Migration Stories
Kristy Alexander
My name is Kristy Alexander and I am a 22 year old half Hispanic and half Middle Eastern college student who was born in New York City. My family’s migration story begins with my mother who was born in Lima, Peru and arrived in New York when she was 16 years old with her two sisters in hopes of greater opportunities.
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Luis Arevalo
My mother is from Oaxaca, Mexico and my father is from Acajutla, El Salvador. Both came to this country for the opportunities of providing themselves and their loved ones a better standard of living. My father came during the civil war that was going on in El Salvador because my grandmother didn't want her children living in such a dangerous place and decided to move to the U.S. My mother came for the reasons that she wasn't allowed to advance or do something in Mexico because of the horrible unemployment in Mexico and violent political instability. They both met in California and that is when they had me.
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Christopher Ball
My Grandparents on my mothers side were born in a village in Gungdong Provence. Soon after their marriage they moved to Hong Kong where my mother was Born. Not many years later they migrated to the United States and settled in San Francisco.
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Arthur Blikian
My parents met in the United States and began a family that ultimately resulted in me, but their voyage to the land of opportunity was very different. My mother’s family resided in what was at the time the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia. My grandfather was a prominent tailor in the area but times were difficult and he ultimately decided to move his entire family to the United States. He was able to obtain documents to leave the USSR and he and his family arrived at Los Angeles in July 1976.
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Emily Brown
My family’s story of immigration beings in Niediegen, Germany. This town is a small farming town in western Germany, 50 Kilometers outside of Koln (Cologne). My grandfather, Johannes Walden was born in Niediegen in 1925, where he lived with his mother and father and three siblings.
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Myra Cabrera
My parents (Eliceo and Nina Cabrera) were both from small towns in Mexico. My mom (Nina) lived in Rancho Palos Altos, Jaliso until about age 12. Life on this small town was very limited. There was no electricity, no irrigation, and very few job opportunities. My mother’s family decided to move to Guadalajara, Mexico in order to pursue a better lifestyle with more stable jobs and higher wages.
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Robert Daligdig
As a first generation Filipino-American, I have grown up with two cultural mindsets. Outside my home, I exhibited the all-American life, learning in public school, getting my driver’s license at the age of 16, going to my high school prom, and attending a 4-year university. While in my home, I was surrounded by the comfort of my Filipino culture, eating rice and adobo, watching The Filipino Channel with my lolo (grandpa), and having my parents speak to me in Tagalog. I am ethnically Filipino, but nationally, I am an American.
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Vanessa Estrada
My maternal great grandparent’s were Esther and Jose Hernandez. They met and were married in La Piedad, Michoacan Mexico. They then migrated to Texas to work as migrant workers in the cotton fields in 1928. My maternal grandmother, daughter of Esther and Jose, Juanita Hernandez was born in Texas on December 27, 1930, along with two other siblings. Her other siblings were born in Mexico.
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Eunice Fuentes
My mom was born and raised in Nicaragua. The first time she came to the United States was with tourist visa for four years. Then my uncle changed my mom’s tourist visa to student visa. After four years her visa expired and she was an illegal alien.
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Professor Deena J. González
Just before her passing two-and-a-half years ago, my mother took one last ride up to her mountain village to visit her ancestors’ graves. After she died, I knew I would be led back over and over again to where she and her people originated, mostly through the enormous archive of stories, letters, and photos my mother saved, her own and those of each set of my grandparents. The family story is sometimes told like this: my mother’s great-grandmother was Diné, or Navajo, as the Hispanos of New Mexico called them.
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Gabriela Gualano
My great-great-grandmother Refugio Conde came to the US in 1926 when she was 53 years old. She and my great-grandmother Maria Guadalupe aged 22 paid $8 head tax. They came to find a son, Abelardo who had left with the circus to come north, and left behind the oldest son Alberto, crippled since age 2 with Polio and the youngest, aged 18.
