Iyow - in your own words

Part three of ‘A Long Way Home,’ a series on immigration we began in April 2006.

As a native of a country that often appears in the top ranks in measures of development, wealth, education and well being, my choices have been full of opportunity. At school I could choose the sports I played, subjects I studied and people I hung out with. I could go to college, or not, and at a time when it was only a few hundred dollars per year. I could choose a career that interests me and choose where to live.

My first experience as a resident in a different country was almost automatic and unthinking. I’d guess that half the people my age went to the ‘mother country’ where we were welcomed as sons and daughters, if a little estranged. Many return home to tell stories for years to come of their OE (Overseas Experience). Others, like me, move on further — in search of adventure, further opportunity, some other fulfillment. Or, as in my case, realizing the influence of an adventurous and traveling grandmother who turned up on the shores of her new home country New Zealand in the early 1940s with a five year old daughter, no plans, and no husband, winging it.

My choice to move to the USA was sparked by a call to share a new experience — California — to dispel career stagnation and avoid traveling a standard path. It was assisted by personal connections, timing, care in maneuvering the immigration system, and, finally, luck in winning the lottery for a permanent resident visa.

I was technically never an illegal immigrant, where much focus is leveled currently, my encounters with “the system” showed me how this could both easily occur and can easily be hidden….