Our Stories

When my great-grandfather, Moses “Mo” Freije, came to the United States, he was 14 years old and completely alone. While his parents stayed in the small village in Lebanon where he was born, Baskinta, Mo travelled on a boat to Ellis Island in New York, eager for a better life. Tumbling out with hundreds of other passengers, he was processed and soon approved to live in the US. He drove to meet extended family in Worcester, MA, where there was a thriving Lebanese community—but it wasn’t smooth sailing yet.

Mo got a job at a textile mill that operated with typical late 1800’s machines—wobbly and dangerous, they were made of wood and would frequently come apart as they operated. Mo’s job was to crawl in the cracks between the machines and nail them back together with a hammer. At the same time, he was learning English and soon moved to Binghamton, New York, in pursuit of better work. He got a job at a gas company; there, he got wind of the so-called electrical revolution spreading across America. Mo’s undeveloped-but-strong business sense fired, and he started studying electricity. After learning how to use wires and circuits, he went door-to-door in neighborhoods about to get electricity, asking people if they would like him to wire their houses so they could use it.

In his mid-20s, Mo met a young lady named Jessie. Smart and beautiful, she caught Mo’s eye, and family legend has it that he fell in love at first sight. He asked her father if he could start courting her, but her father said she was too young as she was only 18 at the time. Disappointed but determined, Mo wrote letter after letter to Jessie. They kept in touch over the next year, and soon after they started dating and eventually got married. When I asked my mother and uncle about Mo, they said he adored Jessie to no end—and that Jessie was head-over-heels for him as well.

Mo’s endeavors in electricity helped him and Jessie after they got married, as well. He started a profitable company, Freije Electric, which gave him more than enough money to support his family, which soon included a daughter—my grandmother—Joyce. Though he struggled in America at first, Mo Freije died a successful and happy man.

My neighbor was the immigrant that I chose to interview. He immigrated from India around the age of twenty-five. He said the first thing that he realized is the flexibility that America offers to individuals to pursue their dreams, whereas in India, it is only a small possibility to pursue you’re dreams. He also noticed that if you work hard in America, you can basically do whatever you want to. If you go after you’re dreams aggressively enough, then you have a large possibility of prospering. Some of the hardships that he experienced includes getting used to the day to day functioning of America. In detail, India was very family oriented and families gave their kids lots of support throughout school and college. There was no pressure to get out of the house and be independent as soon as possible, as it is in America. In India, there is lots of community support, including the outside community, not just your closest family. In America, when you are out of high school, most people aren’t going to support you in a way such as part of their life is centered around you’re well-being. To sum up the support thought, in India, about everyone around you helps you succeed throughout life and in America, you usually have to make it out on your own. One thing he described as unique about America is the standard of living. In America, some of the things that we consider regular, necessities are hard to get in India unless you are middle class or over. Some of the necessities include milk, bread, cheese, and eggs. He said he remembered vividly, picking up tin buckets every day and heating them up after filling them with cold water, only to have a small amount of hot water for the day.

My great-grandfather, Augustine Rocha, was not a complainer. Originally from Terceira, a beautiful Portuguese island in the Azores, he and his family lived in a house with dirt a floor. They had one cow, which provided both dairy and labor. My Papa recounted that the cow’s milk lacked fat due to its time pulling plows. In 1920, my great-grandpa boarded a ship to America in hopes of making a better living.

He had a sharp mind, but Augustine never attended school a day in his life. When he got off the ship at Ellis Island, he couldn’t read, write, or understand English. Not wanting to waste time attempting to explain something he couldn’t explain, Augustine said his surname was Rocha, because it was the surname of the man in front of him in line. Rocha was probably part of his name, but Vaz had most likely been his surname in the Azores. Augustine’s name was documented as “Aquito Rocha” when he mistakenly shortened his name and confused the letter “g” with “q.”

My grandpa doesn’t know if his dad was loaned money for a train ticket, or if he hitched a ride with someone, but somehow, Augustine moved to San Francisco. There, he and his bother started a dairy farm. Unfortunately, my great-grandfather’s brother was an irresponsible hypochondriac. He spent most of his and Augustine’s hard-earned money on unnecessary appointments with doctors and chiropractors. The brothers lost their dairy. Understandably, Augustine wanted to move away and start fresh once again.

After the failure of his own dairy, my great-grandfather moved to a small town in Northern California called Arcata. There, he found work at a dairy farm, making thirty dollars per month. Later, he worked at a lumber mill, and finally, he mowed lawns in rich neighborhoods. In his free time he made wine, which he loved to drink. The Portuguese community in Arcata annually gathered for a celebration, or “Festa” where they celebrated Catholicism, Portuguese culture, and life in the United States via enjoying sweet bread, wine, linguisa (sausage), and spending time together. In 1974, the photograph above was taken at this festival.

For my great-grandfather, life in the United States was far from home and far from easy. Augustine was extremely hardworking, and immigrating to America gave him the opportunity to use his incredible work ethic to better his future. While in Arcata he met my great-grandmother, Marie, and together they had three children. Years later, my grandpa joined the U.S. Navy, graduated from Humbolt State University, and ran his own lathe mill company. The hard work payed off; the Rochas were and are living the American dream. Today, my grandparents can’t help themselves when it comes to ice cream and wine.

