Immigration has always been a central component to my family’s story, one that can be traced back through several generations. Although my grandparents, parents, and I were all born in Barranquilla, Colombia, my paternal great-grandparents were born in Bethlehem, Palestine. In the early 1900s, seeking better economic opportunities, they immigrated to the port city of Barranquilla, joining the large community of Christian Arabs living in the region. They, like the majority of people in this ethnic group, fully assimilated to Colombia. My grandfather was born there, later meeting my grandmother who is not Arabic, but instead, like many Colombians including my mother, is descended from a mix of European immigrants.
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Growing up in the Moscow region of Russia in the late 1980s and the 1990s, I don’t quite remember the Soviet times—but I do remember perestroika (“rebuilding”) and the aftermath of the Soviet Union collapsing. I remember standing in long lines to buy bread and bringing a milk can to be filled from a truck that came to my town on certain days of the week from a nearby farm.
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It’s April 10, 1864 and Mexico is under Austrian rule. The elected president, Benito Juarez, the president of the people, has been cast aside and in his stead, Carlotta of Belgium and Maximilian of Austria have claimed the “crown” and built a castle in the Western Hemisphere’s largest park—Chapultepec Forest, in Mexico City. Maximilian became the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire, appointed by Napoleon the III of France. On the 5th of May (cinco de mayo) 1862 a battle was fought and won by the Mexican people against the French in what is known as “la guerra de los pasteles”—the War of Cakes.
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Many people come up to me and say, “Joseph, how did you get your start in immigration law? I know that now you edit the law firm blog and work in human resources, but what was it like to be an immigration paralegal? And how does your hair get such great volume and bounce?”
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Jessica, a rising third year law student at Fordham University School of Law, is one of our summer associates. She is currently the Senior Notes Editor for the Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law and a student attorney at the Immigrant Rights Clinic. Here she shares her family’s immigration story.
As a child, being deemed an American seemed quite arbitrary in my young mind since it was bestowed upon me solely based on my mother's physical location when I was born. Though born and raised in the States, I frequently divided my years between the United States and Taiwan, where my parents had emigrated. My Taiwanese relatives often did the same, visiting the US every so often. Growing up as an American citizen amongst non-citizen friends and families invoked the ever slight feeling of guilt, yet also one of pride. Though at the time I could not fully comprehend why, non-citizens of the United States always wanted citizenship.
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Megana, a rising second year law student at Fordham University School of Law, is one of our summer associates. A merit scholarship recipient, she will serve on the Intellectual Property Law Journal this coming year, and was kind enough to share her immigration story.
Throughout my life, I’ve never really considered myself as anything but wholly American, despite my multicultural background. This is due largely to the widely different ethnic backgrounds of my parents and their families. My father is a third-generation Brooklyn Italian, while my mother is an Indian immigrant who eventually wound up in New York City. Though this background has led to some unique experiences (constantly confusing “marsala” with “masala”, for example, or the yummy treat that is naan pizza), overall I have a hard time thinking of myself as either Indian or Italian.
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As a first-generation Hungarian-American who grew up in a bilingual household, my developing personality was influenced by a hybrid of cultures. I witnessed firsthand the struggles that every immigrant family typically faces in this country. In light of those struggles, my parents instilled in me the values of hard work, compassion, and enthusiasm. From these lessons came a spark that lit a passion within for assisting others, which is how I ended up at the Daryanani Law Group following my graduation from Wesleyan University in 2011.
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I’m an American Jew, the kind that bleeds first for the Constitution, the Knicks, rock ‘n’ roll, and Levi’s blue jeans, and second, for “the old country” as my father used to call it. I was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland, but I’ve always felt the breath of my ancestry on my neck. My immigration experience is second-hand, one borrowed from my parents and their parents before them and so on and so forth. From Exodus to exile to Ellis Island—that is my family’s Jewish experience.
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Growing up, I never felt incredibly “American.” Though I never heard a family member speak a language other than English, and we had no relationships with relatives in the “old countries,” three of my four grandparents were first generation Americans and there was always a great deal of talk of being Swedish (on my father’s side) and Norwegian (on my mother’s).
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