thread are why I enjoy HN.

Compare to comments elsewhere (not the same article, but immigration related):

[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/historic-
wave-...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/historic-wave-of-
mexican-migration-comes-to-a-standstill-report-says.html)

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philiphodgen
Nicely done and inspirational. Thanks for the post on your blog and for
putting it here so I would find it.

~~~
myasmine
Glad you liked it!

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rollypolly
Great story. Gives me a renewed appreciation for the privileges I was born
with.

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option_greek
What an inspiring story! I don't know if she has earned her US citizenship or
US earned her as a citizen.

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vacri
What's the content management system you're using for this site? It's rather
obnoxiously blocking me from reading your article because I don't have
javascript enabled and it's telling me I need to turn javascript on for mobile
safari (there's no copy of safari in this building). I can see the content
formatted fine under the warning. It seems to be related to that toolbar up
the top - it's not on the homepage and I don't get the error message there.

~~~
bmelton
I was interested, so I looked -- the CMS appears to just be Wordpress.

I'm _guessing_ (without having done much research) that it's Cufon that's
pushing the JS requirement. I also saw FB Connect, so I guess it could be
that, but I've never seen it do that before (but I've also never looked.)

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jacobr
The "push" factors for emigration are probably strong in many non-democracies,
but it's it possible that the "pull" factors for immigration could be weakened
by the internet?

Some people don't seen to care about moving to the US to live "the American
dream" or whatever.

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pinchyfingers
Yasmine, I'm so glad you published this story.

It's incredibly disheartening when anyone who lives in the United States
believes that they are poor. Too many people born with the privilege of being
American citizens choose to blame their life on outside circumstances, when
the reality is they've been given the best outside circumstances anyone could
ask for. Many people want to redefine the American dream as some kind of
struggle for subsistence, but you've perfectly exemplified the true American
dream: if you're willing to set goals and work your ass off, then you can
choose what kind of life you will live.

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westicle
Very interesting story - hard to comprehend how frustrating it must be having
lived somewhere most of your life without being formally "accepted".

"I can speak out against the government, if need be, without fear of being
prosecuted, imprisoned, or killed".

Probably pays not to take that sentiment too far however. This is still the
USA we're talking about.

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rickmb
Seems to me that from being an immigrant nation the US has become the Western
country that is the hardest to immigrate to.

~~~
bearmf
What made you think it is the hardest one? It is not easier to emigrate to UK,
Canada or Australia, the systems are just different.

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read_wharf
Welcome.

