Helping my father clean out the basement, we came across many of his parents’ belongings, including old jewelry and personal belongings his mother brought with her from Poland. Shortly after, I stumbled upon a journal his mother used to document her journey on land and sea from Poland to America. Since most of it was in Yiddish, a language around which I did not grow up in, my dad remembered he had long ago translated it in a separate book. Most of the basement was cleaned out, so he let me take a look at it for personal enjoyment. It was one of the most intriguing and insightful narratives I had come across. It was a shame I had not come across it sooner. Curious, I found a few entries that really caught my attention.

January 25, 1925

The waters are cold and the tide unforgiving. It’s been almost five months, and only a few others and I have made the trip. Many had perished from malnutrition and harsh weather. I was used to such brutal winters visiting Warsaw, but I certainly hoped that would not be as pervasive in the Land of Opportunity, from which we were about fourscore miles away. I could see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and, faintly, what I was pretty sure was the Brooklyn Bridge, not too far from where I planned to settle, in a small tenement on the Lower East Side. It is unfortunate my mother could not make the trip; as a fourteen-year-old I wasn’t sure how anyone my age could live by himself.

Taking a break, I pondered how dreadful the trip to Ellis Island must have been coming. We take it for granted that, in 2015, anyone can immigrate to the United States via many ports of entry, but in the early 20^th Century ships were the only medium of immigration, where illnesses and malnutrition were not uncommon. Anyone who became infected along the journey was forced to turn back, rendering a six-month excursion moot.

March 3, 1925

I feel I have found a new life here. Many of those around here are also from Poland, some having arrived months or years earlier, and some just last week.

It was a simple way of life. For the last month we all gathered outside, bundled up, in a Sukkos-like house we used for hosting dinner. All the delicacies on which I grew up were all there, with as much in quantity as could serve twenty of us in a week. Things like gefilte fish, pickled herring, and lox invariably went the most quickly, so anyone who came to dinner late often missed out.

I did not have much of an education, but one Polish man, an immigrant himself, started up an umbrella company back in 1910 and his factory in the Lower East Side was looking for employees. Needing to make a living, and knowing education was not as feasible, I applied for and received the job, and I will officially start next Monday, March 9.

            …

I had asked my father briefly about the Sukkos. Indeed, I am familiar with the holiday, but I do not remember it being constructed in January.

“It wasn’t an uncommon thing. While my mom kept kosher, a house of similar construction made a wonderful place to have dinner in the cold winter, since the tenements were often small and the heaters were usually broken.”

…

June 23, 1925

It has nearly been four months since my employment. But conditions were deteriorating, and my salary this week was cut from fifteen dollars a week to just three. The owner of the factory was forced to update the building to meet new federal and state codes. While I was making only a fifth of what I started out with, it could have been worse. Many were fired and forced to work in other factories under similar conditions. But I lucked out, since I had logged many hours of overtime and had enough stock in the company that I struck a deal: I kept my five stocks of the company (which I could sell at anytime, if the occasion were God forbid to present itself, for anywhere in the three- to four-figure range. In exchange, I accepted an eighty percent pay cut, figuring losing a job would have been worse since I would have had to start over.

My father had previously explained that she had been a chief buyer of this company, but I had no idea she started out immediately to improve conditions for her, even if it meant accepting an eighty-percent pay cut while keeping stocks that could just as easily disappear should the company have gone bankrupt the very next day. Indeed, I had long known about his communication acumen, having majored that in college, but I previously did not know that he got that from his parents. Sure enough, as the Great Depression ensued, the future became even more uncertain.

Finally reaching America was surreal, an indescribable mélange of pure excitement and equally anxiety. It felt well deserved after working strenuous shifts at the rundown hospital in Leyte, my hometown. Never again would I have to scurry around emptying full bedpans every few minutes because there was not enough for the numerous patients who filled the beds. With shifty lighting overhead and the worried, tired demands of my overseers. I had made it to America, the land where the streets were once paved with gold and I could start my new life with my soon to be husband, Nereo Lirios. It was a long journey, a constant ebb and flow of being together or separated but we were each other’s support system and worked through the tough times together.

As a young girl my early education was cut short when the Second World War broke out; I was only able to finish out our first year of high school before the schools closed down. During those trifling times where everyone just seemed to be hiding from trouble, Nereo was obliged to join the Philippine Scouts, a military unit composed of Filipinos assigned to the United States Army Philippine Department under General MacArthur.

When the war was finally over and the Philippines were liberated finished my schooling, as did Nereo. We fatefully had one class together. His family was poverty stricken, mine wasn’t much better off but he couldn’t even afford the books required for class. I remember meeting the tan, extroverted young man from Tanauan a town near my own town. Ironically, I was not overwhelmed by my first impression of him. Because of the large class sizes there was never enough seats for all the students, so it was first come first serve. We approached the last seat at the same time and you would expect a respectable gentlemen to give up the seat to a nice young lady, but he was stubborn. Luckily, he proved himself in the years to follow. I started sharing my books with him and he did more than demonstrate his kind-hearted nature.

My mother was a single parent raising three girls; my father had left us to return to China when I was still very young. Due to this matriarchal upbringing I grew up wary of men, another reason why I wasn’t very taken with Nereo’s advances at first. He would walk me home every day though despite the distance from his own home. Not only that, he would spend time around my house offering to do any heavy yard work or chores which my mother needed help with. I can still envision him pounding the rice behind our house; it was one of the toughest jobs but he was willing to do it. It wasn’t long before I recognized how genuinely caring he was.

After finishing out our final three years in high school, we were separated by the pressing responsibilities that accompanied adult life, as young as we were. I picked up a local teaching job at the primary school for three years, while Nereo continued his career with the Scouts. Eventually, I decided to pursue a career in nursing and Nereo and I spent our second but not last time apart because he was in Manila picking up any work he could find.

Our paths didn’t cross again until three years later, after I had finished nursing school and returned home to work in a rundown hospital. He was awaiting his application status from the United States Navy. After his dedication to the Scouts he of course was accepted into the navy, and was notified that he would be attending training camp in San Diego. Despite my joy for his achievement, I couldn’t ignore the overwhelming pain which consumed me because my love was being sent to the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean.

We managed to hold ourselves together while apart with the hopes that I could eventually join him. There was just as high of a demand for nurses in America so I was almost guaranteed a job, but being the first of the family to move to the States was of course a daunting journey. I applied for a job at a hospital in Chicago, Illinois; the contract I signed entailed a year of work under that hospital and in exchange they would grant me a visa. After three years more years of hard work and emotional strain we both collectively had the money for a plane ticket for me.

I knew then, ignoring the fear which tied a labyrinth of knots in my stomach, that this was undoubtedly my next step. With tears stinging my eyes I hugged my sisters and my mother goodbye and boarded a boat to Manila. Then, I took a plane for the first time in my life. I arrived in Alaska, greeted by an unfamiliar, chilling wind which the habitually summery climate of the Philippines hadn’t prepared me for. To my surprise though the only people I seemed to run in to during my brief layover were Filipinos! I was expecting to meet only eskimos, a small comfort which warmed my frozen self. My next and thankfully final stop before Chicago was Seattle, Washington. From there I gratefully and anxiously boarded a plane to Illinois. I stepped out of the airport and found Nereo awaiting me with our close friend from home Trinidad and the Vice Filipino Consult who provided me transportation to the hospital I would be working at.

We were finally able to get married, I still remember walking to the courthouse in a simple, light blue dress and beside him in a tan blazer. We had to save our money so we didn’t have rings at the time, but our love need not be represented by such material assets. Our time together was once again too brief to fully enjoy because Nereo’s residence in any place was transient; he went wherever the Navy sent him.

So again, our time spent together sat in the recesses of my brain, a bittersweet memory. I revisited the happiness from the time we were together but longed to be with him again. After only three months under my contract I grew tired and crumbled under my overwhelming loneliness. I was after all alone in a country foreign to me; drowning amongst a sea of strangers. So, impulsively I quit my job and moved to Key West, Florida, where Nereo was stationed. It is there that the Lirios family truly began.

Even with the diversity within New York and the constant encouragement of immigrants to keep true to themselves regarding the cultural traditions they immigrated with, it becomes necessary at some point for an immigrant to adopt the already existing culture within this unique but strange environment he now finds himself in. I remember very clearly my parents and my siblings, upon my arrival at the United States, warning me constantly not to even entertain the thought of turning “American,” as they called it. My quite conservative Ghanaian parents abhorred the life the traditional ‘American’ in New York lived; the partying, the slang vocabulary dominated by curse words, the lack of respect for the elderly and the list goes on and on.

Soon enough I convinced myself that my parents had these beliefs of the ‘American’ people only based on how they are portrayed in the media and perhaps, the little interaction they had with them on their way to work and at work. And although they did fine by not adapting to their new environment, I was in a totally different world summed up in two simple words, ‘High School.’ Before coming to New York, I was very excited about getting into an American High School. I spent countless hours watching movies and shows that glorified and decorated life at High School within a prosperous city like New York. Even before I moved here, words like prom, homecoming, jocks, homeroom and the like, which didn’t exist at my school was second nature to me. I practically knew everything about the United States school system: what the kids were like, what they enjoyed, what a typical day in high school was like, etc., but of course, it was through the ultimately biased lens of the Hollywood movie system.

My entire life almost turned upside down upon the realization, after being enrolled at a NYC public high school, that the image I had created about high school prior to be enrolled in one was simply hokum. I was hit with this reality on my first day at school, together with all the anxieties that come with being the new kid. Worse of all, I couldn’t properly understand the New York accent; neither could I handle the English language like I would want to, it being my second language and all. In light of all this, I had no choice but to keep to myself, to be a recluse. I tried to avoid human interaction as much as possible; speaking up in class was definitely something I avoided as much as possible. I sat alone at lunch and pretended to be occupied even when I wasn’t. Loneliness took over my life like a swarm of locusts takes over a plantation. I really missed my friends back at Ghana; all I could do was reminisce the times we had together and how I took them for granted.

The reality of the matter was that I simply was different from the others. I was so different that everyday from that point forward seemed like my first day. Only one or two persons talked to me; eventually I dreaded setting foot at that school. I soon, however, realized that in order for me to enjoy this new environment I had been put into, I had to adapt to the new circumstances. Hence, I began a journey to ‘Americanize’ and become like the kids at my school; that was the least I could do to deal with this situation. I spent the following months simply observing and listening. I listened to the vocabulary the students used, how the acted toward each other, how they acted when they met a person for the first time etc. At home, I watched YouTube videos on accent reduction and I constantly read to myself and conversed with myself so as to gain mastery over the English language. This entire process lasted for about a year, with loneliness running down my spine every now and then.

Nonetheless, even within this period of adaptation, I had to stay true to my true nature and culture. Even though adapting to this new environment would help me endlessly, I couldn’t live with the thought of letting go of my previous ideologies and culture, which essentially was who I am. Even more so, I had to hold on to it for the sake of my parents. This quickly created an immense conflict within me: whether to let the new culture I have learned take me over completely, balance the two or simply throw out everything I had learned and stay true to my parents wishes. With this pressure, I had no choice but to develop a double personality. While at school, I acted like the kids at school and while at home, I only displayed behaviors my parents would approve of.

Soon enough, by implementing what I had observed and learned from my environment, I started making friends and enjoying life at high school. Frankly, I became quite popular; I had even had my own entourage. I enjoyed going to school and I enjoyed life in New York; for once, I actually felt like a native and New York felt like home. I figured that by maintaining this double personality, I wasn’t hurting anyone and I as such, wasn’t doing anything wrong.

After a while, however, I realized that I was actually hurting myself. By living such as life, I wasn’t being true to myself. And the people who appeared to like me actually only liked the personality I had put on. The time came to make a decision that would change my life, to merge the two personalities into one. I realized I had learned some essential skills for survival within New York; however, along with it, I had picked up some habits that weren’t so ethical. I, as such, salvaged through everything I had learned, picked up only what was truly essential and dumped everything else. I resolved that if people didn’t like me for who I am, they didn’t deserve my company.

Looking back, that was probably the best decision I ever made. More often than not, immigrants end up hurting themselves or the ones they love by not adapting correctly to the new place they find themselves. It’s a journey almost every immigrant makes and most at times, the outcome is different for each person. I am truly glad that I was able to embark on this journey and emerge as successfully as I did.

My parents never planned on staying in America permanently. Then one day they woke up and they had two kids and decided they were too old to start another adventure.

*    *    *

    I spent a flight to Poland sitting next to a man being deported back. He had nothing with him except the clothes on his back, and most of his teeth were missing. He spoke with sweet sadness about the course his life had taken, spitting him out right back where he started. When the plane landed, he was met by police at the exit, handcuffed, and escorted away.

