Living The American Dream

http://www.myasmine.com/living-the-american-dream/

by myasmine • 14 years ago

190 72 14 years ago

myasmine.com

What it’s like to grow up a non-citizen and have to earn it.

philiphodgen• 14 years ago

Nicely done and inspirational. Thanks for the post on your blog and for putting it here so I would find it.

myasmine• 14 years ago

Glad you liked it!

rollypolly• 14 years ago

Great story. Gives me a renewed appreciation for the privileges I was born with.

rdl• 14 years ago

Congratulations for both becoming a US Citizen and for getting involved in tech! Great to see SE PA is developing more of a tech scene, too (I'm originally from there).

It's kind of frustrating that the state department consular staff dropped the ball on informing your family about applying for citizenship -- I know of people who ended up stateless after the fall of the USSR for similar reasons.

I suspect on the west coast there would be more opportunities to go to college without an SSN for financial aid (by using state or private grants), due to the relatively larger number of non-citizen or undocumented immigrants.

famousactress• 14 years ago

Awesome story.

We don’t get to choose what country we’re born in or what socio-economic status...

It bums me out how few people (at least, in the US) seem to recognize this. It's such a lottery, and there's a big difference between pride and entitlement. The world would probably quickly get much closer to an actual meritocracy if this particular lottery ran closer to once-a-decade or so, instead of once-per-lifetime.

jacques_chester3• 14 years ago

The birth lottery is stunningly important.

Out of the several billion people I could have been, I was born in Australia, to intelligent and kind middle class parents.

Really. My biggest single stroke of luck was to be born where I was born. Everything else is going to deeply path-dependent.

pm90• 14 years ago

Couldn't agree more. Although I was born in India (which is not a developed country), I still think that I was lucky to be born into a middle-class college educated family. In India, there are kids who still die of hunger . From a very early age I realized that I could have just as easily been born into one of the many millions of poor families that make up half the country. It was indeed a pretty big stroke of luck

autarch• 14 years ago

This seems like a good example of how screwed up immigration policies are in this country.

We should be running out to other countries and actively recruiting people like her to immigrate here. She's smart, she's hard-working, and she's obviously incredibly motivated. But despite all this, the process of even getting a green card took a ridiculously long time.

I really don't understand people knee jerk stance against immigration (well, I do understand it, it's largely racism).

noonespecial• 14 years ago

That's a fascinating idea I've been kicking around for a while now. What if a country recruited citizens?

The US almost did in a way at the end of WW2 and we more or less got a space program out of it.

micahgoulart• 14 years ago

Canada does that. They actively seek out highly skilled foreigners and offer them opportunity to immigrate to Canada. It's out of necessity since there is a shortage of highly skilled professionals in Canada.

Here's a recent article about new initiatives the Canadian government is taking: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Feds+plan+hand+pick+ski...

jacques_chester3• 14 years ago

Immigration to Australia is based on a points system. Your chances are substantially improved if you have certain qualifications or experience.

gaius2• 14 years ago

Consider the case that rich country A recruits all the, say, nurses from poor country B. Or any other skill that B is short of itself.

miked• 14 years ago

>> I really don't understand people knee jerk stance against immigration (well, I do understand it, it's largely racism).

I don't know any Americans who are opposed to immigration. I know lots of them who are opposed to illegal immigration. Interestingly, the people I know most ferociously opposed to the illegals are themselves immigrants, three from China, one from India, and one from France.

And racism has nothing to do with it. They just hate the fact that they came here legally, went thru a lot of trouble to do so, add a lot of value to this country, and then see others who drain the welfare system, etc., get a free pass because they can be expected to vote the "correct" way when they become citizens.

My wife is from China and there's never a week that goes by that she doesn't tell me how wonderful America is. I've lived overseas enough to get a sense of why she says that, but it's still interesting to see the U.S. through her eyes at times.

lotharbot• 14 years ago

Many of those most strongly opposed to illegal immigration also strongly favor a streamlined legal process, for many of the reasons you allude to. This country benefits greatly from immigrants who come to add value (including many illegals). We need a policy that makes it straightforward for immigrants who are doing positive things to get into the system.

Anechoic• 14 years ago

> I don't know any Americans who are opposed to immigration.

I live in a northeastern city with a significant Puerto Rican (as in people who moved here from PR) population, and there are lots of folks who are vocally calling for changes in immigration rules (yeah, yeah, I know) so prevent Puerto Rican's from "immigrating" here.

I suppose it really matters where you're from (among other factors).

philwelch• 14 years ago

If you're opposed to illegal immigration, and you're also opposed to changing the immigration laws so it's easier to immigrate legally, you're opposed to immigration. Let's just be honest about this.

scott_w• 14 years ago

Speaking from the UK perspective, the argument is very much about "stopping fucking foreigners in to take all our jobs".

To this end, the popular opinion is in favour of making legal immigration harder, and kicking out all the illegal immigrants.

One of the more amusing headlines I've seen involved an Indian immigrant joining the British Nationalist Party, as he supported their policy of "Britain is full, stop immigration".

ajays• 14 years ago

My opposition to illegal immigration boils down to these points:

1. Many illegals die each year making the journey, and many more are brutalized on the way to the border. They have to deal with coyotes, drug gangs, etc. The current situation is untenable.

2. Once they're here, the illegals are cut-off from their families; they can't visit home and miss out on their children growing up, leading to further problems.

3. Just legalizing them doesn't solve the problem; just more people from south of the border keep trying to get in.

The solution, IMHO, is an "unskilled worker visa" available to residents of Mexico and Central American countries. Give preference to those with roots in their communities and a clean record. It would let them come to the US for manual work like picking crops, construction, etc. and go back (and forth) whenever they want. Many other countries (especially the Middle-Eastern ones) have such visas.

bmelton3• 14 years ago

"She's obviously incredibly motivated."

I first met Yasmine at StartupWeekend Baltimore. She'd come down from Philly to try and recruit help for her project. She'd been working on an existing startup already, and her idea was an extension of that (but new, so as to fit within the constraints of SW).

Not finding a lot of help, she sat in a corner, by herself, for what appeared to be the entire weekend, plugging away. She would occasionally ask some of us how to get something done in Python or whatever, but single-handedly turned her project into something that was later acquired.

In short, for all the talk about 'not enough women in tech', all I can say is that they're out there, and they're awesome. Hell, half the men I know in tech can't get as much as she does.

adgar• 14 years ago

> In short, for all the talk about 'not enough women in tech', all I can say is that they're out there, and they're awesome. Hell, half the men I know in tech can't get as much as she does.

Your comment was excellent until you took the "My anecdote refutes data!" route.

joe_the_user• 14 years ago

Maybe...

But given that she was really motivated to master a challenge that was really hard, perhaps, just perhaps she justified her efforts by convincing herself that the results were really worthwhile.

So perhaps the policy is just, exactly right. After all, you don't see a lot of fat happy native born talking about living the American Dream (I hear them saying "you have to asleep to believe it" but as we see, there are other alternatives)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Influence

chives2• 14 years ago

Serious question: is there a single system in the country at any level of government that works as it is intended? Can someone name a single one?

My mother recently "enlightened" me as to how backwards medication pricing is and how its shouldn't be legal what medical companies are doing (its a long, unethical, story). I retorted with: We have people who don't even know how the internet works deciding how to regulate it, and yet we have these very same people regulating countless number of other industries that they don't understand. A great many senators and congressmen don't even read what they vote on, never mind understand what they vote on (ndaa anyone?).

So getting back to the topic at hand. How is it that "we" can read this story and be disgusted. The men in power in our country have spent the last few decades (imo, perhaps longer) making our country worse and have deluded themselves in to thinking they have made it better. I am annoyed with them, but I am really annoyed with the people who know what is broken and instead of taking the initiative, sit back and talk about it. They sit back and they talk up a storm about how crooked companies are and this that and the other thing. And oh yeah, its racism , or its this or that.

And you know what? Its not even worth it to point any of this out. In the off chance you actually agree with anything I have said, your an American, a docile consumer. You will go find some company, some NPO and throw money at it. Problem solved, case closed, you accomplished your civic duty for the day. Maybe you will go the extra mile and share with your facebook friends some pointless meme that suggests they share with their friends. What a joke. If our country's forefathers saw what has become of their great nation, they would writhe in their graves. In all likelihood, you don't agree with anything I have said, you are content with people telling you what to think and what to buy. You believe this country is great and are content letting the "little" imperfections of our government programs go ignored or worse, broken further.

