America and the New Immigrant Experience : PLATFORMS : Home Away From Home: The Struggle of New-Wave Immigrants

YANA FAYMAN: formerly a music teacher, now a medical technician; Armenian from the Soviet Union; here 1 1/2 years.

The first half year I was sick with nostalgia. It’s a very difficult disease. Only time can help. I missed my mother, I missed my sister, all my family was in Russia. I was missing my friends. Everything.

(Now) I’m comfortable. I feel better.

My husband is a doctor. He is preparing to pass his test for the foreign medical graduated. I have to support him for this time. It’s difficult for us now. Financially.

I have a lot of friends here. Among American people, too. Every Saturday I go to the Russian synagogue with my daughter, and spend time there.

I think that it takes time, and that everything will go right. I will feel like an American.

I respect American people a great deal. Now I feel much better.

GODAFRIN DASTUR: just completed an assignment as a student teacher; from India; here 5 years.

I did have a cultural shock.

In the the Midwest I used to see only white people or black people. I didn’t see the multicultural life that Los Angeles has.

I used to speak English in India very well, but when I came to the Midwest, I forgot my grammar and got very nervous speaking to people . . . I didn’t want to talk at all. I used to shy away from talking. It was difficult, trying to communicate with people. It used to intimidate me.

When I came to Los Angeles, I had no problem. I saw many Spanish-speaking people, people who were really trying to communicate in English. People’s attitude was very different. It was laid-back. There were so many Indians who spoke with the same accent that I did. I had no problem communicating here. I felt more at home.

Definitely, Los Angeles is like Bombay. Bombay is a city which is very advanced in technology and every other way. It’s a big, multicultural city and the attitude of the people is very different from other parts of India. Los Angeles is the same thing.

I’m very comfortable here--as comfortable as I was at home.

EDNA TAMMIK: cafeteria worker at a private school; from Estonia, Soviet Union; here 5 years.

At my age I think it’s hard to feel completely rooted in another soil. There are very many differences in almost everything . . . culture, architecture, art, music. I am trying just to grab as much as possible of American culture. But I like it here, though it’s very hard.

When I was (in Estonia) I had a job, I had medical (care), and if we retired we got a pension, we had a house where to live. It was all much less and much worse than here, but we had a kind of security. Here, you have to fight to get the work, you have to buy the insurance, you have to buy the car and nobody’s paying us that much that we can get all that at the beginning. Just the economic situation is hard.

At the moment I feel that I won’t go anywhere but here because the situation (in Estonia) is much worse. I was thinking that if Estonia is getting freed from the Soviet Union I might go back. I would go and help build up the country.

NAMPET PANICHPANT: program manager of an immigrant and refugee assistance program; from Thailand; here 10 years.

I see my adjustment according to the different time and different age when I am here.

(During) my first visit to the United States during my teen-age years and early 20s, I saw more positively that I could live here for the rest of my life. Then the responsibility was different. This is a youthful emphasized culture, a culture that values youthful productivity. There’s a lot of excitement.

But as I stay on here, the second time that I immigrated, I wondered if it was that I had passed the age of 30 . . . and also that I had completed that circle, which a lot of Asians here did not. A lot of them yearn that by the time they reach a certain age they’re going to return back to live in Asia. And then I came back here thinking that maybe I’ll be able to live as comfortably, psychologically and physically as an American.

Physically I’ve become more comfortable because during the past 10 years there’ve been more Asians coming in. But the psychological part--I feel that I will forever be a “bi-Pacific Rim” person, that I will always have to straddle both rims. Every year I go home and touch base with my culture. One of the reasons why I’m not jumping directly into converting my citizenship . . . has to do with the psychological comfort, and maybe a little bit of the spiritual as well.

HERNAN PINILLA: musician, writer and a member of the editorial staff of Art & Culture magazine; from Colombia; here 8 years.

The first year I was (here) I was about to go back to Colombia. I was really frustrated. There were barriers. The first barrier was the economic one, the second one was the language. The third one was the cultural shock, the collision of cultures.

At this moment I think that I’m going to stay in this country. But I still feel like I need to go back to my country, to my roots, to get some feedback. We are already part of this country, we are developing our own culture while contributing to this society, but we still need to go back, to be looking backwards to our essence, to our roots, in order to be ourselves.

I would like to (become a citizen). There are many advantages to citizenship. There are many problems with the minorities in this country. Partly because we don’t have the citizenship, we don’t have the participation in the political process of this country.

CARLOS MARTINEZ: handyman for a medical corporation; from El Salvador; here 9 years.

My first idea was, I go to the United States, work hard, probably go to school, and come back to my country and start my own business. But the situation in my country is becoming more difficult every year. People disappear for no reason. The situation in my neighborhood was dangerous, and I decided to bring (my wife) here.

Now we’ve got two kids and we must decide to make this country our home. They were born here, they belong to this country and they have better lives, more opportunity. We feel very happy to participate in this great society. I know this is a great country. We are really so happy to stay here.

SUNTA PASCUAL: real estate agent; former stockbroker from the Philippines; moved here permanently 10 years ago.

We were here in the ‘60’s. My husband was a Fulbright scholar, and we were here for five years. But that was just as a student. It was a transient experience.