*    *    *

    LOT Polish Airlines is a charmingly quaint airline. When my uncle was supposed to come visit us, the plane that was supposed to take him to New York never arrived in Warsaw because a group of men had gotten drunk and beaten up a flight attendant and the plane had to stop in Iceland so they could be arrested. Apparently LOT doesn’t have any extra planes on hand. It was probably for the best since immigration wouldn’t have let him into New York with his expired visa anyways.

*    *    *

    Shortly after my father arrived in America, he and his friends were drinking and ran out of vodka, so they set out to buy more. They didn’t know that liquor stores were closed on Sundays in New York. Their quest ended with them in East New York, which at the time resembled a war zone.  Every surface had been vandalized, and there were bonfires blazing in the street. A police officer stopped my father and his rag-tag group, and told them the only white people who come to East New York are cops and people looking to buy drugs. One of my father’s friends had majored in English, which was fortunate as the rest of them couldn’t even speak English when sober. He said something and the officer let them go. When my father started driving a cab, he refused to take passengers who asked to be taken to East New York.

*     *    *

    Another one of my uncles has spent much of the last ten years in limbo. He lived with us a few years, working construction for people who wouldn’t check if he had papers. He has a sister living in Vancouver, and he went to go visit her. At the airport in Montreal, he was taken into custody and sent back to Poland. After spending a few months there and not being able to get a job, he went to Australia on a student visa he had somehow obtained despite being 60 years old. Again he worked for people who wouldn’t check his papers. He called my father and asked him to look for a wife for him. A green card wife goes for around $30, 000 these days. When my father hung up, he said he wouldn’t even bother looking because there was no way my uncle could save up enough money. Each of his roommates moved out of the apartment one by one. He was left with no furniture except his bed and a rent he couldn’t afford. Back to Poland he went. He tried to visit us last Christmas but at the airport he was sent back. Again. He says there’s nothing left in Poland for an old man like him.

*    *    *

    When my mother came to the states, she worked for a decade and a half as a housekeeper. She was able to get by pretty comfortably, as many of her clients were wealthy. She cleaned for the fashion designer Elie Tahari, and she has a few dresses and pantsuits of his design he had given her. She got a job offer from Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones to clean their New York apartment, but she was heavily pregnant and had to turn down the opportunity. She cleaned for one woman who lived in a townhouse on Park Avenue with her millionaire husband. She never paid on time and was always borrowing money from my mother for taxi fare.

She was able to make these connections through her friendship with an ancient Japanese woman she had met when she first arrived in New York. We called her Myoko-san. She had worked as a live-in housekeeper for Yoko Ono when she was married to John Lennon. A few months after Lennon was shot, Yoko found a new man and they fired their entire domestic staff and hired a new one. Myoko-san was left with a room full of old furniture that Lennon and Yoko Ono had given to her after they were tired of it. Today, it would’ve been worth millions. Once, Myoko-san left her house for a weekend, and while she was gone, her junkie son had sold all the furniture.

*    *    *

    My father lost the engagement ring on the nine hour flight to New York, so my parents never got engaged. I imagine my father, slowly taking a drag off his cigarette, simply stating “Let’s get married Saturday,” and my mother saying “Okay” and going to Macy’s to buy a dress. At JFK, my father remembers being stifled by the intense heat as he went through immigration and customs. Having finally stepped onto American soil and finding my mother, he made his way to the door as quickly as possible, hoping to catch a breath of freedom. As he stepped outside, he found the August heat to be even heavier than it had been inside. As he rode to his new home, he looked out the window and thought “Shit, this place is uglier than Warsaw.”

*    *    *

    My best friend is undocumented, also from Poland. When the Supreme Court decides to recognize same-sex marriage on a federal level, I’m going to marry her so she can get a green card.

She was never easy to cope with, and without a doubt, and today was no different. “Emily!”, she screeched from down below, “What did you plan on doing with these linens!?”. In fact, I had a very specific plan for those linens, but it was far too early for her to find out about that. I spent another moment staring out at the Irish Sea through my open window, and resigned to deal with my mother, closing the bay windows with a sigh.

“Emily!”, her royal highness bellowed as I wandered down the stairs, “Take these sheets down to the linen closet and afterwards run to the butcher for some sausage for supper. Make sure to smile; he might give us something extra again. And don’t forget the ration cards!”. You know, she was always a hassle but since they started the rationing, my mother had become a real monster. I leave the house and walk the three blocks to the town butcher. As I make my way down the small cobblestone streets, I can smell the combination of the fresh sea spray, this morning’s catch, sitting in large boxes in front of the market, and the chemical fumes from the nearby factories. Dalkey was never known for much more than its port and its fishing industry before the war, but now we’re one of the largest producers of cloth for military uniforms.

I order a half pound of blood sausage in the small, but clean and well-lighted butcher shop, and stare out the window aimlessly as the butcher measures out the ambiguously-colored links. Across the street the ever-present military recruiters eagerly hand out leaflets. The recruiter for Britain’s Military Nurse Corps catches my eye and gives me a knowing look, I nod my head; tonight’s the night.

—————————————————————————————

So I did it, I really did it! As we speak I’m off to medical training in London, one suitcase to my name, my boring seaside life far behind me. I swear mother is going to blow a gasket when she finds out, but that’s not my issue anymore. I can’t even believe that I did this, and by scaling down the side of the house with a sheet of all ways! It’s as if I’m a spy from one of those novels! I couldn’t have done it without my little sister, Kitty. She insured that the knot I tied the sheet to the bedframe with held as I climbed out the window. Can you imagine how horribly embarrassing it would have been if I was caught on the front stoop with my packed suitcase and a broken ankle? Nonetheless this is the right move for me, I can feel it. London here I come.

—————————————————————————————

We’re about a month into nurse’s training, and I’ve decided to write a letter home to mother just so she knows that I’m surviving all right. They’re teaching us all the important things: how to treat wounds and wrap bandages and administer painkillers. And tomorrow we’re learning how to set up stretchers!

In even more exciting news, I have met the nicest, most handsome guy! His name is Henry Milton and he’s a second lieutenant! We met at an army dance a couple of nights ago and he’s come to call on me twice since then! I’m definitely not including him into my letter to mother, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

—————————————————————————————

America. My little sister Kitty said it was her idea, but Father would never admit that he was moving his entire family across the world based on the idea of a fifteen year old girl. I’ve been debating going home to visit them one last time before they leave. When people in our family leave Ireland they never come back. Take Father’s sister Dotty who moved to Australia five years past, a letter or two is all that remains of her to us now. I should really go home to visit one last time. I shall tell Henry tonight of my plans. Oh! Henry! I almost forgot to mention, Henry and I are to be married! In three months time, for a May wedding! I never did tell Mother or Father but seeing as he’s an English Protestant they would never allow it. I figure once they’re in America and I write to them about it, there’s really nothing they can do about it.

—————————————————————————————

I have never been this furious, never in my entire life. I feel as if I am going to collapse, but then again it’s not like I can dirty these clothes seeing as I have nothing else, since I have been kidnapped! My final visit back home to Dalkey became my final time in the United Kingdom forever! Mother and Father decided for me that I was going with them to America. Despite the fact that I am twenty years of age with a fiancé and a career in London, they have forced me to go to New York with them. Once I arrived home they locked me in the spare (windowless!) bedroom until the departure day, only opening the door to bring in food or bath water. At the very least I begged Mother to let me write to Henry to inform him of my dire situation so he would know I wasn’t abandoning him by choice. To be completely honest with you a small piece of me was hoping he would swoop in on a white horse and save me from this nightmare. New York. Have you ever heard of a place that sounds so dreadful? I shall never forgive them for this.

—————————————————————————————

After weeks at sea, we’ve finally arrived in New York. Despite all of esophageal pills I’ve taken it still feels as if my stomach is trying to escape my body out of my throat. I don’t know if I’ll ever rid the nauseating, swaying motion of the ship from my mind’s eye. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to mourn the loss of my Henry while simulteaously refusing to look in either one of my parents’ directions. Under all of my fury and despair I must admit that I am a bit excited to get a look at this new world, where all the streets are said to be paved with gold. However as we step off the ship for the first time, I look down at the first solid ground we’ve stood on for weeks and I’m almost surprised to see cobblestone instead of precious metal. Cobblestone streets that somehow, look just like those at home.

Dear Giorgio,                                                                                         September 10^th, 2008

I’m writing this to you, and therefore myself, because the doctors have informed me that I have Alzheimer’s disease and will soon no longer be able to remember much of anything. I’m 77 years old now and have soaked in many rich experiences, which I would find tragic to be lost like dust in the plain. In particular, I would find it most tragic to lose the memory of how I transformed from a child into adult. So let them not be lost, those childhood days in East Harlem spent with my loving family. Let them not be lost, those countless hours my mother and father spent attending to the needs of our family. Let them not be lost, the emotions I felt when we picked ourselves up from Harlem and moved to Brooklyn, which was then foreign to me but proved opportunistic. And let them not be lost, my brother, sister, mother, and father, all of whom now are passed. Let this be a testament to the efforts of my parents and all of the other hard working Italian immigrants in my community, and a story from which the memories of my younger days must not be truly forgotten.

As clear as a freshly cut glass window, I remember the time each day when my mother would come to pick up Maria, Stefano and I from school. Daily, she would bring us fruit from Father’s market on 135^th and Lennox. Each of us thought of this, as we watched the hands of the clock move hardily towards the end of the school day from separate classrooms. When we did get out of class, and each of us got our fruit, apples as they so often were, it was on to the five-block stretch between 120^th and 115^th street along 2^nd avenue. The effects of my disease will prove immense when I have forgotten that walk, which seemed to shrink, yet become more grand and ever more familiar as I grew older.

Each day it was the same routine, yet with the passing of time it became different. As a young boy I thought nothing of it, with young Maria just old enough for school and the eldest Stefano beginning to learn things worth boasting about. On these daily walks, sometimes us kids would squabble about something insignificant, or my mother would bring us to the macaroni store on 116^th, but often times it seemed to be the same leisurely stroll home.

As certain things changed within myself and without, I came to see that same walk in different lights. The first day of 11^th grade was a big change. The city had become much more lively after the soldiers had arrived home that June in 1945. Summer was winding down but the air was different not just for that reason. Some of the other families in our community had lost relatives back home in Italy, after bombing raids in the later years of the war. While some were still grieving their losses, almost everyone was happy to have the war over and eager to enjoy the peace and prosperity. It was then that I realized how fortunate I was to have the life that I did. At times it was hard to get by with the money and resources we had, but I had not lost any family members to the war, and I had a hard working mother and father. They worked each day to put bread on the table for me, tend to the needs of us children around the house, and pave the way for our education.

That day, on the walk home, I looked at my mother with admiring eyes. As I glanced at the cobblestones underneath her feet, I understood that the streets were not in physicality paved with gold, but that the vivacious reflection of the sun’s rays off the pavement was just as grand. I know my brother could feel it too, and while Maria was still just eleven years old, she walked with a content quietness that added only further to the change I felt. While perhaps the change in my perspective occurred more gradually than in one day, I can say with absolute certainty that was the first day I noticed it. After arriving home, I asked my mother for permission and I walked with my brother to my father’s grocery stand. I helped him pack up the stand and upon observation I was pleased to see in him the same thing I saw in my mother. I saw a magnificent love for my siblings and I, which drove him to work so hard for us each day, and to keep himself moving forward despite the constant reminders of our poverty and suboptimal conditions that we lived in back then. He and my Mother wanted better for us.

From then on my life was more filled with meaning, and intensely driven by that same love my parents showed to me. The smell of the fresh bread from the bakery I passed each day was sharper. The sight of salesmen, shoe shiners and workers of all kinds moving about in their daily activities now pleased my eyes. The taste of an apple from my father’s stand had never been sweeter. I poured my new appreciation into my scholarship, finishing high school and being admitted into the City College of New York. I studied hard there in my effort to obtain a college degree and become an industrial engineer.

After two years of my study there, my brother got a job working as a civil engineer for urban development in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. So we picked ourselves up from our long standing home on 116^th street and moved everything we owned out to Brooklyn. There my father opened up a new grocery market and we moved into a new apartment next door to a family we had known back in Harlem. Maria enrolled at a new public school to finish her primary school and I continued my education at Brooklyn College.

It was a big jump and at times very scary for all of us, but I could see the comfort that it afforded my mother and father. The added revenue from my brother’s salary allowed us more luxuries and a nicer apartment. So again driven by the love of my parents, I pushed through my feelings of nostalgia and loss of the community I had come from, to make way for new feelings of increased security and passion towards my schooling. I made new friends at Brooklyn College, many of whom were immigrants like myself, and learned more and more about what kinds of things I would be capable of when I too became part of the work force.

So in 1950 I graduated with a degree in Industrial Engineering. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. When I too was able to get a job in public works through the connections my brother had, I felt a sense of pride like no other in knowing that I would now be able to help my parents as they had helped me.

So with my brother and I as working men, and my sister undergoing education to become a librarian, I started a new era of my life. I gave my profession all of the time and energy that I could, drawing on the inspiration of my parents and the thought of my future children having a higher standard of living than I had been raised in. It was then that I had become a man. It was then that I was able to help my family as they had helped me, and feel at peace with this world that I was born into.

Giorgio. You must not forget your father Giuseppe, your mother Antonia, and everything they did for you. You must not forget your brother Stefano, your younger sister Maria, or the wonderful times you three shared. You must not forget the struggle you had as an immigrant family, and how it helped you mature into a loving adult like your father had been.

Remember always,

Giorgio Corbellini

Home, I remember it like yesterday, the sights and smells of my country. Every morning I would get up to my mutters, “Gutten Morgon,” followed by a varied aroma of coffee and the freshly-baked bread with delicious homemade jam. I would go outside everyday to walk along the Main River and see the schoolchildren on their way to learn their daily studies. When I came home from work, I would greet my younger schwester, and my parents. This would be a beautiful day, however it wasn’t reality, only a dream.

My younger schwester would later say that we grew up in a turbulent time. Born on May 15, 1900, I saw a whole world war start while fourteen, and end when eighteen. The trying times, through rationing during the war and shortages, cannot compare with the tears your mutter cried as she said goodbye to your vater, prepared to fight for our country. Was it harder to see him leave, and not know if he would ever come back? Or was it harder to receive a letter knowing for sure that he would never come back? I did not know the answer to these questions. All I knew was the poverty ridden and the depressive state that ransacked my country.

After the war, our situation became worse. My mutter could not find work to support both my sister and I. I found a family to nanny for, but it constantly reminded me of the dire straits my own family was in, and how my little schwester needed me more than ever. One morning, my mutter who would generally be out looking for employment, was sitting at our table. The normally ever present smile on her face, was replaced with a frown and a resigned look in her eyes. I went over and put my hand on her shoulder, like my vater used to do, and asked her what was wrong. She replied “alles”, or everything, and in that one word my hope was shattered for the future. I sat down and cried for everything that could have been, and of a childhood lost to the violence of man.

While we struggled for many more months, finally a distant cousin of ours came to visit, and told us about of friend who was making it big in America- the land full of dreams and possibilities. My mutter, searching desperately for any hope, latched on to the idea of leaving and finding hope there. After a few months we made the arrangement and went to a so-called dream promised country. I expected it to be so, for my mutter and my schwesters sake. At this point, I did not reflect on all I would be leaving behind in my country. I did not think about the house I would leave behind, or the friends who I spent days with near the river dipping our toes in the cold water and exploring the forest to the south of out town. I did not think about the new language I would have to learn, and embrace, not even the new customs. I only saw my country as something to leave behind, like one would leave behind the ashes of a fire.

When we arrived in America in 1919, and settled into the great city of Manhattan, we did not expect what was coming. I should have seen how Germans would be viewed after a war against Germany. I should have understood that we would not be accepted with open arms. Instead of the promising life my cousin promised, was a place prejudiced against our origins. Upon arriving, my mutter realized that many jobs were turning her down as soon as they heard her accent, and saw our last name Feigenspan. On experiencing this, we changed our last name to Feinstein, suggested to us by a friend, who said it was much more “Americanized.” I resented this change, and the constant lesson’s I took from our neighbor to learn English, and sound “American”. For all my efforts, I simply could not completely get rid of my accent. I became used to the discrimination Germans faced. Once, while down the street with my sister, someone shouted at me to, “stop my jabbering, for my harsh accent was grating to his ears.” What made me even more morose was that I knew previously to World War I, that Germans were accepted by Americans. I had felt that I had been cheated, because if I had come earlier, I would have had a better chance at being accepted.

Not everyone acted in this manner though. Yes, it is true that many people did resent my country and my background, but I saw promise in this country. It took me a long time though, to come to accept my status as an American. My mutter and schwester found it much easier once they were settled in. They were quick to change previous things about themselves to fit into what was culturally acceptable. My schwester completely forgot about our country and never wanted to speak of it. My mutter while spending her days sewing at a shop, would talk with the women about the newest fashions in clothes. While these were fairly normal things, I viewed them with a semblance of shame and annoyance. I could not get passed that this was not my country, and most definitely not my home. Yet, how naïve I was back then. While I was in Germany I was only too eager to leave, and when in America I was only too eager to go back to Germany. This was my conundrum; I felt I had no true home.

Eventually and advantageously, I developed a sense that I could settle down in this country. I started dating an Italian, who did not find my accent “grating,” but rather interesting and beautiful. I was able to see my schwester form bonds with people here, and my mother marry again. I was able to get a job assisting doctors in their work, and to helping people from different backgrounds, that I would never have experienced in Germany. I came to find that there was promise in America.

Now as I glimpse the tall buildings and the hustling people all around me, I come to see what I could not before; home. Although I had dreams in Germany that were not accomplished there, I found a better replacement in this land, full of promise and adventure. Even though I might look back on my homeland with nostalgia, for my heritage, my language, and my experiences, they are still with me, and let me reflect and remember my old home.

I was four at the time I moved to America, and somehow the journey remains fresh in my memory. Before moving to New York, we made stops from the east coast to the west coast, visiting major cities and states in order to apprehend the area that was most affordable, beneficial, and easy to acculturate to for our family. Unfortunately, I cannot recollect our visits to Los Angeles, Houston, Orlando, or Atlanta, but I do faintly remember Missouri and of course, New York.

Missouri seems like a boring mid-west state with a focus on agriculture and country music. However, this location has a special place in my heart. Lee’s Summit, Missouri is where my sister was born, and also the place where I first met the Italian side of my family. I often reminisce the serene, clean, and rural countryside. I miss cruising down the highway with the roof of the car open, feeling that fresh and warm breeze against my face and the wind blowing through my hair. Besides the wonderful physical sensations, I had family in Missouri.

Meeting my Italian family was strange because of the major contrast in culture, religion, and language. My family did not speak English, so basic communication was rather difficult. However, the language barrier was not as difficult to overcome as expected. Traveling, touring, and visiting different areas of Missouri, such as the famous Gateway Arch in St. Louis, coffee shops, and Italian restaurants, enabled us all as a collective group to enjoy our stay. We ended up with an incredibly strong bond with our Italian relatives, so much so that we now visit them every summer. That same year, my younger sister Maria was born. It may seem that I loathe and detest her, but deep down I am glad I had someone as young as me experience this new American world. The state of Missouri possesses a large part of my confused childhood, that is, the enigmatic chapter of my life full of questions on the perplexity of American society.

America seems so foreign to a child born and raised in a strict community with an intense focus on education and order. Immigrants who move to America usually experience a culture shock, where they leave a culture they partially understood to experience another exotic culture. In Thailand, I would usually spend countless hours completing homework and competing to “get first in class,” which is a phrase I would hear often from my parents. America seemed like a laid-back country, and kindergarten consisted more of coloring and recess time than mathematics and science. The food here, albeit delicious and satisfying, is greasy and unhealthy. As a child, our preschool focused in depth on nutrition and health, the two important aspects on living a long and joyous lifestyle. Asian cultures incorporate vegetables and tea as part of a daily diet, and America focuses on protein and carbohydrates, or so it seemed to a five-year-old Minhal.

Moving to New York was not strange because moving from state to state became a normal lifestyle for our family. However, the environment outside our Brooklyn home was yet another foreign land. Brooklyn seemed like a dirty, filthy, rodent-infested, and loud area, especially since we lived near the train tracks. I had to retake kindergarten class due to my young age, and found it unappealing due to the lack of focus on grades and learning a topic other than numbers and the alphabet. Regardless, Brooklyn, specifically Coney Island Avenue, is a street of familiarity, even to us foreigners. The street is lined with shops, such as Bazaars and halal meat stores, which consisted of people who spoke Urdu and Hindi. The area was concentrated with Pakistanis, enabling us to keep a close tie and communicate effectively with the community around us. I remember walking down the sidewalk with my cousin, and waving at the shop owners in every store we pass by. The pungent aroma of South Asian dishes brought my family and me comfort. The people on Coney Island Avenue were also recent immigrants, so they understood the trouble we had in settling in and becoming accustomed to American culture. There was always a helping hand when our family needed one, and that is what I loved most about the Brooklyn area I lived in thirteen years ago.

In elementary school I somehow formed two personalities. I formed one personality at home, where my parents were extremely strict and prohibited many activities from my life, such as sleeping over, hanging out with friends outside of school, or saying anything disrespectful or crude. At school, I was shocked to see the lack of restrictions in speech towards any topic. Children spoke without care or consequence, and curse words were used in practically every sentence. I was put into ESL classes for my inability to comprehend and speak English fluently. I felt like an outsider for my necessity of special education courses in order to understand the relatively simple concepts we learned in class. At times, I felt underprivileged and disadvantaged because other students had parents who were educated in America, and therefore had easy access to help when needed. If I had a question about my homework, I had to figure it out myself. Additionally, once I understood the intricate and complex English language, my parents brought me along with them as a translator for basic communication with others, such as the doctor.

I asked my mother about her feelings and experience in moving to America. Her focus was on the economy, jobs, and American citizens. My mom expected America to be full of Caucasians with blonde hair and blue eyes; however, it turns out that America is extremely diverse! The job market, which is a pull factor for all immigrants, is not as effortless as expected to acquire a job. Obtaining and maintaining a job is hard work and labor, especially when one only earns minimum wage. Also, America seems less interactive as a community. In Pakistani and Arab and Thai culture, one must always be friendly and altruistic to neighbors. As my mom says, “Your neighbors always end up becoming your best friends.” New York is a busy world, and living next to each other yet remaining distant in each other’s lives is a strange concept.

Whether you’re an adult or a child, experiencing a new culture and environment can be stressful and confusing. We set our expectations too high, only to be faced by the harsh reality of the world. The expectations my mom set for America are the goals I have set for myself, i.e., earn a living, start a family, and live the American dream. The dream we live today, and the dream I hope to live tomorrow.

Mrs. Sima Licht lives in a 2-family attached house on a quiet avenue Borough Park, Brooklyn. She has lived in that same house for more than forty years, first moving there in the 1970’s to live one flight down from her Hungarian parents-in-law with her husband and their first two children. She considers Borough Park her home and has for many years, but has known many homes along the way; homes that figure prominently in her memory, and whose traces linger in her speech, attitudes, and kitchen.

She has not actually seen all those homes, but they have shaped her nonetheless. Many of them sheltered her parents, Romanian- Jewish immigrants during whose travels from war-torn Europe she was born.

She knows of the courtyard in Temeshvar (today Timisoara), Romania, in which Sima’s mother, Sassa, known to her descendants as their beloved Bobby Daskal, was raised in a loving, warm home. Sassa’s mother was a baker and caterer, who rolled out the dough of her crispy “kindel” nut confections across the clean kitchen table until you could see the wood grain through it, and rolled it up into sweet delicacies that were famous throughout the community.   Sima knows how they taste from her own mother’s Purim baking, and sometimes nostalgically bakes them herself. She also owns the yellowed notebook written in her mother’s familiar hand which has that recipe in Hungarian, a language she can neither read nor speak.

She has heard of the small village in which Sassa got married. Sassa would often retell the story of her courtship with a smile; the story of the wedding, with pain. A relative, well known for his matchmaking skills, had tried to set her up with a certain young man named Yidel in the community. However she had had her eye on another Yidel; the dashing and talented Yidel Daskal, and asked the matchmaker to set her up with “this Yidel instead.” The shidduch was set, and Yidel courted her with carefully penned love letters in Romanian. Sassa once described those letters to her granddaughter Naomi: “Every word, a pearl.” Sima still has some of those letters, as inscrutable to her as her mother’s recipe book, stored away as a testimony to sweetness in terrible times. It was 1940 and war was quickly spreading across Eastern Europe. Rumors of Nazi approach were thick and fearful, and so Sassa and Yidel hastened the wedding, arranging a party without permission from the authorities, in a small village that they hoped would be less dangerous. The wedding was bright and joyous, until the local police arrived, guns drawn, to make arrests of the unauthorized Jewish marriage. Sassa and Yidel and all the guests fled the scene. Years later, Sassa would rue, “We never got to make the blessings on the bread.”

