During Immigration Day I talked to Sue Bartels and Sue Franz. First my group talked to Sue Franz. She immigrated from China to the U.S. for school. She came to study chemistry. First she went to New York. She said she really loves the big cities. Then she traveled to Philadelphia on a train. Philadelphia is where she went to school and met her husband. Then after school she went to Boston and then to Michigan. She became an American citizen in 1999. She had a hard time adapting to the language here. She now has two sons of her own, and she also adopted two girls from China. Her family immigrated to California and she sometimes visits them. They came here for family. She now has a huge role in the chemistry section of Gentex. Sue Bartels came here from Canada for school. She came here for college, but she was not intending to study a certain thing. It took her five hours to get here. She was 18 when she immigrated to the U.S. Her family was supportive, but they wanted her to stay. Here she met her husband. Her husband had to be her witness for the government. He had to prove to them that she was going to stay here and not go back. She got her green card, but it took longer because she had a family. She one day wishes to become an American citizen. Her children will have a chance to apply to become a citizen of Canada as well. She now has a job at Faith CRC. She said that it wasn’t necessarily hard to find a job. She also said that she always need to have all of her papers with her to show that she can legally be in the U.S.

One reason why I thought that Immigration Day was important because it was impacting to have a person who has immigrated in front of us. Yes, we can read a story about someone’s immigration story, but to have someone in front of us is much different. To ask questions and learn someone’s story from them is amazing. Reading some’s story can still be cool, but with someone in front of you you can get much more details and a better understanding of the story. It affected me in how I now think about immigration. I used to think of it as just someone moving to another country and flying on a one way flight to get where they need to. On Wednesday my thoughts changed about that. I learned that not everyone has perfect travels to their destination. Lots of people have a struggle getting their Visa. Then you have struggles sometimes with family, flights, languages, and food. Some people have easy travels, but others have extraordinary and inspiring stories.

Most people think that everyone has easy travels to the U.S., but I now think differently. I now know from what I heard that a lot of people have a hard time getting their Visa and that is just the start. They have struggles with food, family, and many other things along the way. Not many people have a normal travel. It was interesting to hear from someone who has gone through some of theses struggles and how they got through it. It is amazing to now know all of this stuff about immigration that I would have never learned before.