Recent Immigrant Stories
Stories inspired by the When I Got Here podcast, hosted by Byron Harris.
Amal: Assassinated Building a Better Iraq 2004
from Hungary to Libya and Iraq
Iraqi expatriate returns home in 2001. After Saddam falls, she works to build a good Iraq. Despite her efforts, she is assassinated. Twenty years later she remains an inspiration to her daughter and, through her, to her grandsons.
Physician and Family
South Korea to Ohio, 1970
A neurosurgeon comes to the US from South Korea and pivots to life-saving OB-GYN work.
Daniel Simon
from Haiti to New York City, 1988
A Haitian whose parents brought him to New York City as a boy goes through a “serendipity of experiences” to overcome the poverty of his youth, becomes an engineer, and learns to be a black man in America. Is Daniel just lucky or does he make his own luck?
Curious About Christian
Mecklenberg-Schwerin, Germany, to Wisconsin, 1866.
Why did a young man leave Germany in the 1860s and settle in Wisconsin and Iowa? What courage this journey must have asked of him.
A Year in Iran
from US to Iran, 1976-77
Mayela's story brings up old memories of similar feelings from time as a young university lecturer.
From Syria to Seminole
Henna, Syria to Seminole, Texas, 1898
A fifteen-year-old boy walks to the sea and travels to New York by boat. He became an itinerant peddler in the Midwest and settled in Seminole, Texas where he had his own dry goods store. Read more in his memoir published by Texas Tech University: "From Syria to Seminole."