As the Nazis made their advances, Sassa and Yidel were lucky to be spared the ominous train rides that only ever left towards Germany filled to capacity with men, women and children who were never to return again. Recognizing that post-war Hungary was no place to raise their growing family, they relocated to Prague with their daughters, Yitty and Devorah. Prague, too, is a memory Sima bears, but it is only a waystation; one of many swiftly listed parental abodes that were only homes in the sense that they kept the rain out and trouble one step away. The face of Europe was changing and communism was marching westward. A few months after the family moved to Prague, Jan Masaryk, a well-known politician, was found dead, rumored to have been tossed out a window, and Sassa and Yidel realized that it was time to find a better place to raise their daughters. Yidel found a Russian politician in Prague who needed to sell his car quickly, before the USSR claimed it as government property, and Sassa and Yidel packed up all that they could and headed westward to Brussels, Belgium, with a short stay in Paris, along with Sassa’s brother Srul. Yidel, ever-resourceful, found a way to convincingly forge the necessary papers to get the family safely to Canada, and so in 1949, the Daskals boarded a ship, the Franconia, headed first to Quebec and then to Toronto, Ontario.

Once in Toronto, Sassa and Yidel settled into the newly budding Jewish community. They took in boarders, often young, orphaned Jewish-European men who had survived the Holocaust. Yidel found work at a textile factory, doing the night shift. Desperate to learn English, Yidel would bring home the newspaper, and Sassa and Yidel would sit together, laboring over the foreign words. In Toronto, Sassa gave birth to another daughter, Pela, and then to their youngest, Sima. Here, Sima’s memories begin to take their own shape, and divide: her memories of childhood are sweet, as Sima still remembers the cold Toronto winters and playing with her sister Pela in the garden. What she knows from her parents’ stories, though, is rougher: her father and mother had trouble finding enough work to pay the bills in Canada and so, just before Sima’s fourth birthday, the family moved to Norfolk, Virginia.

Sima remembers details of the move to a roomy, pleasant flat in the poorer side of Norfolk, where her father had a short stint as a Hebrew school teacher for inattentive little boys, and mentions the sunny backyard where she and Pela wiled away the long summer hours. The mosquitos there were fat and vicious – to this day the smell of witch hazel reminds Sima of the heat from their stings. She knows the community was not religious enough for her parents, but what she remembers is the sunlight shining everywhere, even on the floor beneath her bed.

Sima recalls the next move a year later to a cramped apartment above Bob’s Sporting Goods in Asbury Park, New Jersey. There, she and Pela attended a school temporarily stationed on the beach boardwalk; during recess, the students would try to sneak saltwater taffy from the vendors and gaze longingly at the shiny amusement park rides, whose tunes often punctuated their learning. That longing gaze became a prevalent part of her young adulthood, as she and her three older sisters began to set their sights on becoming more American. She tells of the time that Devorah decided that that the family would begin to celebrate birthdays. Devorah pulled down Sassa’s big book of handwritten recipes and whipped up a fancy vanilla confection, complete with blue frosting. All the sisters were excited to celebrate the same way their friends did at school, but when Devorah sliced into the cake, the inside looked like cottage cheese. Sima chuckles at the memory of the hysterical laughter she and her sisters shared at the sight of the unfortunate cake, but that was the first and last birthday cake ever served at the Daskal home.

One more home figures prominently in Sima’s memory. When Sima turned eight, the Daskals moved to Far Rockaway, New York, so that Devorah and Yitty could attend an orthodox Jewish high school in Williamsburg. The city was exciting for Sima. She remembers carpooling to school and eventually taking part in the first graduating class of the first all-girls Jewish school in Far Rockaway. She tells happy stories of her parents, sisters, friends and classmates, and of eventually helping a certain Mrs. Rochel Licht at her job at her father’s textile store in Brooklyn. Rochel was so impressed with Sima that she set Sima up on a date with her son, Levi. The rest is, as they say, history. Sima and Levi courted, married and together raised their five children in Borough Park.

When I press her about her family’s long journey, about growing up in a land both foreign and familiar, Sima talks about the inherent hardship in moving to new places. Her parents didn’t receive official documents until they had been in the U.S. for over three decades, and she remembers the palpable, unmentioned fear of deportation. Her classmates for the first eight years of her life were all Americans who were children of Americans, and she remembers the challenge in bridging the gaps in wealth and expectation. As Sima speaks of this, her tone is contemplative, but proud. She remembers appreciatively the great measures her parents took to make all their children feel at home and loved wherever they were. She turns to me and says, “My family moved to many places in all kinds of circumstances, but this made me accepting of all kinds of people, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.” She laughs and mentions, however, that to this day she still makes a birthday cake for each of her children and grandchildren.

Giancarlo slowly ascended the staircase into the July air, leaving the sweltering humidity of the subway behind him like he had risen from the very depths of hell. Now a feeble old man, this would surely be his last pilgrimage to the neighborhood he had immigrated to in his childhood.

Baptized in the fresh air, Giancarlo took a look around from the top of the staircase. Everything had changed. The salumerie and mercati he used to know had long since been replaced by quirky coffee shops and vegan restaurants advertising gluten-free menus. Storefronts once rustic and homey had been mutilated by the instillation of giant square windows and glossy hardwood finish. The people that once dotted the streets in their grey suits now sported tattoos from head to foot. “This is an alien world,” Giancarlo thought to himself. But he was the alien, the stranger; a vestige of a time long past.

Giancarlo began walking along the path he knew like the back of his hand. Despite the new façade, it was still the same neighborhood he grew up in. The first stop on his journey was the old church. As Giancarlo took in the sight of the old building, now even more decrepit than when he had first laid eyes on it, the memories came flooding back.

He was nine, and had just moved to New York with his parents. Giancarlo rather timidly accompanied his father up the steps of the tiny church, gently running his hand along the rough stone railing. At the doorway stood an old, friendly looking priest. “Benvenuto mio figlio,” the priest said, wearing a beckoning smile. Giancarlo exchanged a glance with his father, and they both followed the priest inside.

When the service ended, he recalled, the congregation filed out and Giancarlo found himself standing in the same spot he was in at this very moment. He smiled, wistfully remembering both the first time he felt like he was a part of something in America, and one of the last memories he had of his father. Giancarlo placed his hand on the old stone railing one last time, felt its cold, rough texture on the palm of his wrinkled hand, and continued on his way.

Giancarlo rounded the corner and walked down the street, marching as swiftly as he could past a food truck that used to be a street vendor. He passed a pack of school children, all silently playing on their cellphones and ignoring one another. Giancarlo had never owned a cellphone, and he remembered a time when no one did. Suddenly the children’s laughter prompted Giancarlo to turn around. But the children were no longer there. In their place, a teenage Giancarlo stood with his friends preparing for a game of baseball.

“Pitch the ball already,” yelled Vinnie, the batter. The troop of teenagers had a non-verbal agreement to refer to the bottle cap as a ball, and the broomstick as a bat. Giancarlo wound up and flicked the bottle cap past the batter. Strike one. “I wasn’t ready,” Vinnie grinned. With a knowing smile, Giancarlo wound up again—and threw the pitch deceptively slowly. A swing and a miss, strike two. “Last chance!” Giancarlo said. “Yea, yea,” Vinnie replied, “just throw the damn ball.” Giancarlo closed his eyes. He was in the last game of the World Series. Two outs, full count. He team was leading by one run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Giancarlo opened his eyes, wound up and flung the bottle cap. SMACK! Vinnie’s broomstick made contact, sending the cap flying across the street where it ricocheted off of a window before falling back to earth; a homerun. “You’ve lost!” Vinnie yelled as he gleefully rounded the bases.

“Are you lost?” Said a tall man with thick-rimmed glasses, a beret, and a tattoo of a swallow on his neck. Surprised, Giancarlo shook his head, casting off the final fragments of the memory. As Giancarlo continued on his way, he wondered what had happened to the old gang. Vinnie, he knew, had been killed in the war. As for the rest of them, he did not know. They gradually lost contact with the passage of time.

The nights were long; he remembered staying out late with the old gang, playing baseball and hanging out on the stoop drinking soda pop, coming home late at night trying not to wake his mother. But he always did, and she would always beat him with a shoe and then make him fresh gnocchi with olive oil and cheese, a midnight snack. The years, however, were short; the baseball games, the war, the death of his mother, the events of the past seemed still seemed fresh in his memory. “Where has the time gone,” Giancarlo thought to himself, walking passed a store advertising electronic cigarette vapor (whatever that meant) “what has happened to the world?”

With the wistful melancholy that often accompanies memory weighing heavy on his heart, Giancarlo arrived at his destination. Il Fornino was a quaint little restaurant, a relic of the past that had stood in the same location for as long as Giancarlo could remember. Fortunately the restaurant, Il Fornino had been revitalized by the patronage of customers longing for its vintage, old world charm. Giancarlo sat alone, and ordered the regular meal he had ordered hundreds of times before.

The waitress came and left, and Giancarlo looked down at his bowl of gnocchi with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. “This will be the last time,” He somberly reflected. After a long breath, he took a forkful of the potato-pasta and with a trembling hand placed it into his mouth. As he closed his eyes and turned the soft, subtly sweet gnocchi around in his mouth, he was transported back into the past; back to his mother’s kitchen.

“Ti voglio bene, mamma,” Giancarlo said, after eating a bowl of his mother’s gnocchi. She was too old now to beat him with a shoe, but she would never be too old to cook for her son. “I just wanted to thank you ma. For leaving you life in Italy behind to raise me. For taking on a second job after dad died. For always having food on the table. I love you.” Tears welled in the old woman’s eyes. “Ti voglio ben’assai anche figlio,” she said.

Background:

I’ve been crying for the past few hours and I cant seem to shake this horrible lump that I have in my throat. My parents and my brother don’t approve of my decision to leave. They’re trying to tell me that I’m absurd for wanting to leave Kiev. Whatever. I’m used to being on my own. It’s been about three years since I was divorced. Even as a surgical nurse I can’t seem to make enough money to provide for my daughter. Poor Anya. I hope she’ll forgive me one day for raising her without a father.

The more I think about it, that’s exactly why I need to leave. There is nothing left for me here. I remember how beautiful the beaches in Lithuania were. Maybe I should reconsider relocating there instead. No, no, what am I saying. New York holds more opportunities for us.

The woman at the embassy told me it was a bad idea to leave on the 13^th but I scoffed. I’ve had enough misfortune. What kind of person would I be if I let a number control me? I’m leaving because I’m finally standing up to all the darkness that’s been imposed upon me thus far.

I’ve done most of the packing. Anya is too young to carry her own things so I’m only able to bring one suitcase. We’re allowed one necklace, one pair of earrings, and one ring each. I’ll have to pierce Anya’s ears so that I can bring my grandmother’s jewelry as well. Such a shame too, she’s too young for piercings.

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Journey:

The train to Vienna left on August 13^th. Everyone rushed into the train like vultures fighting over carcasses. I wasn’t strong enough to lift my luggage but luckily I traded two bottles of liquor for some help from a set of strapping young twins. I was only allowed 90 rubles for the entire trip so I had to ration that for as long as possible.

As I stepped out of the train, daughter in hand, I took a breath of the rich Viennese air. It was reminiscent of cocoa and coffee. I couldn’t believe I was finally on my way to leaving. My peaceful moment was interrupted by some snickering coming from behind me. I turned to find a group of middle-aged women giggling to themselves while pointing to my daughter.

“Find a husband next time you pathetic whore!” one of them yelled as I pushed Anya behind me. It was nothing I haven’t heard before. I moved the tight black curl blocking the vision in my left eye behind my ear and turned to walk towards one of the café’s. I was used to women verbally berating me and men making strong sexual advances because they assumed I’d be willing to prostitute myself because I was single.

A few days later, a Jewish organization invited me to come to a warehouse in which immigrants were able to find used utensils or clothes. As I walked in, I noticed dozens of people yelling over pots and pans. Others were tugging over stained sweaters. I didn’t have the energy to jump into the crowd to fight for scraps. I noticed another single mother in the crowd. She looked about a decade older than me, with thin and lifeless red hair. She was about 6 feet tall and deep wrinkles dominated her face. She was walking around complaining to try to get sympathy because she was alone with her son. She just looked so unfortunate.

As I stood in the corner, a woman came up to me. She scanned me head to toe and nodded. “We have a special back-room. More of the desirable clothes are there and you’ll be able to find higher quality kitchen utensils. All I’d like from you in return is a picture if you won’t mind” she said.

I looked back at the unfortunate older woman who was examining a torn pair of pants, presumably trying to understand if they were salvageable. I grabbed Anya’s hand and we made our way into the back room. It was all very arbitrary. I mean the only reason I was afforded this opportunity was because I was young and pretty. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to sit down and ponder the ethics of deceiving the other refugees because I had to do whatever I could to help my daughter. I pulled back the curls on my temples and examined the admittedly nicer clothes.

After about a week, it was time to leave for Rome. On the way to the train, all the refugees had to walk in a pathway created by a space between two seemingly endless lines of Viennese soldiers. They were all handsome young men, with blank yet stern expressions. Each soldier had his own German Shepard sitting beside him. They told us that the soldiers were there to make us feel safe because three years before, there had been a terrorist attack targeting the refugees in which grenades were set off and multiple people were killed and injured. Its ironic though, because I felt less safe than ever staring into the faces of these solemn men. I made my way into the train and comforted my distressed daughter by telling her that the soldiers were our friends.

