In Their Own Words: The Immigrant Experience
One in seven American is foreign-born. Art by Xin Lan Huang.
By AMMAR ALI, ILANA VERHALYUK, and SOLIEL MINZIE
It was a warm yet breezy night when six year old Muhammad Rizwan was standing by his car with a suitcase in his hand. In front of him was the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore, Pakistan. The atmosphere was full of mixed emotions.
As he looked towards his right, he saw tears dripping down the sides of his relatives’ faces as they bid farewell. On his left, he saw his mother chuckle as she hugged his aunt for the last time before they departed. Little did he know that he was just steps away from committing to one of the biggest transitions he would ever face in his lifetime.
Rizwan, class of 2023, who spent most of his early childhood in Sahiwal, Pakistan, immigrated to the United States in May 2012. “My dad won a green card in a lottery, so he moved to America out of curiosity,” he said. “Fifteen years later, he managed to get everything sorted out, so he brought the rest of us here, too.”
As a first generation immigrant, Rizwan is like 1 in 7 Americans – 46 million people total – in that he was born in another country. The U.S has more immigrants than any other country, including about one-fifth of the world’s migrants. America’s immigrants are also very diverse, with just about every country in the world represented. In just the last year alone, nearly 2 million arrived in the U.S from all over the world, in search of better opportunities, education, and living conditions, or to be closer to family.
Kristacia Scott ‘23 is one of many people who immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica. “The decision to move here wasn't entirely mine,” she said. “I was sent here with my sister because my mother was already in the city for work.” Her mother’s absence back home was a problem for the family, Scott said: “[My father] and my mother concluded that it would be better for me to be with her so I would have more access to better opportunities.”
Leaving your homeland behind and going to a new country can be challenging. Besides the language barrier, there are also cultural and environmental differences.
“Culturally, the transition was difficult at first,” Scott said. “I had to learn how to change myself almost completely to fit in with my new peers. I had to talk differently, act differently, and eat differently. The schoolwork also took some time for me to get used to as it was different from the methods I was previously taught in Jamaica.”
“Jamaican schools are more rigid and disciplined,” Scott said. “I was used to corporal punishment for breaking rules back home, but in American schools that’s illegal, so children have more freedom to act out in a disrespectful manner here.”
Scott said that one of the benefits of American society is the higher level of assistance when it comes to living conditions.
“Americans have the opportunity to get government help with food and even rent,” Scott said. “In Jamaica, if you had no money for food or rent you would starve and end up evicted. One thing that I like about America is that there are opportunities for you to be helped with basic needs, so it's hard to be left hungry.”
Scott says she encounters more discrimination based on her skin color in America, though. “In Jamaica, we all appreciated each other,” she said, “which is probably because for the most part we were all the same.”
She added, “But the good part is that when I got home every day it was like going back to Jamaica because I was able to speak, eat, and act normally again.”
Svitlana Leginovych, a 53 year old immigrant from Ukraine, has lived in America since 2005. She moved to America because she won a green card and felt like giving up the opportunity would be a “waste.” She took a train from Ivano-Frankivsk to Kyiv, and from there took a plane to New York.
To Leginovych, America is completely different from Ukraine. “There are almost no similarities,” she said. “All the people and cultures are different depending on the community you’re in.”
The only exception is the nature when you go upstate, she said. The mountains and trees are what remind her of her home country.
She sees America as a country of unlimited opportunities. “You can do anything you want here if you just put your mind to it,” she said.
Tatyana Shvartsburd is a 54 year old immigrant who is also from Ukraine. Although both Leginovych and Shvartsburd came from the same country, their stories are completely different.
Shvartsburd was born into a Jewish family, and when she was younger she faced a lot of discrimination in Ukraine. “Being Jewish, life for a 10-year-old was different in 1978,” she said. “I was bullied and tormented because of my religion.” Shvartsburd began her journey to America with her family in December 1978. Her family had decided that it was too dangerous to live in Ukraine any longer.
At the time, Ukraine was part of the USSR, a block of Eastern European countries controlled by Russia’s Communist Party throughout most of the 20th century. People weren’t very open to different religions in the USSR at the time. “Before we left, we were stripped of our citizenship and we were considered ‘traitors to the motherland,’” she said.
Unlike Leginovych, who had a relatively easy journey to America, Shvartsburd’s was difficult. She traveled from Ukraine to Austria, where she waited for three weeks until the U.S. accepted her family as refugees. They then traveled to Italy and lived there for approximately three months. “After the approval, we were on our way to the U.S.A,” she said. They arrived in April 1979.
The transition from Ukraine to America was a complete life-changing experience for Shvartsburd. “In the USSR, we were scared to say that we were Jewish,” she said. “We celebrated holidays very quietly so no one would know.” After finally settling in America, things were the complete opposite. Her family didn’t have to worry about any bullying or tormenting from their neighbors. They felt like they could express themselves and celebrate Jewish holidays without any fear.
