Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Blog

Our Family’s Journey

Nearly everyone in America has an immigration story to share. Our voices are louder when we speak together, so please share your stories and highlight the work that’s being done in your communities. Together we can achieve commonsense immigration reform.

Ms. Song is pictured with her mother and father in November 1963, shortly after their arrival to the United States. (by Personal Song Family Photo)

I arrived in Chicago in the early 1960s as a two year old. My father was already in the United States on a scholarship from the Korean government for graduate work at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in nuclear engineering. After he completed his Masters degree, my mother and I came to the U.S. in order to be with him while he completed his Ph.D. When I arrived in Chicago from Korea, it had been a long time since I had seen my father, and it was a difficult reunion. I did not recognize him or understand who he was. I would not let him pick up our luggage and was upset that he was holding hands with my mother. Fortunately, that did not last long. I soon was inseparable and would not let him leave my sight. He had to take me with him to his office because I would not let him leave without me.

We had planned to return to Korea after my father completed his Ph.D., but friends and relatives advised us otherwise. The Vietnam War was raging and they were concerned about problems the war might cause for Korea. And so we all remained in the U.S. and became naturalized citizens. We lived in Colorado at the time and were one of very few Asian American families there. I often was the first and only Asian American many of my classmates and neighbors had ever met. My mother grew cabbage, bean sprouts and chili peppers in our backyard because there were no Asian grocery stores from which to buy the ingredients for KimChee. Over time, my father sponsored some of his siblings to immigrate to the U.S. It was wonderful to suddenly have aunts, uncles and cousins. I had never known what it meant to have relatives before, so I didn’t know what I missed until I had it. I can only imagine how lonely it must have been for my parents to be alone in the U.S., missing their family for so many years.

Our family now has several generations in the U.S. and we are in communities across the U.S. Many of us are still in Colorado; I am in Chicago; others of us are settled on the coasts. My father went on to a long career in the U.S. Navy and the Department of Energy. At the end of his career, during the Clinton administration, he became a technical advisor to the U.S. State Department to negotiate with North Korea to shut down their nuclear program in exchange for new and safer nuclear technology from the U.S. and international allies. It was a fitting close to his career in public service and his decision to immigrate to the U.S.—to be able to represent his adopted country in work that also would assist the land of his birth.

Ms. Unmi Song is a member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Song is also Executive Director of the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation.

Finding Home

Nearly everyone in America has an immigration story to share. Our voices are louder when we speak together, so please share your stories and highlight the work that’s being done in your communities. Together we can achieve commonsense immigration reform. 

Hector and his mom, Lourdes P. Vargas, at the White House. (by Personal Vargas Family photo)

I speak a lot about a cross-country trek I took a few years ago during a job transition. For me, driving from the New York City metro area to San Francisco was not only a unique opportunity to see America, but also a pilgrimage to learn more about my own story as the son of immigrant parents.

I set out for Great Falls, Montana. Why Great Falls? Because in 1964 a young woman came alone from the Philippines to work as a nurse at Great Falls Deaconess Hospital. 

This woman was not unlike many others from the Philippines and other countries that have a long legacy of nurses coming to America. But this woman is my mother, and like most immigrants to this country, she came here pursuing a dream to improve her life and her family’s.

As a child, I remember seeing photos of my mother in the snow and in front of the state capitol in Helena, Montana. I wondered why she would endure such a vast difference in weather and, of course, culture. Luckily for her, she and the other nurses from the Philippines involved in the program in Great Falls created a small community for themselves, living together in a house where they could share meals and their new experiences.

She later moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she met my father, and our growing family moved to Atlanta, Georgia and then Homestead, Florida. All the while, she continued her career caring for others who were sick and in need, and raising four children. 

In 1986, my mom became a nurse at the Miami VA Medical Center, caring for veterans and directly giving back to the country that had not only become her home but also where she had become a citizen. She was honored for her service at the VA just a few years later with the VA Hands and Hearts Award given to “the employee involved in direct patient care who does the most to exercise professional expertise, to provide emotional support, help and guidance to patients.”

At 71, her career as a VA nurse is still going strong, although retirement and spending more time with her own mother and granddaughter is in her near future. Her friends and colleagues at the VA, many of them representing a new wave of immigrants, threw her a party last month to help her celebrate her 50th year as a nurse.

I think often of my trip to Great Falls where I saw the places my mom first worked and lived in the United States—the hospital that’s now an assisted living facility and the house just down the street where she and other Filipina nurses lived.

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) have much at stake when it comes to commonsense immigration reform. Three-quarters of our community members are foreign-born and AAPIs naturalize at the highest rates of those who choose to become American citizens. My mom’s story is not unique. Her story shares the characteristics of so many immigrants who have come here looking for opportunity and in the process have given back so much. These are stories of hard work, love of family, building community and finding home.

Hector Leonard Perez Vargas Jr. is a member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.  He is also Executive Director of the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA).