Tag Archives: Arizona

A Wave of Immigrants to the Factories in the Northeast (Greece)

              Panayotis Kalogerakos lived in Langadia, a mountainside village in Arkadia, in Peloponnesos, Greece. While it was beautiful there,  Panayotis wanted to leave Greece as a young man in order to escape the fighting that was going on in the Balkans at that time. In addition,  there were attractive job opportunities in the industrialized ... Read More »

What’s Next (Louisiana)

Editor’s note: Slavery is an integral part of the American story and those who were forced to come to the US in chains, are no less immigrants than any other group. Not only was their freedom taken, but in many cases, their personal family history was lost. On this web site of immigration stories, we pick up their descendants’ story ... Read More »

Journey In The 80’s (Mexico)

Rodolfo Vazquez was a kid, in a family of three boys and two girls.  He grew up in Sonora, Mexico in the city of Obregon. At the age of 15, he started to work with his dad, helping him building houses near his house.  That’s how Rodolfo started to get experience in building structures. At the age of 19, he ... Read More »

Story of Mary Kathrin McDermott (Ireland)

Where in Ireland was Mary from? Having been there what did you think of the town? How does it compare to America? Mary was born in 1914 and was from a small town in Ireland called Leitrim. She was the oldest of 10 children in an extremely poor family who made their income by rolling and selling peat bog. Her ... Read More »

Made in Taiwan

From that day on, he told himself that if he couldn’t fly aircraft, he could at least make one. The number 8 in Chinese culture has always been a prized symbol, with its pronunciation sounding similar to prosperity and good fortune.  My father was born on August 8th, 1958, and throughout his childhood, he was always told he was lucky ... Read More »

Leaving Violence-Torn El Salvador

On her second day of being in the United States she found a job packaging lettuce, and although it was a difficult task to do, she earned nearly 16 times what she would’ve earned in El Salvador in a week. My mother, Ana  was born in La Libertad, El Salvador – just a few miles away from the capital, San ... Read More »

Andrew B. Kim: An Extraordinary Life

Andrew B. Kim led no ordinary life. As a child, his family had lived through the Korean War in Seoul of South Korea, when Japanese occupation had forced the Kims into brutal suffering. Though waves of hardship hit his family time and time again, Andrew’s parents pushed him and his older sister to strive for opportunity in better places. “There ... Read More »