This time when we came, we really came to start a new life. We were stockbrokers in the Philippines and my husband had lost everything. So we came here to start from zero.

I really felt very committed to America. We adapted very easy. One thing about America is that it allows you to do and to be what you want to be regardless of your personal connections.

In terms of being an American, there’s a joke in our office. In 1989 I won a trip to Hawaii because I had had so many sales. When I came back, my broker asked me to share with them the trip that I had. I said that the most important thing was that while I was gone a letter came and it said that very soon I’m going to be like you guys. They were wondering what I meant. And I said, very soon I’m going to get my blue eyes, which means I’m going to turn American.

People (at work) used to say I looked like (President Corazon) Aquino--even in the office, the Americans call me Cory. So the day I was sworn in I specifically wore a yellow outfit . . . that’s what she’s known for. I said to my children, “the reason I’m wearing this is . . . a symbolic way to say that this Cory look-alike welcomes America.”

HOMA EHSAN: first woman newscaster in Iran; produces radio programming for Iranian community; here 12 years.

It was very difficult. I had to go through a lot.

The first pain comes when you realize that whatever you have done, whatever you have made, whatever you have been before--it’s gone. I was a famous personality in my country. I was called the Barbara Walters of Iran. I didn’t even have to introduce myself on the telephone. As soon as I would say hello, they would call my name. Here I had to spell my name and pronounce my name, and insist that I’m not a terrorist.

I was very sick when I came here. I had a broken leg. The first thing I tried to do was give a home to my children. One day we went to buy things which we needed for the new house. I went to Bullock’s, with crutches under my arm, and of course I didn’t have much money to buy what I had back at home. I saw several items, beautiful crystals, beautiful silver which I had had. I became so sad. I had all these. And I don’t have anything right now. And I don’t have money to buy them back--but I had the taste for it. I sat down in a corner of the shop and said to myself, well, Homa Ehsan, decide right now--you want to die, suffering from what you were, what you had, or you want to build up and become a new person, a new Homa Ehsan, and survive. I decided to be a new person, make a new homeland, and survive.

It was not easy.

We have always a nostalgia for our homeland country. I don’t think any immigrant ever would forget what they had, what they were and adjust completely. At the same time, I think every immigrant has a lot to give to this new society. We all have different customs, arts, music, literature which we’re introducing to this new community. We are new plants, new trees, coming from far away, trying to make roots here.

It is not easy.

BOGALETCH GEBRE: founder and director of Parents International, Ethiopia; from Ethiopia; here 13 years.

I’m here over 10 years, which is a long time in my life. I’m spending my prime time (here). Yet I feel that I belong not here, I belong not to Ethiopia. Part of my heart is at home and part of my life is here struggling to survive, trying to make it.

Many people from Eastern Europe or Asian countries pack up their bags, whatever they have, and they make a decision to settle in America; then you really try to find a way to make it, to make an impact in your personal life. That didn’t happen to me.

I have not yet settled in my mind that this is my country. I doubt I will ever feel that way. A person belongs to one’s country when one is accepted as being so--and I don’t feel that I’m accepted as an American. Even though I’m American-educated, and I think I’m an above-average educated person, yet my accent automatically gives a sense of my lack of knowledge. In that sense I don’t think I’ll ever feel that I’m part of this (country). However, as long as I’m here, I’m a kind of a person who wants to contribute to the society I belong to, positively.

ADE JAMES: photographer, technician, co-host of KCRW’s “African Beat”; from Nigeria; here 14 years.

Like everybody else, I had to go through the cultural shock. Some people cannot adjust to the cultural shock, and it’s part of the reason they leave--even leave abruptly--without finishing what they came here to do.

It depends on the individual. You still have to pay your dues, go through what I call the seasoning process. Once you’ve gone beyond the seasoning process, then the rest becomes easy. In my own case, after the first five years, I finally told myself, well, now I’m fully adjusted.

Home will always be home. I call myself an Africanist because I still believe that no matter how good the place you live in is, we’re still Africans. I’m a deep, deep-rooted African. To tell you the truth, I’d rather be in Nigeria than here, if not for some things like the economy, money, jobs. I know a lot of guys who’d rather be home than here.

HO LAI: union organizer for United Food and Commercial Workers in Buena Park; from Vietnam; here 15 years.

After living with (my sponsor in San Diego) for about two months, I felt like I wanted to become independent. I had another friend in Nebraska write me a letter (saying that) in Nebraska it is a little bit easier to get a job. So I (went) to Nebraska . . . and that’s when I felt like I (had) become independent.

I still miss my family, and thinking about them a lot. But (I thought) that to be a success in this country, I have to adapt to the system. First, the language. Then the system.

ARMANDO GARCIA: immigration specialist with El Concilio, an immigration advocacy group; from Mexico; here 16 years.

Language . . . racism at work . . . unable to find a job in my own field . . . trying to open doors that were never open . . . It took me five to seven years to try to make it in American society. It’s hard.

I didn’t become a U.S. citizen until 1988. I was reluctant to do it. But when I was working for the United Farm Workers I was participating in many get-out-the-vote campaigns. I was so frustrated by seeing American citizens not getting out to vote when many important issues were at stake. I said, well, maybe I’m going to have to become a U.S. citizen to vote for important issues.