Citizenship at Last

Posted on May 9, 2011 by beccaglikman

Irina immigrated to America from Russia.  She is now 39 years old and has been in America for 21 years.  Irena talks about her desire to become a U.S. citizen:

I knew I wanted to be a citizen.  This is why I came here.  I wanted to live the American lifestyle in the amazing country and that meant becoming a citizen.  I never even thought about not becoming a citizen.  When we left Russia, we had to give up our Russian citizenship; we were forced to.  We had no citizenship we did not belong anywhere, until we came to America.”

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Refugee Decisions

Posted on May 5, 2011 by beccaglikman

Irina immigrated to America from Russia as a refugee.  She is now 39 years old and has been in America for 21 years.  Here, she talks about the conditions under which she and her family were forced to leave Russia:

No really, the money was tight and we were only allowed to take from our country $100 per person.  They wouldn’t let us take more money; they wanted everything to stay in Russia.  No gold no nothing, whatever you wore and could fit or hide you could take everything else we were forced to leave in Russia.  It was very hard; we had to decide what was more important to take with us.  We left everything behind in Russia.  The government wanted to take all our money away.”

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Political Junkie

Posted on May 5, 2011 by beccaglikman

Irina immigrated to America from Russia.  She is now 39 years old and has been in America for 21 years.  She commented how closely she follows U.S. political events:

I am very involved.  I buy all the newspapers and read about politics all the time.  I vote in every election.  I have a real appreciation for the freedom that I have in this great country.”

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