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Nicole Harriman
My family’s migration traces back to Ireland, for my dad’s side and to Italy, for my mom’s side. My great grandfather on my dad’s side, born in Ireland, decided to move to the United States in the late 1800s to experience a better life for him and his family. He believed by moving, he would be able to provide for his family better than he would if they remained in Ireland. To him, the United States would provide better jobs than those in Ireland.
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Timothy Heafner
While I do not know that much about my father’s side of the family, I do know that the Heafner family came to the United States in the mid 1800's, and the first Heafner family members actually worked at indentured servants to pay off the debts to their debtors back in Germany.
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Florante Ibanez
My parents are both from the Philippines, but my mom was actually born here in San Fernando when my grandparents came to work in the agricultural fields of California. She returned to the PI with them as a child.
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Michael Joy
My family’s migration story follows a fairly typical pattern. Most of my family has been in America for at least three generations. We do not know much about our ancestors or what specifically brought them to the country, but what little we do know seems to fit into the standard patterns of American migration. I do know that my paternal grandmother’s parents came from Ireland in the beginning of the 20th century. They were fortunate enough to have money and were not forced from Ireland by poverty.
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Tommy Keeley
I am a fourth generation Thomas Keeley that originated in County Cork, Ireland. I do not have exact years but the trace of what and who has brought me to this day was of my great-grandfather who immigrated to Connecticut from County Cork. My grandfather then went westward and ended up in Tucson, Arizona. My father then went to Scottsdale, Arizona, and I have now moved to Los Angeles.
Jordan Lee
As far back as we can tell, the Lee family migrated from Scotland and England in the beginning days of America. Know one knows for sure where in Scottland we came from, but the name is Scottish in origin. Many hear our last name and mistake us for Asian. We have no Asian traces in our blood line.
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Amanda Debra Lenvin
My name is Amanda Debra Lenvin, and I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. I have one older brother, David Nathan Lenvin, and he was also born in Los Angeles. The information of my migration story was provided by my parents, Gail Elizabeth Lenvin and Michael William Lenvin.
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John Lopatto
My immigration story begins with my great-great grandfather, Simon Lopatto, who immigrated to the United States from Lithuania. He came through Ellis Island, and settled down in Scranton/ Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. The north eastern region, where he raised his family had vast amounts of anthracite coal, and like many new immigrants to that region, my great-great grandfather earned a living as a coal miner.
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Heather Macrae
My great-grandparents, Janos (John) Tepfenhardt and Katalin (Catherine) Tepfenhardt emigrated to the U.S. in 1912 from Szinfala, Hungary (present day Romania) just before World War I in 1914. They arrived through Ellis Island on June 4, 1912 for the promise of a better and more prosperous life. There were few jobs and poor soil for farming in Szinfala and it was becoming over-populated and couldn't support the local economy.
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Brendan Maher
My father was born in a barn on a farm in Tipperary, Ireland. He was the fourth child out of eight children. When my dad was five years old his father, my grandfather, adopted his brother’s three kids. Both their parents had died so my grandfather took it upon himself to raise them. There were now eleven kids in the house, six girls and five boys.
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Teresa Mancilla
This is the story of how my parents came to live in the United States in the 1960s. My Father, Carlos R. Bernal, was born in Loreto, Zacatecas, Mexico in 1930. His family was made up of a militant father who came from a lower class family, while his mother had come from a first class family who owned a series of Haciendas but was disowned by her family for marrying a poor man. With one older brother, Jose Bernal, my father lived among constant domestic violence, alcoholism, and the pressure to sustain the family.
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Anthony Manfra
My histories on both sides of my family are very similar. My mother’s family is Italian, with my grandmother being a first generation American residing in Boston and born in 1917. My mother’s father, on the other hand, came over with his older brother from northern Sicily in 1911 when he was only five years old. Both sides of my mother’s family came over through Ellis Island near about the turn of the century.
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Krystal Maravilla
My Abuela had two sons, Sergio, my father, and Ramiro, my only uncle. There father, my abuelo, was killed in a horrible car accident in Zacatecas. Due to the accident my Abuela was forced to raise her family alone. She had no immediate family, and no friends close enough to extend a hand. My abuela tried very hard to work in Zacatecas to raise money for her sons, but it was impossible with the little money she got in a day.
