by Andrea Tseng | Aug 11, 2022 | Immigrant Stories
Mayela’s story reminded me of my year in Iran. Like Mayela, I felt both welcome and unwelcome. Rather than freedom, I felt oppression. In 1976-77, my wife and I taught literature, culture, and language to students at an Iranian university for one year. We...
by Andrea Tseng | Aug 1, 2022 | When I Got Here Podcast
In this episode, a young Mexican woman, a university graduate and marketing executive, wrestles with feeling welcome and unwelcome, free and lonely. This immigrant’s experience shows the power of words—and the prejudice behind them—to hurt. Is her faith in the...
by Andrea Tseng | Jul 28, 2022 | Immigrant Stories
Immigrated from Henna, Syria to Seminole, Texas, 1898 My grandfather, Mohammed “Ed” Aryain, left Syria in1898 when he was fifteen years old seeking economic opportunity. He wanted to earn money to buy a watch like one he had seen on another person. He then...
by Andrea Tseng | Jul 27, 2022 | Immigrant Stories
I left South Korea with my mother, Songia Hoang, and my father, Choon Gill Hoang, on November 19, 1970. My father wanted more training as a neurosurgeon. I was one year old. We came by air from Seoul and landed in San Francisco. We stopped in Japan for a layover,...
by Andrea Tseng | Jul 27, 2022 | Immigrant Stories
Christian Joachim Christoph Dau was my great-great-grandfather. He was born in Sehlsdorf, Mecklenberg-Schwerin, Germany, in 1834. He left there in October 1866. The specific reason is unknown, but likely it was for economic reasons. Affordable land in the American...