In the Spring of 1968, in the beautiful city of Firenze, Toscana, Gerald Elefante, my grandfather was born. Per his father, “Boy had a smile that could light up the heavens”, a defining trait that he kept with him, for his entire life. He was as smart as he was happy, and in his 16^th year, he persuaded his parents to send him to America for schooling, to the “land of freedom”. A month later, his parents received their first mail from their son, reading; “Da Dio, I love this country! Everyone is so cool and nice, and all my friends have piercings! (Don’t worry, I didn’t get any!) Mom, per your request, I haven’t had any major issues with the other kids, except this one guy called me ‘mafia’, so I just told him my dad would have his ticket if he messed with me, and he ran away! Amore, Jerry”. A couple years later, Jerry found himself at Rutgers University, studying to be a mechanic. In the very same year, Jerry’s father Louis unfortunately passed away, and Jerry flew back to Firenze for the funeral, putting his schooling on halt. While in his old home, he saw his father’s old reading glasses by the fireplace, and remembered how he always used to tell him great stories of the Second World War, how the Germans had occupied their beautiful city, blowing up and destroying history in their path, until the Allies came in, Americans included, and fought off the invaders, liberating Firenze from Hitler’s clutches. “I wished I could have been with them Gerald, as I huddled in the back of our apartment with your mother, wishing and praying for God to make those men succeed”, Louis had said. As Jerry looked at his father’s grave, he realized that he could fulfill the wish his father had made, and as soon as he landed back in America, he enlisted in the service, and was placed in the United States Air Force. As he recalls, “it was something like a dream to serve for the country I love, and in memory of the greatest man I ever knew.” After several decades in the service, Jerry retired as a proud and distinguished Captain, and spent the rest of his days in a small house in Cary, watching after his young grandson that bore his signature grin.

My name is Teo Feliu, and I was born in Barcelona, Spain on November 21^st, 2001. Barcelona was where my friends, family, and my home was. Spanish was my first language. My second was German and my third was Catalan, the main language of the province in Spain that I lived in. Because of this, there were very few schools that were actually in Spanish. Luckily, there was an American-International school close to where we lived. Going to that school was the very first step of my journey to the US. Even though the core classes in school were in English, we had one hour of Catalan and one hour of Spanish per day.

It was one regular day of fourth grade, and I came home from school when my parents gave me a talk. They told me that there was a possibility we could be moving to the United States. What I didn’t know, is that my parents had already been applying for immigration for a while. Soon enough, I got the news that we were moving, but we were going to spend one year thirty minutes away from London. Leaving all my friends and family is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Luckily, we would come back every two months that year. My uncle had recently bought a van, and my parents had the wonderful idea of driving to London with our furniture, driving back to leave the van, pick up our car from Spain, and drive back all the way to London. We crossed France entirely, Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium, went through the underwater tunnel, and crossed England a total of 3 times and 60 hours. That year was very hard since strong connections with my family had been broken. When summer finally came, I was ready to leave England and move to the New World. The day before school started my dad told me that because we still didn’t have a green card, we couldn’t start school just yet. When he said that, I thought we only had to miss the first days of school. Starting that day, I did online courses instead of going to school. I did this for three months, and finally, on November 7^th, I started school at Cary Academy. Because of the green card being only in its developing stages, we could not leave the country for a period of time. This meant that we could not go Spain during Christmas. These news hit me very hard, but finally, summer came, and I went back home to visit. Even though I am very fortunate to be able to go back home so often, leaving Spain after every visit has never gotten easier.

In February of 1991 Ramiro Fernandez immigrated from Columbia to the United States. Several of Ramiro’s family had been dying in Columbia and he felt unsafe. He made the hard decision and traveled to America for the chance at a better life. The first step was to apply for a visa. When he first arrived in the United states from Columbia he faced several unexpected challenges. English, Loneliness and prejudice were his three main challenges. After his flight to Miami international airport he faced his first challenge, English. Ramiro and his wife did not speak English, making communication difficult. They spent their first week hungry and struggling to communicate to obtain food and shelter in the Miami airport. After staying for seven days, they left the airport and moved to New York. Ramiro started applied for jobs, but with his last name being Fernandez, many employers offered him the lowest position in the company or not at all because of it. He did find a job and learned English but still struggled with the third challenge of loneliness. He said this was his hardest challenge. Having only his wife and eventually his daughters to talk to he grew lonely. Although it took time to form relationships, he eventually overcame this as he made relationships with other people. After living in New York for 7 years he decided to move to Rhode Island with his family. After living there for 10 years they moved to North Carolina in 2007. By some miracle, he said, they were able to buy a house in a good neighborhood. Ramiro and his wife settled down, raising their children and are still residing in North Carolina today. Although there were hard times he also had some happy ones. He said his experience immigrating to America was an amazing experience. He said the moving and thriving in a country that everyone speaks so highly of was exciting and he was happy he made the trip. Today, he helps other immigrants make the journey to the United States but strongly supports them doing so legally.