My Immigration Story
My father was born in Egypt on October 30th 1962. He lived in a small city called Zagazig. It is not the desert that people tend to think of when I tell them I am from Egypt. It is a city with tall stone buildings, narrow sandy roads with BMW’s and mule-drawn vegetable carts, red and white taxi cabs with hot leather seats. Everyone in Zagazig knew their dry cleaners, the local shop owners, their neighbors and their neighbor’s neighbors by name. It was nothing like the Brooklyn or Queens that I grew up in, but it had a welcoming and optimistic aura to it.
Since I had a knack for getting myself into trouble or hurting myself when I was a child, my father used to tell me stories of irresponsible things he used to do in his childhood. His favorite activity was to sneak into the cherry fields and climb the cherry trees. He would climb to the top of every cherry tree in the field, stuffing himself with as many cherries as he could fit in his mouth. The cherries were sometimes his only dinner. My grandfather left my father before his tenth birthday. When my grandmother remarried, my father’s stepfather had to prioritize my father’s stepsiblings leaving my father to fend for himself mostly. He worked to be able to buy his own clothes and his own food if he had to. My father studied hard to be able to establish himself career-wise but the education in Egypt was a very unfair system. His friends told him stories of how everyone had equal opportunity in the United States, and that your success was a measure of how hard you worked, not dependent on the circumstances of your birth.
So my father set out to pay for a flight to the States. He didn’t have much of anything except free time and hobbies. Dad had a natural ear for music and rhythm. He would study up on all the famous musicians of his time and learn all he could from them. Dad and his friends would watch and copy their favorite musicians and before any of them realized they had their own band. My dad was the drummer. Slowly and surely they would practice and get better and soon enough they started playing at parties and festivals. When my dad married my mom he left the groom’s seat to perform at their marriage ceremony. He taught me the importance of diligently pursuing a passion.
Once dad had earned enough for a flight to the States he packed with haste. This is the moment he had been dreaming of since he was 12. He was 27 when he arrived in New York in 1989 and had nothing but a map, a lightly packed suit case, and roughly one hundred dollars. It was bitter work. Dad took various odd jobs from mopping floors to waiting tables to delivering pizzas to pay for food and for a motel room if he couldn’t stay with a friend that night. Establishing himself was hard.
One day my dad caught a lucky break and met a band searching for a drummer. My dad picked up his drumsticks again and started performing here in the States. He played for small gigs in New York, Jersey, and Connecticut. He was no rock star, but performing was something he loved and it paid for his expenses while he tried to establish himself in an unfamiliar land, far from his friends and family. My father knew he could not make a real career from performing as a drummer while he had my mother waiting for him back in Egypt. He had to find a way to support a family so he could send for my mother.
So my dad started hitting the books. He was a student at the City University of New York in the morning and a performer at night. Sometimes there were night where he would perform late and get up the next morning and take an exam. He was studying accounting and after four years he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He found an accounting job and slowly started to make a stable life for himself. My father went back for my mother in Egypt and they moved into a studio apartment together in Queens. A few years later I was born and spent my first few years in that apartment.
My father never wanted to raise his kids in an environment like the one he grew up in. This is one of the things that motivated him to leave Egypt for a shot at something bigger in the United States. He would always tell me that my life is better because of what he had to do, and that I now have to work hard to make sure my kids live better just like I did. Although it does put a heavy weight on my shoulders, it motivates me to be my absolute best at everything that I do. My father came here so that he could live better, but he also came here so that I could live better and do things he could not do in his home nation. He wanted me to have the chance to do whatever I want with my life and not be limited by the education and politics of his homeland.
Though I was born a New Yorker I still feel a strong connection to my culture and relatives in Egypt. I made so many great memories and made so many friends in Egypt. I know my people have a proud history, beautiful holidays and festivities, and unifying sense of community. I am proud to have been born an Egyptian American and I am excited to leave my mark. One day I hope to proudly tell my kids the story of why they were born Americans.
