[Music]
My mom
came here when she was seven years old
to New York.
My grandfather, my maternal grandfather
worked for the embassy.
So he was posted in New York. So they all
came to New York and she's been here
ever since.
So 40 something years, I think.
And my dad, he came here for college,
an engineer in San Jose. So
he came, he studied and he just decided
to live here.
And that's my story.
It starts off with my dad moving here
for his job
back in 2003 and
that just left me and my mom back in the
Philippines
um for about two years before we moved
to join suit with him and just join I
mean just like live
with him and my grandpa was already here
prior, but I don't really know what year
he moved.
And yeah, we we just been here since
2005.
Back in Philippines we were taught
English as a second language,
right? And I thought that coming here to
the US I wouldn't really have a problem
with that.
However, it was really hard because like
all
everybody around me, like literally,
everybody spoke fluent English and I'm
still just like I know some words that
they're saying but it's really
like more complex just trying to like
decipher what they're saying and all
that and it's
um it was hard going through that
process, but eventually I
I like learn to get along with it to
like conform myself to the society.
So my family comes from from mexico both
my mom and my dad.
And they came over in the 90s and they
met each other like
uh four years after they came over, and
they met each other at work, and then
they got together, and they had me and
yeah, both of my parents were born in
Egypt and
lived there most of their lives all the
way
until college. They got married in Egypt
and then my father decided that he
wanted to come to America because
it was the land of opportunity and
dreaming and all that.
My mother, they were both obviously like
very torn to leave their family, but they
left everything to come here so that me
and my
siblings could have a better life. My
parents immigrated from
Vietnam to here during the Vietnam war.
So my dad, he came originally from China
in Guangdong near Hong Kong and
during the Vietnam war, he escaped from
China through Vietnam and all the way
through Malaysia as a vote person.
So he went through a lot with his family
and his four older sisters and his two
parents.
My dad and the rest of his sisters
decided they wanted to go to America
and really let their kids live the
American dream
and he was very adamant about wanting to
stay in America
seeing it as this wonderful country full
of opportunities.
So he went here when he was 21
and he had to lie about his age to be
able to go to
an American high school. He went to San
Jose high school which is very close by
and he also graduated from San Jose
state and
he really took his education seriously,
because he really wanted to provide for
his family.
And after everything was great he had a
good job.
He went back to Vietnam and that's where
he met my mom.
And my mom immigrated here, left
everything she knew
back in Vietnam and here we are
with three kids and a happy family.