A 2016 Gallup poll of potential migrants found that America was immigrants’ top destination choice by a wide margin. While many immigrants arrive in America as refugees from violence or to avoid oppressive governments, most come for the economic opportunity the country offers.
Jia Yu Wu ‘23 immigrated from China to join her father, who had left the country in the early 2000s to come to the U.S. in search of a better job. “Once he was able to financially support his parents and me and my mom and brother, we all decided to move to the U.S. to not only help him but also for a better life,” Wu said.
Being from another country offers a broad perspective that native-born Americans sometimes lack. “One thing I notice people in the U.S. take for granted is job opportunities,” Wu said. “When it comes to finding a job, Americans are very picky sometimes. They want to make a lot of money, but also want the job to be easy. We all want that, but not everyone can have both. There are also those that complain about their 9-to-5 job when it’s literally just customer service.”
Wu’s father would have loved any job when he first moved to the U.S., she said. In China, he had to drive three hours to find stable work. “Being able to take a 25 minute train ride to your job would be something my dad would love," she said.
One thing Wu likes about the U.S. is the country’s cultural diversity. “China isn’t a super diverse place,” she said. “You rarely see someone who is Mexican or African-American in China, so I liked that when I came to the U.S. I got to experience cultures from all over the world.”
Like Wu, Muhammad Rizwan also loves America’s diversity. “I have friends of all colors and ethnicities,” he said. “That would not be possible in a homogeneous country like Pakistan.”
Although Rizwan now blends in perfectly as your average New York teenager, there were a lot of difficulties he faced while trying to fit in. “Originally, all of us felt like we didn’t belong here since we were in this foreign place with only two nearby family members,” he said. This was a big change for Rizwan, who was used to his house constantly being flooded with lots of relatives.
For Rizwan’s family, life in Pakistan was always “pretty comfortable.” “We had a lot of connections with the neighborhood,” said Hassan Rizwan, Muhammad’s older brother. “We never felt alone. Regardless, the few relatives who were already living in America helped us a lot by taking us in for a few months until we could find ourselves an apartment.”
One of the biggest difficulties for Rizwan’s family once they came to America was the language barrier. “Although we were taught English in schools back in Pakistan, we weren’t fluent in it and had an accent, which opened my family up to xenophobia,” Rizwan said. The feeling of discrimination was new for him.
However, Rizwan was eventually able to jump across this hurdle too. “Something that helped me adapt to American culture was making friends of the same race as me since I could talk to them in both Urdu and English,” he said. “That made it easier for me to learn the meaning of words.” Rizwan quickly picked up English as a child, and he fixed his accent within the first couple of years.
One thing about America Rizwan has noticed is the emphasis on individualism. “Americans always work for their own personal benefit,” he said. “Here, we value personal rights, freedoms, and accomplishments. On the other hand, Pakistanis always try to maintain a strong relationship with their families, which can be both good and bad.”
No matter how well you adapt to a new land, there are still many things to miss about your home country.
“What I miss about Jamaica is the weather, my family, and just the atmosphere overall,” Scott said. “There's always a calming feeling down there, and in Jamaica it is sunny all year round.”
After living here for about 15 years, Leginovych still misses a lot of things from Ukraine. When she moved to the United States, she left everything behind for a new life. “I miss the city, streets, mountains, family, friends and all the small restaurants in my community,” she said.
But she appreciates what she sees as a higher level of safety and reciprocal kindness in America, which she said “doesn’t happen in Ukraine.” In Ukraine, people aren’t as willing to help as people in America are, she said.
Shvartsburd said she misses nothing about her home country, as her memories are full of closed-minded people. “The government also didn’t want to help their citizens,” she said. “The U.S.A. gave me freedom, education, safety, and a wonderful life.” Shvartsburd thinks that Americans take their freedom of speech and religion for granted.
Despite integrating into American society, Rizwan’s family still holds on to certain aspects of Pakistani culture within their household. “We still eat Desi foods, celebrate our holidays, and occasionally dress in Shalwar Kameez [Pakistani traditional attire],” said Khalid Rizwan, Muhammad’s father. After all, America wouldn’t be known as a “melting pot” if people like Rizwan didn’t keep their traditions alive.
“Now that I have spent roughly ten years in America, and spent much of my childhood in Pakistan, I’ve seen the pros and cons of both countries,” Rizwan said. “Something I really miss about Pakistan is hearing the Azan play outside from the nearby mosques, telling us it's time to pray. I also miss seeing some of my relatives. However, now I feel so accustomed to an American lifestyle and have made too many friends, which means going back would require me to start all over again. Both countries are beautiful in their own ways, and I’m just glad that I got to experience them both!”