But yeah, totally agree. Let me know when you share a "lets fix immigration" meme on facebook so I can share it with my friends and we can fix kono 2012, -I mean whatever really important thing we were talking about. Hey, did you see my new car. I know, its banging right.

mquander• 14 years ago

This is the flamebaitiest flamebait I have ever seen, even accounting for the topic. It is insanely rude and unproductive. I hope it gets flagged into oblivion.

To the author: Respect your fucking readers or don't click "post." Your mother said health care pricing is screwed? Explain and teach me something or don't throw it out there. You have some godawful stereotype of people who complain about the government? Back it up with facts or get the fuck out. Don't feed me some "you are" and "you will" morality play when you invented your hypothetical audience out of thin air. Don't write three paragraphs about your straw man moron without an iota of any actual information besides rambling. Give me a break.

eli_gottlieb• 14 years ago

I don't oppose immigration as such. I oppose labor arbitrage, which is one of the chief uses of immigration.

lionheart• 14 years ago

Great story.

My family immigrated as well, from the former Soviet Union, but thankfully we had help and I got my citizenship only 5 years after moving to the US.

I really am thankful every day that my parents braved the incredible hardships of moving to the other side of the world to a country where everything was different from what they knew.

If it wasn't for them making this decision, I wouldn't have the incredible opportunities that I do today.

yan• 14 years ago

Just wanted to chime in that I recently had a very similar conversation with my parents. Thanked them and chatted about the effort they went through to uproot their entire life and immigrate.

Guess what I'm trying to say is, if you've been putting off giving thanks for something similar, now is a better time than ever.

jorgem• 14 years ago

The nice tone of comments on this thread are why I enjoy HN.

Compare to comments elsewhere (not the same article, but immigration related):

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/historic-wave-...

throawa6• 14 years ago

Just wanted to share my story too (throwaway account).

I first came to the US when I was 16 on a high-school "exchange" program, which was actually a one-way "exchange" (nobody went to my country from the US), sponsored by the US government in order by promote democracy, American way of life and thinking, etc., across the world, and especially in the former Soviet Union, where I was from. The American plan was to immerse 15-17 year-olds from the former Communist bloc into American mentality, then send them back to their home countries and let them loose into their societies.

At the time, my former USSR republic was in chaos, the Union just collapsed a few years earlier, economy was in turmoil with ridiculous hyperinflation, food supply failures, crime rate skyrocketting, etc. Needless to say, everybody wanted to get out, and the competition to get into this US-sponsored program was crazy. To get in, you had to pass 3 rounds of testing: prove your English language skills, submit an essay in English, and finally, pass an interview. In my high school of about 1500 students, I was one of the two people who made it that year.

I then spent my last year of high-school as a senior in an American high-school out in the Middle of Nowhere, USA and lived with an American host family, who were proud "rednecks". I didn't fully understand the full meaning of that word at that time, but in those parts of the country, it wasn't anything to be ashamed of. Needless to say, I learned quite a bit about "American way of thinking" during that year.

Meanwhile, the message from my parents back home was simple and consistent: find a way to stay there FOR GOOD. Get into an American university. Oh, and by the way, we have no money for that, so figure out how to do it for free. Which I did, by the end of my American senior year.

I lucked out because I got into a graduating senior class, even though I was supposed to stay with my age group and be a junior. As a senior, I got to take SATs and ACTs, and studied hard for them, having figured out that those were an important ticket to American education. Surprisingly, my results were higher than national average, even though my English was nowhere near native. It would be enough to get into most colleges in the universities in the country.

Unfortunately, just being accepted was not an option in my circumstances, since I had no money whatsoever to pay for college. I needed a full-ride scholarship, nothing less. Fortunately, my (pretty high) GPA and test results turned out to be enough to get one at only one college out of over 200-300 applications that I sent out.

In the meantime, I was back home, back from my first year in America, wanting to go back, this time on my own, without the hand-holding by the State Department and the chaperones. To do that, I needed to learn more about a whole another side of the State Department -- the consular office, the visas, etc. With my letter of acceptance, and an offer of full scholarship in hand, I braced the throngs of my countrymen lining up at the American embassy. I did end up getting one, a student visa this time, although with a frown from the consular officer about the fact that I just came back from the US on an exchange visa. At the time, that was a minor detail I should have paid more attention to.

Fast forward several years.

I have a Bachelors and Masters degrees from US schools (both paid for by the schools themselves), have interned at cool companies, met my wife (also an immigrant, but not from my country) and married her, and switched from studying on a student visa to working on an H-1B visa. At this point I've lived in the US for over 13 years, and investigated the possibility of finally getting a green card.