I spent the next few weeks in Rome. Each night, after role-call, government officials called out the names of people approved for immigration to the U.S. I waited for weeks but finally got my answer on September 26^th.

“Yanina and Anya Kirnos. Denied.”

I felt my chest tighten up but didn’t let myself cringe so as to not get wrinkles. I brought my daughter’s head into my arms and held her close as she sobbed. I crossed my legs and lifted my chin to look younger. My parents had always taught me that as a woman it is imperative that I look my best at all times and so I retained my cool composure. The next day I left my daughter under the care of neighbors because I couldn’t afford a ticket for her to come with me to the embassy.

I dabbed some light perfume and wore my silver cast amber earrings. When I finally came to the embassy to plead my case, it was apparent that there was nothing they could do for me. I pursed my crimson-coated lips, ran my fingers down the tight dark curl that always seemed to fall in front of my left eye, and asked one more time.

“Well actually, on second thought, there’s another plane that leaves to New York too, but this one’s from London! There are only a few spots left but I’m sure we can work it out” he responded. I smiled and straightened my back.

On my way home, I picked up a raw chicken wing from the market. I only had enough money to buy one wing each day, and ended up boiling it to split with Anya. I came home and removed the countless accessories that I had adorned. Part of me felt ashamed for using sex appeal to get what I wanted but the gleam in my daughter’s eyes suppressed my qualms. We sat on opposite sides of the pot and shared the wing while laughing and exchanging stories.

The next day, Anya and I left for London Heathrow where we got on the Concorde. I was exhausted and sank into the cushioned seats. Then I remembered my mother’s incessant nagging that I must never slouch so as to appear as elegant as possible in public. I pulled myself upright and pushed my chest out. I loathed the fact that to my mother, a woman was nothing more than her sexual influence. The idea that everything I did had to help me find a husband was abhorrent but it’s all I’ve ever known. I protected my daughter thus far, but it was so difficult doing it on my own.

When the plane landed, I decided to express my relief and excitement in spite of my parents’ ideas regarding acceptable womanly behavior. I finally made it. I looked down at Anya and couldn’t hold my tears back. They dripped onto her golden frizzy locks and ran down the braid I had made for her. I felt like she hadn’t seen me smile enough in my life, and I didn’t care who was watching this time.

“Be strong, hermana.” These are the words my brother-in-law says to me each time we are hugging goodbye. Why does he say this to me? How did this saying come about? Thinking about it now, for my brother to be in the place he is now, he needed to be strong. Fuerte as they say in Spanish.

I first met my brother-in-law in August of 2012. It was right before my sweet sixteen, and he was the new guy my sister had brought home for my parents to meet. His name was Alex. Alex Martinez. He was a shy guy (or so I thought at first) and I did not know what to make of him.

His English was unclear and barely understandable. My father struggled to even grasp what he was trying to say, and my mother used the tiny bit of Spanish she knew to try to communicate with him, even though she used the word for cat instead of pencil. I could tell he felt uncomfortable sometimes, and was frustrated that he struggled to communicate with my parents. My sister tried her best to help convey his ideas. I used my knowledge of the Spanish I had learned in school to communicate with him. As soon as I started talking to him in Spanish, his face lit up, as a sense of ease filled his body. He had been so stressed about trying to talk to his new girlfriend’s parents, that he started doubt how his relationship with my sister would pan out. I can’t even imagine how he must have felt, both embarrassment and shame, from not being able to talk to my parents.

Alex is from Honduras, a small country in Central America. His full name is actually Carmen Alex Euceda Martinez, but he prefers to be called Alex rather than Carmen. He grew up on a large farm in a small poverty-stricken village. He lived with his mother, his father, four brothers and one sister. When Alex was little, his mother would send him out to catch one of the chickens, kill it, and bring it back to the house for the whole family to eat for dinner. When I first heard this story, I was repulsed and disgusted, but then I realized it’s just another way of life.

Life was difficult in Honduras. It was hard for his family and other families to make ends meet. Health care was a foreign idea, and it was a primitive society in some senses. Education was not valued, nor enforced. Alex did not receive an education, and anything he learned was taught to him at home by his mother. In 1993, two of Alex’s brothers, decided that they wanted to move to America to make money, so that they could create better lives for themselves. The two brothers obtained a green card and found themselves traveling to New York. After a few months, they began sending money back to the family, which inspired Alex to leave the country as well and head for the United States of America. He saw the United States as a way to live the dream that he had always wanted, and to better himself and his future.

It’s difficult for people born and raised here to understand the golden pathways that America projects to other countries, but to so many who face poverty America is the door leading away from the poverty that has suppressed their lives. The United States provides opportunities for people to make money, not only to create a sustained life here, but many times to send back` to their families at home. In 1999, Alex obtained a green card and was able to come here for work. He purchased a one way ticket to New York. Imagine. A one way ticket. An unknown destination becomes your new permanent home. He met up with his brothers who had settled in Oyster Bay on Long Island. They shared a house together, as rent is too expensive for each of them to own their own dwelling.

It was in Oyster Bay that Alex began to learn the techniques and skills needed to become a chef. I emphasize the word chef because so many people look at Hispanic immigrants and think, “Oh, they’re just a cook in the back frying the French fries.” No. That was not Alex. Mi hermano became a chef and worked in a restaurant up in Oyster Bay. One of his brother’s is a chef too, and the other became a handyman. Eventually, the other two brothers came to the United States, leaving only the sister and the parents back in Honduras. There’s a stereotype of Hispanic immigrants that all they are useful for is clearing dishes, working in the back of food places, or doing lawn work. Alex, however, defies this stereotype. He stepped out of the “cook” role and became a chef. He creates his own dishes, combines flavors that the most highly skilled chefs couldn’t have thought of, and makes the most delicious food.

Being a chef in a society that tends to look down upon immigrants from Central America is tough and challenging. People judge him, and feel a sense of superiority to him. They think he’s not good enough or skilled enough. They underpay and overwork him because he cannot speak English. Bosses and managers have taken advantage of him because he cannot stick up for himself as a result of his lack of English speaking skills. It is sad because of how amazing he is at making and cooking food. Immigrants in constantly face this issue of trying to communicate with people here in the United States. English is a difficult language for foreigners to learn, and coming to a country where English surrounds you on television, newspapers, radio and other media, there’s no escaping it.

In December of 2012, just a few months after they had been dating, Alex proposed to my sister. It was the first marriage that would be held for the Martinez family. There were some skeptics who thought Alex was just marrying my sister so he could become a legal citizen here in the United States. A horrible thought, to question someone’s love, but people will always be ignorant and inconsiderate. My grandfather refused to come to the wedding because he disapproved of Alex being an immigrant. In my heart, I knew Alex had the right intentions with my sister. My sister and Alex were married in a wonderful ceremony. All four brothers attended, but additionally, my family was able to fly up the mother and father so they too could attend the wedding.

I remember the morning in September when the parents were due to arrive. They had never been to America, and had only heard what the brothers had told them. At three in the morning we traveled to JFK airport along with the brothers. I have never experienced a moment as touching as when the brothers were reunited with their parents. The mother and father rounded the corner looking completely shocked and overwhelmed, and Alex jumped over the security gates and ran to hug them. All of the brothers followed suit, with lots of tears, hugs, and smiles. For Alex, the toughest part of being an immigrant is not being able to see his parents. It had been fourteen years since Alex had been able to hug his father and kiss his mother. Of course, the brothers all have each other because they live close together, but the physical distance between them and their parents creates a void in each of their hearts.

I guess I’m writing about my brother-in-law because to me, he isn’t really an in-law. He’s part of my family, and is mi hermano. His story and his background have become part of my life, and it has impacted my life in several ways. After hearing how he lived in Honduras it inspired me for what I want to do in life. I hope to develop education curriculums and schools in Central American countries stricken with poverty, so they too have the same opportunities that we have here in America. Alex has demonstrated what it means to push past any limitations set on you. He was surrounded by people who looked down upon him and who judged him for not being able to speak English correctly. He had people who doubted his love for my sister and his intentions. He lives hundreds of miles away from his parents. But the fact of the matter is, he’s a wonderful person who followed his dreams, and in the end, isn’t that what we’re all trying to do?

Knee-high streaks of black zoom by. Playful laughter and shrill screams of excitement reverberate of the walls, while deep and voluminous laughter comes from a corner of the room.

These sights and sounds immediately assault me on a weekly basis as I enter the basement of the St. John the Evangelist Catholic School. This chaotic atmosphere, while it may not seem ideal for an Indian cultural school, is the exact reason why I love it here. The blending of seemingly cacophonous sounds takes me back to my childhood in India, inundating me with memories of my home and friends back in Oonnukal.

As I guide my three children down the stairs, I ready myself for the momentary sensory overload I know is coming. I open the bright red doors and watch as my kids sprint to join their friends in all different sorts of activities. Looking down the rest of the corridor, I myself can see all the different games and activities these kids are engaged in. There are some familiar ones, like running races and hand games that I never really understood, but there are also some more inventive games too. For example, on the other end of the hall I spot two groups kids all crazily running around with their eyes all on the ground. Upon further inspection, I notice a bottle cap, similar to the ones on the two-liter soda bottles, moving at speeds, ricocheting off the wall-floor boundary. They called the game “Bottlecap”, a fusion of hockey and soccer, with all the same rules as the two sports (minus the physicality of hockey).

The chaotic and playful atmosphere of the hallway was extremely reminiscent of the atmosphere of both my town and home. Growing up as the youngest of nine, there was never a dull moment in my house. If I wasn’t busy being chased by older sisters, I was out playing with my older brothers and their friends. The “Bottlecap” game, especially, brought back memories of us playing cricket all the time, anywhere and everywhere. We would use old dried up coconut fronds as the stumps and these would be precariously leaned up against a medium-sized rock, such that even the lightest of touches would knock it over. As for the bat, we would use any long flat piece of wood we could find. Someone would always have ball in his or her pocket, and we would often end up playing till sunset.

The similarities did not stop there, as I entered the main room of the basement, a large open area that ran alongside the hallway, I say all the other fathers sitting, laughing, yelling, and playing cards. While a few tables away from them, their wives were all reading Malayalam magazines and chatting away. Sitting with them, a few seats down, was an old and tired ammachi, or grandmother.

This setup also causes my childhood memories to surface once again. I remember making last minute runs to the small, family owned and operated, convenience store located right across from the bus stop. Always sitting right outside, from the time work ended till dinnertime, were the uncles that played cards. They mostly played 28, an Indian card game similar to poker and blackjack. The aamachi that ran the store over there used to always ask me about school, family, and my own well-being, and she would always let me have one piece of candy for free.

Despite all the similarities with my own upbringing, there are still many differences. Surveying the rest of the room, I see groups of teenagers and kids all huddled around each other. The teenagers are all busy using their new iPhones, surfing the Internet and taking pictures. While the group of younger kids all seemed to be hurriedly talking to each other, while staring at a glowing screen. I recognized this a GameBoy SP, having only recently bought one for myself. This brought me to the unfortunate realization that despite all the similarities, my present life is still drastically different than my former life in India.

As I was mulling over my recent epiphany, I was violently brought back into reality by the shrill sound of a ringing bell. That loud, and irritating, sound meant it was time for all the classes to line up. I watched all the kids grab their hastily discarded book bags and jackets and line up according to their class. There was one class for each grade level, and the classmates you had in your first year tended to be your classmates until your final year. Once everybody was in line and had settled down, the lead class began the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony consisted of singing the school, American, and Indian anthems and then listening to the announcements from the principal. During the Indian national anthem, my son looked at me and smiled a large toothy grin. At that moment, I was brought back to my time as a student, standing in the dusty lot of Little Flower Primary and Secondary School in Oonnukal saying the same exact words my son was saying. It was then that I realized my previous epiphany was wrong; this new life of mine was not different from my old life. The values and beliefs instilled within me are the same as those instilled in my children, and that regardless of the place and lifestyle those same values would then be passed from my children to their children. What mattered was not so much where or how these lesson were taught, just that they were taught and that they were taught well.

