Your Story – My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today

Share your family’s immigration story

Do you have an object story?

We asked writers to share objects that meant a lot to them, their families, or their cultural heritage. You can view them all and share your story with our partner, the Tenement Museum in New York, by going here.

We want to hear your story!

The tags below are immigration stories shared in-person at the My America exhibit at the American Writers Museum. Feel free to explore the stories, including the different categories at the bottom of the page. Click the button below to tell us about your family’s immigration story. Submissions will be added to tags and posted in the categories at the bottom of the page, so come back often to see new stories from your friends and neighbors!

Share your story here!

“My family comes from Mexican fortune yet my grandparents wanted to “Americanize” their family just to show them the fortune and opportunities America has to offer. We started living the ‘American Dream’ with yet many setbacks.”

– South Side CPS Chicago Student

“I’m from Durango too woooh!!! – Durango, Mex”

01/21/2020

“My immigration story has proven to be one of lies and deception. Originally thought to have had Norwegian, Irish and German heritage the family’s story was germanic. 23 and Me tells a different story of my heritage and sends me on a path to Italy, Egypt and Great Britain to meet the family I never knew.”

01/03/20

“I was adopted from China when I was 2. This, I believe, is quite a different experience from those who have immigrated since, for me, the US is the only home I know or remember. My parents believed my birth mother gave me up to an orphanage for better opportunity, but that is all speculation.”

1/30/20
Katherine Claufh

“On my first day in middle school, my first subject was American history. My teacher was talking about a guy named “George Washington.” I turned to my seatmate and said, “Who’s George Washington?” My classmate looked at me funny, he pulled out a dollar and said, “This guy here, he’s the first president of the US.” That’s when it dawned on me, I’m in a whole new world.”

1/10/20

“I came to U.S. in August of 2001, a month before the heinous 9/11 attack, to study mathematics at University of Pittsburgh. I was a newly-wed Muslim women who was trying to navigate this new environment. Over the years, I realized why people from all over the world wants to come to America. As a Muslim, America has been the best country for me to live freely, be strong in my faith but also learn from other faith traditions or people that do not subscribe to a faith. I became a naturalized citizen in 2018 and I feel that I am an American.”

5/27/2020 Fatma Gurel Kazanci

Part 1 of 2

A luggage tag detailing a story written by a visitor to the My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today Exhibit online at My-America.org

“I still treasure my heritage (Turkish), but considering the deteriorating condition of liberty and civil rights in Turkey, I feel more at peace to live in the United States. I have many friends from all walks of life that I am proud to call “my village”. I am a contributing resident of this beautiful country and I feel that I am embraced by most people.”

5/27/2020 Fatma Gurel Kazanci

Part 2 of 2

“My family moved to the US in 2018. My mom had gotten a promotion and needed to be in her company’s headquarters in Lexington Kentucky. I was 12 when we moved. Initially I was upset at the thought of leaving my friends, home and family to move to a foreign country and being a new kid. However, the thought of living in the land of freedom and opportunities was much bigger than the fear of change. We were thrilled about the life we would get to live in America.”

5/29/2020 Zoya Adwika Abbas

Part 1 of 2

“In the beginning, I used to feel very foreign. I live in a city where there aren’t that many Indian families which was very strange for me and I would feel like an outcast anytime I was in public. After getting over the initial insecurity, I took advantage of the place I was in. I signed up for any opportunity I got my hands on. Moving here helped me get so many new windows to improve and show off my interests and passions. That is why my family moved to America, for equal possibilities and platforms to excel.”

5/29/2020 Zoya Adwika Abbas

Part 2 of 2

“Havana, Cuba, 1996. In the middle of the worst economic crisis in the country, I entered the United States Interest Section to ask for a visa. The consular officer asked me why I wanted to emigrate. “To write in freedom,” I said. That probably wasn’t the most common answer applicants gave, but I got the visa nonetheless. More than twenty years later, having published twelve books, I found Mr. Steven Rice online and thanked him. I write in English and Spanish. My mystery novels, published by Soho Crime, feature Padrino, a Santero detective, and weave in Afro-Cuban beliefs and culinary elements: Death Comes in through the Kitchen (2018), Queen of Bones (2019, chosen by NBC News as “one of the top 10 books from 2019 by and about Latinos”) and Death of a Telenovela Star, upcoming August 2020. Muchas gracias.”

7/22/2020 Teresa Dovalpage

Opportunity & Freedom

“My great grandfather Walenty Staszak lived in partitioned Poland under Russian domination. Polish language, culture, and national sovereignty were denied by the Russians. In the mid 1890s Walenty took his last money to come to America to get work and set up a household for the wife and child he left behind. A few years later he sent for wife and baby daughter (my grandma) to begin their new life of freedom in America.”

5/28/2020 Carla Tomaszewski

“At age 15 I left my family in northern Myanmar and walked to India. After a year there, I was flown to Michigan to start a new life. At 25, I am now an American citizen, a senior in university, a home owner – yet I have not seen my parents since the day I fled for my own safety from the military.”

1/5/20 Mang Boih

“My parents went to Canada in 1989 as refugees during the Civil War. My grandfather had an accident, we all went back to El Salvador when I was 7. Years later, my wife got her US papers. We came here in love. We married, which is illegal in my country. I have never felt so free to be me and this is what America means to me: freedom to love! Back at El Sal I had to hide my sexuality and now I celebrate it! Second wedding anniversary and a home full of love.”

5/18/2020

Ligia Milla

“My grandparents came to the U.S. not knowing any English, leaving their 3 kids in China, in order to earn money and find better job opportunities. They stayed in the U.S. since, leaving their home, childhood, and culture. I will forever be grateful for their hard work and perseverance. Thank you grandma and grandpa.”

12/24/19 Annie Chin

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