It turned out that it was nearly impossible for me to get a green card without having to first go back to my country for two years and fulfilling the State Department's original goal for me -- sharing what I learned in the US as a 16 year-old kid with my countrymen. This, despite the fact that Internet erupted and connected the entire world in ways unthinkable since that time. Despite the fact that I have shared quite a bit with many of my countrymen via various online forums and discussion boards during those 13 years. Despite the fact that I have started a family with roots in the US and my wife does not speak the language. Despite the fact that my skills are better suited in the US, which is proven by high-paying jobs I held, along with similarly high taxes I paid along with that.

And so, after 13 years in America, after having received Bachelor's and Master's degrees, with respected schools completely subsidizing my tuition, and after having worked at some of the more respected companies in American tech community, I had nothing left to do but pack up and immigrate to Canada, who was gracious enough to take me, and glad enough to use my skills and take my tax dollars. For me, American Dream remained a dream. Canadian Dream is not as hyped-up as its bigger sister down south, but it has its fair share stories. This is one of them. :)

ebiester2• 14 years ago

The J-1, right?

I'm frankly surprised you were able to transition away from the H1-B from the F-1.

(My partner is in a similar boat, but still on the F-1. I'm currently in his country, and we're hoping that despite him being on the F-1, the accumulated time that he spent in his country totalling two years will be enough to count for the requirement, despite it not being contiguous. The problem is it seems to be all up to the discretion of the officer handling the issue, because the rules don't seem to be anywhere.

throawa6• 14 years ago

Yes, J-1. :) It's such an obscure corner of the US immigration law chaos, that barely anybody knows about it, except for those that have to live with it. The transition to H-1B from F-1 under J-1 cloud is even more obscure -- it's actually a legal loophole in the law that I think only a few know about. Basically, it's illegal to apply for H-1B visa without first satisfying the requirement, but it's OK to apply for H-1B status while remaining in the country.

rdtsc4• 14 years ago

Thanks for sharing. Yeah the program was called Freedom Support Act. And you probably had a J-1 visa. That was a great program and I wish there were more of those kind of programs that would bring in kids from other regions of the world.

It is unfortunate about the 2 year requirement for your particular case. Since it was a US govt. sponsored program they paid for your stay, travel and allowance while here. It was not just a program to benefit you personally and to eventually help you integrate into the American society, but rather it was to create future leaders in your country that would support and follow "Western" ideals, and to have you spread your knowledge about the American culture in your own country. As they see it, you have failed that task since you came right back for college.

throawa6• 14 years ago

Overall I agree, it was a positive program, although with its own quirks and downsides. That said, my "issues" with it are:

- That "task" was never clearly spelled out to mostly immature, 16 year old minors. The attached strings were slowly revealed much later into the deal. I don't want to call it a "bait-and-switch", but it does have many attributes of it.

- There's no way to repay the State Dept for the expenses if you don't want to "do the 2 years".

- As I already mentioned earlier, communications mechanisms were revolutionized since then with the advance of Internet. Most communication and spread of informal knowledge now occurs online, even in my home country. Most ideological "debates" over Western ideals, etc., happen online.

- I wonder what the failure rate was for the program. Most people I know either came back to the US immediately, or eventually. I believe the program is shut down now. Unfortunately, a failed program to a government official is just that -- oh well, time to move on. To a participant, it's a life-altering experience, for better or worse.

madina_a3• 14 years ago

Hello,

Nice meeting you here. I also came to the US as a Freedom Support Act exchange student in high school. I never went back to my home country, got accepted to a University, graduated and was out of status for a while. I married a US citizen and now I am dealing with a 2-year requirement. I applied for a waiver based on "no objection" from the home government. I received a favorable recommendation, but the exchange program wrote a letter to the Waiver Review Division stating that I violated the program and therefore go home. I can reapply basing my case on hardship or political asylum.. but my chances of winning are very slim. You mentioned in one of your posts about repaying the sponsor the amount that was spent? Could you please elaborate? I am in dire need of advice. Please e-mail me at madina_a@hotmail.com

Sincerely, M

peripitea• 14 years ago

I'm assuming people have suggested this to you, but in case they haven't, I've heard of people getting a lot of traction by contacting (and having their citizen friends contact) their senator/congressperson.

sireat2• 14 years ago

Fascinating story that rings true to my heart, but how did you manage to send out 200-300 applications and find the full ride? I remember applications costing money($30-50) in the early 1990s.