“Ciao Raggazzi!” I shouted on a brisk morning, the sea breeze drifting up to the houses as the sun reached and pushed itself out of the sea. My kids where not yet up, no one was, it was quite and full of noise. My head was moving around itself, full of questions and doubting every answer. I repeated myself, needing to say goodbye to my family before I left. It’s one of those most imperative things for a parent. One where no matter the options the children and the family come first, not by desire, but by nature. Leonardo was the first to come down. “Pappa, buon mattina!” He said this as he rubbed the crust off of his eyes as if they had they had decided to stay asleep. “Pappa?” he took a long pause, as if not wanting to finish the question he had begun with fearing the answer so. “Si…oggi.” Today was the day the immigration ship arrived in the Bari harbor of Italy, today was the day that I would leave my family, my wife and my kids, my farm and so much that I was accustomed to for America. There my two brothers had been living for several years now and would be able to make me feel at home, even across the Atlantic. The journey, the new land, all of it so uncertain, only rumors from others. One rumor was that America had much better farmland, and that it gave its citizens rights. Here in Bari the government ignores us, a poor farm town is nothing compared to great Rome in a “United Italy”. The change was necessary not for me, but for Leonardo, and for his brothers and sisters. I let my children sleep with dirt and moss since birth, But I want their children to know only cotton and soap. The smell of the house was natural, dirt and dust flung everywhere, the soil outside loosing its touch, unable to hold anything, America was necessary. My brothers have sent letters telling me of the great things the land of America has let them grow, and how much easier it is to make money there. “Pappa, in la bocca al lupo…” still cleaning his eyes out of the morning crust, and cleaning the dirt off of his clothes. I would need the luck, because he would need it. That’s the job of any parent isn’t it, to make the lives of your child more enjoyable, and easier. America is necessary.”Crepi il lupo, ma dove e toui frattelli?” I asked out of eagerness, needing to say goodbye. The ship would come in an hour, and from what I’ve heard, being last on the ship means being the first to be thrown off. “piano di sopra, ancora dormendo Pappa” “va bene, ma possi svegliarli” “Si Pappa Si.” Finally everyone walked down, also tired, but with a look on their faces, a melting pot of hope, sorrow and fright. I said bye to each and everyone, knowing it would be a while before I would see them again, but America is necessary. The only plant easy to pull out of the soil is the dead one.

“Hoooonk!” “Arrivederci, mi amore tutti” and off I am on the boat to the great land of progress and freedom. In Bari everyone speaks of America as if it be the greatest invention of man. Not as if everything is easier there, but just one thing seems to be implied by the mouths of the hopeful Italians. Those on the porch who sit and look at the sun rising, those who cook early in the morning, those once believing Italy could help them. Here dreaming is something one does daily, in America its something one accomplishes. The ship approached the harbor from afar. It didn’t look like it was even moving. It was large and fat, yet graceful. It wasn’t the prettiest of ships, but who said it needed to be. Everyone stared looking. Most of the people here were young men, like me, maybe 100 men all together. There was one family, I have never seen them before, but I guess it was time for them to go to America. That was the plan for my family too. I’d go, find a job, a farm maybe, and then, when things were stable and fear could be ignored, I would tell them to come to America. No plan made from man can ever work out perfectly; we’re too dumb for that. But it was necessary for this one to work.

The ship finally docked with a God-awful smell to it. I pinched my nose, but it didn’t do much, the stench was as if men had died and someone liked the smell, and so killed more just to add to it. Sadly I did not know how true that was. Before we were allowed on the boat we were asked for a medical test. “Perche” I asked with sweat bubbling down my back and brow. All of this and then he would say “dispiace mio” and no more America. They said because they wanted to make sure I wouldn’t die. It was necessary. I knew then that the smell wasn’t similar to death it just was death. I got on board, and was happy to be one of the first. I pulled a blanket over me; it was cold with the morning sea breeze jumping off of the coast. Its funny, I barely can tell what’s going on, so much is a blur, and the smell doesn’t help any of it. People got on with the same faces, it were as if we were off to war, to storm the coast of some foreign place, and were accepting it, done fighting. The fighting had been beaten out of us, and it was necessary.

By two o’clock the Cold had begun to get to me, the ship had gotten full and we left Bari for America. No one talked and my head was noisy enough that adding to it wasn’t worth it. I looked back at the coast as we glided away, my kids would need me, and therefore America was needed. I looked around and no one else talked, there was this atmosphere in the air of self-thought, many had already begun to cough. Some threw up often, never having been jostled by nature’s high seas before. I was cold and only wanted my kids and wife near me, no such luck. As night fell the moon showed itself, no clouds to trap it. It was beautiful, very crisp and white tonight, like fresh snow. I just started at it as I fell asleep that night.

Several days later the air was bitter cold, the seas choppy and strong.  One of the engineers on board said that we were approaching America, and that storms are common there.  The winds howled with power and thrashed the ship in constant waves, never giving up.  I had been in storms before in Italy, but nothing like this. It appears power like this is natural to America. I stayed up the entire night and for once was happy that my kids weren’t there,  I didn’t need them dead.

The morning after was something else. Many of the sick on board had died, and some were very injured and could not be cared for.  I traveled near the outer parts of the ship. They just chucked them off of the ship, one by one. I knew none of that was necessary, or was it? But they did it, to men who were only just beginning, had their memories, their names everything thrown into the ocean totally gone from existence. Would they’re families ever even know?

The horn blasted.  A young captain emerged and shouted “ETA 30 minutes.” Some guy was next to me while I was sleeping and woke me up to say “Noi arrivati.” I shot up, Manhattan Island; the city of New York should be there. I couldn’t wait to see it, I seriously doubted it was as magnificent as many claimed, but hoped it really was. Something inside wanted more than anything wanted the city to be as amazing as it was in my head. I moved to the edge of the boat, but saw nothing, no great city.  Suddenly a green lady appeared, the morning dew made her guard to see. As we got closer I saw the huge size of her, a determined face,  a massive torch. She was green which was odd, but the most beautiful thing. Steady strong and determined, just like I needed to be. America was necessary.

I still had not yet seen the city, when the ship arrived they called us off one by one. “who are you?” asked this big burly man.  He towered over me like some monster with deep red cheeks and a bright orange mustache. But I knew very little English, and before I could even process what he had said, and a I think I would have. Another shouted.  “Chi e?”  I understood that,  “Io Ralpheal de Nicola de Marino.” The big man looked at me, looked down at his paper looked back up and said “Ralph Marino,  ok!” I was guided off of the ship and then left alone.  My brothers told me to find a telephone and call and they would get me. “Dove el telephono?” I walked around begging someone to answer no one would.  It wasn’t their fault English was necessary too. Suddenly I walked around a corner after spotting one. But I saw it. It was like a ship, all on its own.  Unlike like any other thing I had ever seen. Buildings covered the entire Island. Apparently they had trains underground too, ships, smoke stakes, tall buildings everywhere. I just stared and whispered to myself “Benvevuti a New York.” Then I remembered what Leonardo had said “In la bocca al lupo.” So whispered to Leonardo, to America “crepi il povero lupo.”

My father told me to always remember where I came from. I would respond, “I know where I come from…Brooklyn!” Then I was met with a harsh glance and sometimes a slap across the face. Although he was a harsh man, I know that he had a soft spot for me. He would always wake me up before school and tempt me to the kitchen with fresh muesli that only he could perfect. One day I was showcasing my monthly acting-up session on a Saturday morning, and he made me do something I’ll never forget. “Since you think you’re of Brooklyn and not a true napoletano (he would never refer to Naples in English), you’re going to visit your nonna on Broome St.” I was so confused. I was twelve and thought myself to be a genius, but what did my nonna have to do with this?

“Give me your books. You’re going alone.”

My jaw dropped. My father wasn’t keen on letting me walk around alone, unless I was going to school. But at least that was in the neighborhood. I was incredibly nervous, but I knew he was serious. I gave him my books and he gave me a few subway tokens.

“Go into the city and let your nonna teach you something about your heritage.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “The City” was always understood as Manhattan, not the actual city limits. I’ve only been to Manhattan with my father running errands, and most of the time was spent underground commuting. I looked at him nervously one last time and walked out the door of our tenement and down six flights of stairs to Prospect Avenue. On my way to the subway I saw all the familiar sights and smelled the familiar smells. As I passed the pastry shop right next to my building, I cursed at myself for not bringing any pocket change to buy a cannoli to make me feel a little less nervous. Even though I was twelve, I still thought my dad had an all-seeing-eye and would know whether I went to Broome Street to see my nonna. I kept my pace and continued walking towards the subway station. The old beggar that always heckles people coming from my building didn’t even look at me that day. He must have known that I had important business to carry out.

One more block to the subway. I just had to pass the Catholic Church my family attended. I dreaded going to church. However, I did think of one positive thing that this impromptu journey provided me with: I wouldn’t be attending mass today! My family dragged me to mass every Saturday to listen to all of the prayers in the original Latin text. The word monotonous would not even begin to explain it, but I eventually realized that sitting through mass became easier the older I got. I even began to enjoy it at one point. Before I turned the corner, a tall man wearing a black overcoat with a hood shoved me and hurried quickly past. There seemed to be enough room on the sidewalk for both of us, but I figured he might be in a hurry. I could now see the dimly lit green orbs and that mysterious staircase leading to nowhere. I counted how many steps I took down the stairs, nervously fumbled for my tokens and boarded the next Manhattan-bound train. I knew the train stopped at Canal Street, which was close to nonna’s house. Hopefully I wouldn’t get lost from the station to her place…

Thankfully I made it to Canal Street in one piece and started recognizing landmarks as soon as I got off the subway. I saw a drug store that reminded me of the time I got slapped for knocking down a shelf of glass cough syrup bottles. It was winter and the cold wind made the mark sting even more. I passed a candy shop that my mother would take me to and let me run around while she gossiped with the owner. This was Little Italy. When I turned onto Broome Street, I saw a massive Italian flag draped in the window of a local restaurant. Across the street was a post office and an identical sized American flag hung from a pole nailed into the building. I looked intently at both flags. In my heart, the Italian flag stirred more emotions in me than the American flag. It made me think of my family get-togethers and the stories my father told about Italy. The American flag made me think of what I’ve grown up around but not come home to. I started to wonder if I really do think of Italy as my home, and America is just where I’m living. It was the first time I ever thought of the difference between “home” and where I actually went to sleep at night. I began to imagine what it was like in Italy and how much different my life would be if I lived there instead. In my twelve-year-old head, I pictured most of it to be the same: The same language spoken at home, the same food, and the same culture. The scenery and day-to-day activities would be different, but the core values of my culture are just as alive in New York as they are in Italy. In New York, we get a shot at this “American Dream” just like the other immigrant groups. We get to start over. In Italy, we’re stuck in a life that has no room to grow. At that moment, I understood why my father immigrated: the endless opportunities. And to think I had my realization before I even reached my nonna’s house. I wondered if I could talk her out of a lecture.

I finally arrived at my nonna’s building and rang the buzzer. I mentally prepared myself for the cheek grabbing and the force-feeding that was about to occur. I liked my nonna, but she was so vigorous. She always seemed mad at me, but I learned later in life that was how she showed love. She didn’t come on the intercom to ask who was there, the door just unlocked. “That’s strange,” I thought. As I trudged up to the 8^th floor, I continued to reflect on my father’s brave decision to start a new life in America. When I reached her door, it immediately opened to the sight of my father in a black overcoat with a hood, smiling at me. I was so puzzled.

“Sorry I shoved you,” he said. “You kids are way too fast for me, I couldn’t let you beat me here.”

He moved out of the way to reveal my nonna setting the kitchen table with large bowls and plates of traditional Italian food. I forgot that she made a huge meal every Saturday after mass. We hardly were able to go because she lived so out of the way from us. I was surprised that my father wasn’t still upset at me and impressed he led me all the way here just to eat dinner with me and my nonna. He led me inside and sat me down at the head of the table.

“Mamma, tell this boy the history of Napoli.”

As I helped myself to my nonna’s gnocchi, I listened intently to every word that came out of her mouth.

The colors of the flag may be Red and Green but the colors implanted in our imagination are so much more. No amount of depiction will give it any justice, not even representing the blood of fallen heroes with red nor the vibrant pastures and land with green. Perhaps those colors stood out from the grey skies, the orange fire burning our houses or even the black smoke, which represented the loss of our property and our liberty. As a matter of fact, this was a fight for our liberty- the desire of independence from a totalitarian and marginalizing regime that cherished squandering and manipulating the people of West Bengal.

Many may have known it as West Bengal at time but we gave value to that land and we called it ours. It is our desh, our land, and with our histories and imprints left behind. Geographically, it may have been in the Bengal region but personally it is in our hearts. Bangladesh.

We were molded by the poverty, the dearth and the corresponding humbleness. Growing up with large families and low salaries were norm. Having to educate and raise the youth was the expectation. But it was all possible with the beliefs of growing our little Bangladesh and raising it for the rest of the world so that it may be able to trade with the rest of Asia, sell to the Americas as well as delegate with the rest of Europe. The desires to catapult Bangladesh surpassed the tangible inequalities that were given to us. We did not exploit the resources around us but harnessed them. The abundant wheat was used as a staple for meals of rice throughout the day. The fish of the sea was used to support a growing population and the abundant population learned to give back to the land by growing vegetation. Our nationalism, expressed from our anthems and passions were molded by the carnage we suffered and coupled with joys of growth. Through our passion to make something of our desh, we were able to change the dearth and poverty to sustainability and felicity. Through this plight, we learned to enjoy each other’s presence. We were molded by each other’s losses and struggles. Our tears were shared when remembering what we lost and our happiness was enjoyed when thinking about what we will eventually gain in the future.