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Allison McFarland
My name is Allison McFarland and I have a very diverse migration story. I am hapa, which is a Hawaiian term meaning that I am half Caucasian and half Asian. My mother’s side of the family is from Japan while my father’s side of the family is from Ireland. Growing up hapa has increased my interest in the migration stories of the very different halves of me.
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Yolanda Mejia
The story of my past begins with my grandfather’s (Marcelino Mejia) journey to the U.S. In the 1940’s he was convinced to come and work in America under the Bracero Program. A program designed to recruit labors into the U.S. to work in agriculture. My grandfather felt it was the least he could do to support his family.
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Michael Naphtal
On my father's side of the family my great grandparents' parents migrated to New York from Poland in hopes of gaining the American dream and a better way of life. On my Mother's side of the family, my grandmother came to America from Israel escaping the rise of anti-Jewish ideals spreading through Europe. My Grandfather's family moved from Poland to France in fear of Hitler's rise to power. This only lasted until Hitler invaded, then his family hid and was able to sneak onto one of the last ships on their way to America.
Lilit Ojakhyan
My name is Lilit Ojakhyan. I was born in Yerevan, Armenia on January 12, 1986. Both of my parents were born in Armenia also. My fathers’ family is from Iran and my mothers’ family is part from Iran and part from Russia. Both sides of my family came to Armenia around 1945 and remained there until today. My father’s father was born in Rastov, Russia and lived there for twelve years.
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Pamela Orfano
My family's migration actually begins with my mother. My mother Andrea was the youngest born to a family of seven children. She grew up in poverty in the small town of Santa Rosa, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. After dedicating her life to studying, she pursued a career as a registered nurse. Fortunately, Granada Hills Hospital sponsored my mother to migrate to America in order work for them.
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Professor Edward Park
I immigrated to the U.S. with my mother (Soo Boon Kim) and younger brother (John Park) in April 19, 1975 when I was ten years old. I vividly remember leaving Kimpo Airport in Seoul, South Korea. The international departure area was a sea of tears as families and friends bid farewell wondering if they would ever see each other again.
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Madison Powers
My grandmother, on my mother’s side was the only one in her family born in Canada. Her family had emigrated from Baden-Baden (Baden-Württemberg), Germany, where they owned a day spa to rural Saskatchewan, Canada. They purchased a sizeable amount of land, and learned to be farmers.
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Julie Schultz
My mother, Yvonne Eunice Starr, a third generation native Californian, was born in August of 1928, the day her mother Eunice died. My mother and several generations before her were from Northern California which includes San Francisco, Modesto, Sunnyvale and Berkeley.
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Katelin Shinney
On my mother’s maternal side of the family we are Irish-German. My great-great grandma Ryan came over around 1855 during the potato famine in Ireland. If she hadn’t come to the US she very well may have starved because England was taking all of Ireland’s potatoes.
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Meredith Tanaka
Both sets of my great-grandparents immigrated to Hawaii from Japan in the early nineteen hundreds to work on plantations. My father's side came from Hiroshima, and my mother's side from Fukuoka.
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Chris Yamashiro
I am a full blooded fourth generation Japanese American from Torrance, California. My father’s grandparents migrated from Okinawa, Japan to Hawaii sometime in the late 1800s and settled there, where my paternal grandparents were born. They migrated to California a few years after World War II and my father was born in Los Angeles.
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Francis Youn
My migration story goes only back to 10 years ago when I was 11 years old. I was originally born in Seoul, South Korea with my legal name, Nyeo Song Youn. Back in Korea, I remember I was just a regular boy going to a private Catholic elementary school. One day my dad announced to the whole family (only my mom and younger brother) that we are going to move to America.
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Richard Zamudio
My mother Rosalva Zamudio, migrated to the United States in 1974 at the age of twelve. She came with her father and several other members of her family. Once immigrating from Guanajuato,Mexico, she moved to a city called Winters located in Northern California. At the age of twelve she began working in strawberry fields as well as the apricot fields picking the fruit and working twelve to fourteen hour shifts.
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