  My biggest regret in life is not having had a good advisor in choosing which colleges to apply to. Upon applying to college, I was being given reasonable advice as an American high-schooler in California when in fact I was in a very similar situation to yours(ex Soviet, exchange student, and so on).

 In the early 90s when I applied it cost money for college applications. I applied to Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley,UCLA and UCSB, because everyone else I knew was applying (I did not have access to Usenet just yet and there really were no other sources of information).

 I got accepted at UCs and got confronted with the fact that college would cost a small fortune for an out of state student that UCs considered me(and I was already working part time as a programmer for UCSB).

There were some smaller colleges which were sending me spammy letters, which I ignored, but actually they were quite decent colleges in retrospect (Harvey Mudd for one).

To this day I wonder what would have happened if I had managed to get a reasonable scholarship to one of the lesser known colleges.

throawa6• 14 years ago

Thanks! This was 96-97, applications were all free, except for the postage. There may have been some higher-end schools that required money, I probably didn't even consider those. My algorithm was to go through Kaplan's (or one of those) catalog of all US colleges and universities, request an info package from each college where it seemed I can get a full-ride, receive it a few weeks later, fill out the enclosed application, send it out.

I did some prior research into scholarships and didn't even consider top schools (Harvard, Stanford, etc.), as I knew there was no chance to get a full-ride with my credentials. I mostly focused on smaller regional colleges.

madina_a3• 14 years ago

Thank you very much for sharing. I would like to ask you a few questions. Could you please e-mail me at madina_a@hotmail.com Thanks in advnce!

option_greek• 14 years ago

What an inspiring story! I don't know if she has earned her US citizenship or US earned her as a citizen.

rickmb• 14 years ago

Seems to me that from being an immigrant nation the US has become the Western country that is the hardest to immigrate to.

smiler• 14 years ago

Yes, I'm British and I would love to be able to easily immigrate to the US. I know so many others who would as well - but it requires you to find a US company willing to sponsor you etc which makes it a real hassle

tomjen3• 14 years ago

Actually the hardest to legally immigrate to. It is not that difficult to get across the border (and you can properly walk across the Canadian undetected).

Which is a real shame, you have the option of a real boost in the economy if you those who want to work get into the country.

bearmf• 14 years ago

What made you think it is the hardest one? It is not easier to emigrate to UK, Canada or Australia, the systems are just different.

citricsquid• 14 years ago

A really cool chart on legal immigration into the United States for anyone interested in how hard it really is: http://i.imgur.com/yxTFW.jpg (posted here a few days ago, not sure who posted it though so no credit unfortunately)

fierarul• 14 years ago

http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf

jacobr• 14 years ago

The "push" factors for emigration are probably strong in many non-democracies, but it's it possible that the "pull" factors for immigration could be weakened by the internet?

Some people don't seen to care about moving to the US to live "the American dream" or whatever.

pinchyfingers• 14 years ago

Yasmine, I'm so glad you published this story.

It's incredibly disheartening when anyone who lives in the United States believes that they are poor. Too many people born with the privilege of being American citizens choose to blame their life on outside circumstances, when the reality is they've been given the best outside circumstances anyone could ask for. Many people want to redefine the American dream as some kind of struggle for subsistence, but you've perfectly exemplified the true American dream: if you're willing to set goals and work your ass off, then you can choose what kind of life you will live.

westicle• 14 years ago

Very interesting story - hard to comprehend how frustrating it must be having lived somewhere most of your life without being formally "accepted".

"I can speak out against the government, if need be, without fear of being prosecuted, imprisoned, or killed".

Probably pays not to take that sentiment too far however. This is still the USA we're talking about.

read_wharf• 14 years ago

Welcome.

vacri• 14 years ago

What's the content management system you're using for this site? It's rather obnoxiously blocking me from reading your article because I don't have javascript enabled and it's telling me I need to turn javascript on for mobile safari (there's no copy of safari in this building). I can see the content formatted fine under the warning. It seems to be related to that toolbar up the top - it's not on the homepage and I don't get the error message there.

bmelton3• 14 years ago

I was interested, so I looked -- the CMS appears to just be Wordpress.

I'm guessing (without having done much research) that it's Cufon that's pushing the JS requirement. I also saw FB Connect, so I guess it could be that, but I've never seen it do that before (but I've also never looked.)

Living The American Dream

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