This toil, lasting decades has resulted in Bangladesh’s burgeon in the world. Just as how this land enticed us, now it also has attracted foreign influences from marketing such as Coca Cola distributors to politics from various Parliaments and the infamous notion of Democracy. We began to trade with neighboring countries and housed outsourced jobs. Our little land grew from something that we were able to support to something that began to support us across the world. The only the way that we can continue growing our nation would be to ironically leave it and later give back. These are the stories that my parents tell me when I ask them about my upbringing.

My parents decided to leave to the West in order for us to grow and gain education. My parents and other like them wanted to make sure that we grow just as how our nation was growing in the context of the world. For my family and others, this was a period of change from learning a new language, English, to learning about a new lifestyle. The hard work that seemed to be engrained in my parents from the beginning allowed them to make impacts and want to be successful in our new land.

Although I was born in America, I shared the pain, the toil and the journeys of the Bangladeshi. Though similar, my immigrant struggle was centered around learning and living in a different culture, while remembering my inherent Bengali side. It was strange at first learning to be free-willed and opinionated at school and yet having to succumb to the monarchy of my family. I was perplexed by the culture shock of having to conform within the household and yet having to be individualistic outside of it. I viewed my struggles as the bridge between Bangladesh and America. Although my struggles were individual in me, they allowed me to understand the overarching theme of wanting to learn and being open-minded to different ideologies. It is because of learning skills and ideas like this that leaving Bangladesh was necessary.

Regardless, there was a sense of nostalgia that my Parents had when they first came to America. They missed the food and the company that they had in their close-knit houses in Bangladesh. Though Defacto-Segregation is deemed to be harmful, it allowed the creation of immigrant cities like Jackson Heights and Jamaica Queens where Bengali culture is prevalent even within the context of a different country. The aroma of cha and the sizzling oil from the street food vendors frying samosas is strong enough to bring feelings of nostalgia and remembrance of the past. While traveling there, my parents would tell me stories of how the food, though similar, tasted much differently. Even foreign products like the Nescafe chocolate powder was different!

Indeed everything isn’t the same. It almost seems as if the Bangladesh of my parents is different to the Bangladesh that I am seeing today. Although I have heard stories about its humble beginnings and the common desires of making Bangladesh a strong nation as a child, I see no correlation with the goals of the past for the future and with what is happening today. The very totalitarian regime that the people of Bangladesh initially wanted to avoid is currently present. Although it may not be of a different imposing nation, it is rampant in killing denizens and restricting the rights and liberties of individuals. Political demagogues and factions are causing controversy while mobile phone companies are becoming monopolies. The natural geography has been replaced with GMO foods from pesticides and chemicals. Although the Bangladesh that we used to know is changing and is not the same as today, the struggles of Bangladesh have shaped my family and I.

Never in my life could I be classified as an immigrant to New York, but I was most definitely a stranger to it until the age of thirteen. At the start of my adolescence, I would wake up in an entirely new world every day. A world so shocking from my own culture with a mix of people who I had never interacted with on such a daily basis before. A world where would I have to learn the new language, customs, and norms, in other words: high school.

This is the part where a reader will laugh, “A lot of people go to high school,” My circumstances were different from most however. I was homeschooled. Going from a class made of two younger brothers to eight rotations of thirty vastly different people was quite the shock. Add on the fact that for the first year of high school, I lived in Staten Island while school was in the Bronx. This twenty-mile odyssey spanning four boroughs was no school bus ride.

The dominant emotion emerged before the daily journey could even begin. Waking up groggy and dead to the world at 5am to the annoying chirp of a cellphone alarm that had haunted the past five minutes of your dreams was a great feeling. The routine that followed being awoken would be compounded into dull monotony as the days passed, but for the first few it was fresh and exciting. For the first time I was eating breakfast, getting dressed, and washing up all with the purpose of meeting ~3,000 other people in a shared destination. Shoes on, the journey could now begin.

There was nothing like departing the house at 5:30/6:00am in the cold crisp autumn air with backpack in hand. The morning darkness added to the excitement of, at the start, a new adventure for me. I would sit in the back of the car as my dad drove my mom and I to our next mode of transport. I sat there enjoying the sounds of light chatter from the front as I enjoyed what would be the only familiar part of my travels. What came after the brief ten minute ride in a cluttered car were methods of transportation that I had used very few times if at all before. There was one main method that my mother and I used to get to Manhattan:

Any classical immigration story requires a boat to Ellis Island and all of the experiences that it entailed. The Staten Island Ferry will have to do for my purposes. Before you could ride on the ferry, you walked through this huge terminal to a waiting room. Vendor shops along the edges of the ferry station did business selling newspaper or coffee to the present early birds. In the center, a large fish tank containing some slow-moving fish stuck out like a sore thumb among the crowd of people who were otherwise occupied. More people piled into the waiting area, but this wasn’t the crowded part. Through the glass doors a glimpse of orange could be seen and a horn would blare. At last it was here. Two minutes passed as the boat docked and the waiting room shuddered as the ferry finally made contact with this side of New York Bay. I could see people get off and nervousness kicked in, as I knew that I would be boarding any second.

At last, the ferry had emptied itself of its previous contents and was allowing new passengers. The partition between the waiting room and the boat opened up, and the gathered crowd all pressed in together. I held my mother’s hand in order not to lose her in the throng of people. The tile of the terminal gave way to the concrete of the docking area. It was an amazing experience embarking on the ferry at the crack of dawn with the water scattering the sunlight. The mass of people continued to shuffle onwards onto the boat. We were finally approaching the short metal ramps that led on to the boat. As we walked into the belly of the beast, I would notice a person in uniform smiling down on the entering crowds from the top of the ship. It was a look that said, “The management of this boat and I are going to get you safely to your destination,” The security and certainty given off by the captain or his first mate would be enough to lower my concerns about the journey and set me at ease.

Past the threshold and actually inside the boat, the crowd had thinned out and my mother and I’s pace became a bit more frenetic. We walked past the different arrangement of colored seats that are offered. They were much like seats transplanted from a subway car. The sound of other people walking to find their seats continued in a beat like a drum as we finally found seating to our liking. Now was a great time to rest my eyes, still very sleepy form my early awakening, but any semblance of sleep would be shaken off as the ferry began to move. It was a steady move forward accompanied with the slight bob of a buoyant object. The scenery past the windows changed as smaller, slower boats appeared to go in reverse. We powered across the water with the sun still just peeking over the horizon. I feel a tap on the shoulder and see my mother’s hand point. I looked up to see the Statue of Liberty. It was nice seeing such a sculpture in person, even from the distance of the ferry ride. Others were of course gazing at it with a few people standing by the windows. How long must the statue have been a part of their daily commute? Not long after entering my field of vision did the statue move out of it. That mattered little, as what it really signaled for me was the oncoming conclusion of this part of my journey.

We began to stand from our seats. Out the window the water had begun to fill with upright wooden pylons, and it had gained a noticeable green tinge. Welcome to the city. We made our way to the front to prepare to exit. After grinding to a halt and a length of time used to secure the boat passed, the exit opened and I walked out into Whitehall Terminal in Manhattan. Directing me onward, my mother led me to the exit. Outside with the fully woken sun hanging above it was the city, containing buildings, vendors, and the disgruntled sounds of traffic and people trying to get to work. Of course I knew all of this existed beforehand, but I had mainly only ever experienced Manhattan from the back of a car. Any previous excursions by ferry were few and far between. Now I was on ground level, and would be everyday, experiencing commuting with the numerous other people who the city was composed of. Well, I had little time to pause and breath in the fresh air as my mother forced a steady pace designed to get us both to work/school on time.

Exhaustion and weariness had just gotten to the point where I was about to toss in the towel as we walked up and down long city blocks. Fortunately respite was at hand, I looked up at a sign that read “Bowling Green 4 Train” and stumbled after my mom down into the city’s underground.

The sounds of the subway are what stick out the most in my early memories of taking it. “There is a Woodlawn-bound uptown 4 train approaching the station. Please stand away from the platform edge,” A light would appear from around the bend as mechanical parts roared. Then wssssh, before you knew it the train blew into the station with loud screeches and clacks that shook me out of my sleepy stupor. Doors slid open and we filed in, dragged into the darkness of the tunnel.

My first few rides were certainly exciting stuff. However, I was still able to fall asleep to the calming motions of the speeding train. I took everything that the subway had to offer in stride: The commuters, the loud schoolchildren, the homeless, the solicitors, and the crazy. I sat down and fully accepted what the subway life offered. I was going to be using it for a while now anyway. Most noticeable and exciting about this part of the journey was exiting the underground in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium and getting exposed to real sunlight again. Needing to close my eyes to adjust my vision to the outside world again, I’d open them to see the impressive baseball stadium and its sign hanging above. I’d nod in awe as my mother would say, “Oh there’s a game happening tonight,” Soon speeding away and leaving even that landmark in the dust, I’d peer around the car, fully awake and prepared for the coming day.

The subway car had thinned out by then; most of the commuters had got off in Manhattan. The populace now mainly consisted of school children, doing work, sleeping, or listening to music. Many were going to the same destination as myself. I sat back, nervousness again beginning to run its course as I approached the endpoint. I checked my backpacked, adjusted my clothes, and looked at my phone to keep myself occupied, but before I knew it: “This is Bedford Park Boulevard-Lehman College,”

I filed out the subway with my mom and teens who were other accepted or returning students of the Bronx High School of Science. I walked down the stairs and out the station doors, getting my first in-person look at the Bronx. I was greeted by the sounds of cars and busses honking, an incoming train rattling above, and people at the newspaper stand talking. A lengthy walk along Bedford Park Blvd and up Paul Av and I had arrived. A hug goodbye to my mom and a walk down the stairs put me at the front entrance for my first day of school.

This wasn’t a very typical immigration story. I didn’t move from one country to another or even change my place of residence. However, the first time I took the journey I talk about above was the marked shift for me of leaving my homogenous, homeschooled life for a new exciting place where I could accomplish my goals. It was a miniature American Dream in a way. The daily trip soon became routine fare, but my first time from S.I to Bronx Sci will always be my particular immigrant journey.

“Dobranoc, Józef.” With these words Mama would put me to bed, as we struggled daily under occupation. A few months before I was born, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, igniting World War II. The Germans quickly conquered Poland and constructed a new government in my home city of Krakow, administering their new possession from a castle. I grew up into a world at war, German soldiers speaking a foreign tongue as my mother and I walked to market. Jews were forcibly concentrated in a ghetto in Krakow, and then later relocated for execution or hard labor. I saw an old man shot, right on the street, just for bringing food to the Jewish ghetto. Nobody enjoyed war, and nobody enjoyed Nazi occupation. When news came that the Soviets would liberate Krakow, we took it as good news. However, while the city was liberated, my mother hid in the basement while my father fabricated many stories to deter the new occupying forces. As it turns out, the Soviet troops practiced mass rape.

I remember playing on the street with our neighbor’s son when Tata pulled me indoors and told me how we’d leave our homeland. “Józef: you, your mother, and I are going to leave Poland. It’s not safe for us any more.” I burst into tears! Despite the war, Poland was all I knew. Leaving Poland meant leaving my friends on our street. Leaving Poland meant no more mushroom picking trips in the forest with Mama. Leaving Poland meant no more pierogi cooking in Tata’s bakery. Leaving Poland meant leaving the only world I knew.

My parents packed all our money and a few belongings, leaving the rest to our neighbors, and we snuck out of Krakow, pretending to go on a weekend trip into the mountains following the end of the war. We took trains to the port city of Szczecin, where underground movements helped smuggle displaced persons, mostly Jews, from Poland to the American-occupied section of Germany. My parents and I were the odd ones out as the only Catholics in our group sneaking toward Germany. On trains and in trucks, I saw Jews who avoided capture by the Nazis. They looked so lifeless, as if fear stole the warmth and life from them; yet they kept moving on. Their children were more like me: scared, but happy to see other kids. We had to be quiet when sneaking, which was really difficult for us, but survived, if only because we were kids and all were wanted to do was have fun.

After several nerve-wracking days, some of them filled with hunger when food ran out, our group of Poles safely arrived in American-occupied Germany as displaced persons. While many of the others decided to stay in Germany, Tata advised against it. “Poland must be rebuilt. Germany must be rebuilt. England must be rebuilt. If we are to live, we are to live somewhere untouched. America it is. It will be hard, because in America they speak English, not Polish or German. But we will survive. It will be better there.”

I remember Tata speaking German, intertwined with broken English, negotiating for a visa for us to move to America. Thankfully we were, by some miracle, allowed to immigrate to America, and the journey was planned for us and aided by American authorities. We left from the American occupation zone by train to France and crossed the English Channel to Southampton. Along the way I heard so many languages I didn’t understand and saw so many spectacles for the eye to behold. When it came time to board the ship to New York, it occurred to me that I would never again see my homeland.

How long that week was! The stench of masses trapped below deck was only cured by the scent of seawater on deck. During this time my parents found other Polish, and some German, immigrants on our ship also headed to New York. One German man in particular, Alfred, was fluent in English and helped us learn it. Tata and I could speak German somewhat well, but Mama could not even communicate with Alfred, though he did not mind. As it turns out, I got the hang of English more quickly than Mama or Tata, which Alfred praised me for. I rejoiced in playing catch with other kids on the ship, in spite of my accent! My poor parents, however, struggled learning English. While I was having fun they looked so… somber.

Our arrival in New York came with our entrance into the harbor. Many people were really excited to see Lady Liberty, except me. Sure, it was a tall statue, but what really impressed me were the even taller skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, buildings with heights unseen in Krakow. My family travelled together with the other Polish immigrants and found our way to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where there was a gorgeous view of the Manhattan skyline. Luckily many Poles lived in Greenpoint and spoke Polish, so we were not completely lost. However, it was also home to many Italian-Americans, and all of us had to speak English daily.

My parents enrolled me in Catholic school where they hoped I would see fellow Poles and at least feel more comfortable. I cried on my first day of school, afraid of being separated from Mama and Tata! I wasn’t the only one, and our teacher spent the day comforting us and telling us how we’d make new friends and have fun learning. She was a nice Italian woman named Mrs. Fiorica whose parents moved to America in the 1890s and had her a year after they arrived. She told us that her husband was a clown and if we were good for the year he’d visit and give us all balloons. “He’s a clown?!?,” we screamed. Here was a nice teacher whose husband was a clown. From then on we kept obedient, hopeful of the day we’d see Mr. Fiorica.

Each Sunday, my parents and I went to church at 4 PM when a priest would celebrate mass in Polish. My parents always looked forward to Sundays because they could praise God in their native tongue, socialize with fellow Poles afterward, and it gave an excuse to dress up and relax after a week of work. Tata found a job at a bakery, while Mama spent her days cleaning the house and studying English, while sparing time for lunch with other Polish women. My parents were set on raising me as an American and tried to speak English to me as often as possible. We were embarrassed to be Polish, in spite of the neighborhood, and we wanted to reinvent ourselves. I was called “Joseph” in school, and my parents made sure to keep calling me that. Eventually I started signing my name as “Joseph Roman” instead of “Józef Romanowski”.

Life settled over time. My mother eventually found work as a secretary while my father moved up to start his own bakery. My class eventually got to see Mr. Fiorica, and boy was he tall! The day was filled with laughter as we were rewarded for our obedience. I made Polish friends, and I made Italian friends. There was even one Filipino girl, Malaya, whose family had to hide in the jungle during Japanese occupation. Despite her kindness, many classmates made fun of her for being “brown”. I could see her holding back her tears and I made sure to befriend her, knowing what hell she’d been through. I had a new sister, Anna, and a new brother, John, who each spoke only English. I eventually proposed to Malaya, which outraged both my parents and hers. We didn’t care. They had to accept it for the chance at grandchildren.

That’s where you come in, Maria. As you go to college, your mother and I hope you keep our stories dear to you. We hope that one day you can travel the world and visit our homelands: the beautiful islands of the Philippines and the elegant plains of Poland. But now it’s late. You have to sleep early to catch your flight in the morning! Dobranoc, Maria. Good night.

Tones of yellow, shades of dark hair. Everyone clamors around and talks to me all at once; or maybe I’m just not used to anyone speaking my language anymore.

I find myself relieved rather than distraught at the sound and sight of pollution. Factories somewhere nearby pump gray and thick smoke into the atmosphere. It’s bad for humans and it’s bad for the environment, but it’s home—at least the closest I can get to home now without spending over a thousand dollars in airfare. For a 45-minute drive and under $10 in tolls, it is the best home away from home that a fifty-year-old Chinese man can ask for.

Even without ever having lived here, I know this place like the General Tso’s chicken recipe: a tablespoon of Grand Street, a dash of Forsyth, a sprinkle of Allen. Ever since coming to America twenty years ago, this approximately one square mile patch of restaurants, supermarkets, doctors, and immigrant families in Manhattan’s Lower East Side has been my lifejacket. When the pressure to assimilate into a mixed-background, suburban community gets to be too much, I breathe in the smog of this second China.

I lead the way for my daughters to the bend of Forsyth Street just beside the subway tracks as they enter underground again. The flea market set up here is my favorite and the most authentic, despite the fact that the vendors are not only Chinese, but also Hispanic or Indian. Our Lunar New Year feast this year will consist of a hot pot with fresh spinach, enoki mushrooms, fishballs, beef slices, taro, an assortment of seafood, and crackers and fresh fruit for dessert. All of this—condiments and desserts included—we can buy here at the flea market and at the New York Mart supermarket hidden under the subway bridge right down the street from the flea market. Like in my Fujian village, it all is within a walking distance, and it is most refreshing to be on my feet to get from one place to another rather than behind the wheel.

My home village in Fujian was never as crowded as this; only in the town square market area from sunrise to sunset was my village ever bustling. Regardless, in my mind, the elderly lady picking out her persimmons for the Lunar New Year whom I would call tài-tài is still the neighborhood grandmother of my Fujian village, and the schoolchildren on vacation from school for the New Year still run around the old playground on the corner of Eldridge and Hester Street like my friends and I used to do years ago in Fujian.

Especially during this time of the year, we all feel the sense of community that ushers in when we know it’s time for families to gather and feast on the luxurious foods that we can’t afford for daily consumption. The mothers dress their children in layers first, then in everything red; even my two daughters in their twenties take part in this tradition. In my twenty years of American knowledge, the best comparison to this time of the year is the Christmas season, with all the warmth and jolliness.

There is always that tài-tài with the metal cart full of thin red plastic bags that will run over your feet and snap you out of your reverie but hurry along as if she did nothing to you. Like the pollution, it should be bad but it is merely a comfort of home. Yes, the vendors and the strangers who choose their dozen of live blue crabs next to you may sound cold and brute, but each one knows the struggle just as much as I do.

Of course, some things here have no place in my Fujian village. I am a little startled to see an Internet café with tons of teenagers on laptops, and I don’t recall ever having as many options for anything as the iPhone accessories stores offer. Police officers patrol the streets that are made for full-size cars, not just bicycle taxis and scooters. My parents would have sobbed to see this many varieties of leafy greens, clean of dirt and neatly stacked for convenience. We bought fish as fresh as this in Fujian, but these steaks and shrimp and lobster? Even if we had these in the village we wouldn’t have had the money for them. And in the streets of my home village, we definitely would not have run into tourists of all ethnicities, not to mention inhabitants who were of any background other than Chinese. If I hadn’t lived in a multi-ethnic suburban community before this, I would be shocked, but now it’s my ancestors who would be shocked to know that these strangers of other ethnic backgrounds bring me just as much comfort as a steaming bowl of rice does.

It’s only a short walk thus far, yet my muscles ache simultaneously of reminiscence and satisfaction.

A rancid waft of fish that makes my two daughters clench their nostrils shut confirms that we have reached our destination. My two daughters: they don’t see the appeal of coming here. The fish is too fresh; the vegetables are too exotic with insufficient pesticides; the streets are splattered with unidentifiable liquids; the people are too rural for their liking. I sadly realize that the anchor that holds a family to a certain place needs a longer and longer rope for each generation. Perhaps, even, they will find their anchor elsewhere. Let them sail. However, no matter how far my boat sails, my anchor will always, without a doubt, be where the fresh fish are.

We lived in the outskirts of Mumbai, in the dirt, grime, and in the stench emanating from rotting carcasses of dogs. We lived in the slum, which we gladly called our home. We knew every body in our part of the slum and we called them our own brothers and sisters, our uncles and aunties. Pranav, my brother, my cousin Adarsh, and I did not have the opportunity to go to school like many Mumbai school children, so we usually hopped onto the train running to Thane, which was one hundred kilometers away from Mumbai. The train arrived at 12:00 pm, so we woke up at dawn and collected miscellaneous items from overflowing trash heaps throughout the slum. Somehow, we evaded the sight of the British soldiers who were patrolling the area near the train tracks. Luckily for us, we were skilled at getting what we needed at the time, which was money to survive. When the time approached noon, I remember running to the train tracks with Adarsh and Pranav like usual, being elated that we caught the train in time, listening to the train scream as it ran on the tracks, hiding in some shrubs located near the train tracks, and seeing two British soldiers peer out from the train into the nearby slum. It’s a good thing that Adarsh, Pranav, and I raced every day while we were in the slum. We needed those legs to chase a train. So, as the two British soldiers passed from view, we jumped out of the bushes and ran like our lives depended on it. Adarsh, Pranav, and I ended up jumping into different train compartments. Each of knew our what we had to do, which was to sell these goods to the lovely white folk who loved to buy our stuff. We all had a knack of being fancied upon by the old white ladies that used to board the train a lot, so they used to buy our stuff in bulk. Many gave us five hundred rupees just because we were cute and sadly because they had that kind of money to hand out to poor souls like us. Adarsh, Pranav, and I met up in a pre-designated spot in the train where no one would find us. We were elated with the amount of money we were able to obtain that day when the two British soldiers decided to intrude our solace and joy. The compartment door was slammed open and the two handsome young soldiers with orange mustaches pointed muskets at us and subsequently grabbed us by our shirts. Luckily, our shirts were not torn off our backs. The soldiers threw us off the train and for a moment, we felt like birds who learned to fly for the first time and the next moment we felt like the clothes that aunties in our slum rung out on the rocks. We dragged ourselves up out of the dirt and we cringed at our abrasions. We were thrown right back into the slum where the British thought ruffians like us deserved to be. Suddenly, we heard more gunshots and we thought that the soldiers we just encountered were shooting at us. We started to run frantically in fear of losing our pitiful lives, but we slowly realized that this wasn’t true. We all looked once more and we realized where the gunfire was coming from: inside our neighborhood. A lot of smoke was rising into the sky and it seemed like the gunfire didn’t stop. Adarsh led the way and my brother and I followed behind him. We were gifted runners, but neither of us wanted to run right into this new hell. Without delay, we were running inside the slum, past pregnant mothers with several children already, past kids who lacked clothes, past oxen, trash heaps and sewage, and rickshaws. Our legs were giving up and so were we. Before they could, we ran into pools of blood and carcasses of family and relatives. All three of us cowered in fear and proceeded to hide inside the habitation that was once called a home by our dead loved ones. The red haired British soldiers with fancy moustaches stormed out of our neighborhood after getting into a skirmish with the slum’s inhabitants, which left the majority of our family members and relatives dead. The rest of the slum was silent for the rest of the day. It rained that evening almost as if Earth wanted to wash away this sin off its soil. We sat despondently inside the habitation staring at our parents and our uncles and aunties who we saw slaughtered right in front of us. Pranav and Adarsh were prodding the earth with a long stick that they found inside the habitation when they came across a journal that was conveniently forgotten by the British and left on the ground with some pages open. Luckily, the journal wasn’t corrupted by the rain and a source of light was available to read the entry, which was in hindi. One of the last lines of the entry read, “ Come to America, the land of opportunity and riches.” That evening, we decided to leave our pitiful and meaningless lives for this so called “America,” and the only things we brought with us were long scimitars that we found. We left for the coast that evening while the rest of the slum was inactive and quiet.

Adarsh, Pranav, and I had to make haste because dawn was near and because British soldiers were patrolling the area. We cut some trees down in the surrounding forest and we constructed a boat with the knowledge that our parents and relatives passed down to us because they were fishers. Because they were fishers, we were also able to construct fishing poles, which we knew would come handy on the trip to America. We all pushed the boat together right into the Arabian Sea and were elated to meet the rising sun along the way.

…

Several months later we were nearing the American coastline. A tall green statue of a person that was holding a lantern appeared in the horizon. We all stood up and prayed, thanking this statue for our safe journey to America. Soon after we finally reached the American coastline at dawn. At first glance, we saw people of a completely different color, horse-drawn carriages, and people wearing luxurious fur coats and top hats running around. A sign read, “ Welcome to New York,” and we were all astounded at how different our current reality was. Every one was clothed, the streets were clean, there were places for people to walk without getting hurt by vehicles, and there was us, displaced and confused as to what to make of the situation. We wandered in the streets and chanced upon a neighborhood of similarly colored people who happened to speak our language. They took us in, fed us, gave us proper clothing, and taught us how to speak English. Deep down in our hearts, the rhythm of life in the slum was still beating and the yearning to return was growing, but now another beat played along, that of our current reality, and surprisingly music was made.