Memorial Day Americana, as seen on www.herrochester.com
By Pam Sherman | June 1, 2010
I walked to the Memorial Day parade in our town with my daughter and our old friend, actually our old nanny who was visiting from Washington, D.C. Years ago, almost ten to be exact, we began sponsoring our nanny for her green card here in America. She came to America from Indonesia in order to earn enough money to help her family back home. She has through hard work and perserverance put two siblings back home through college, one will be an engineer, the other, a psychologist. She taught our family about her part of the world and her religion. And today I taught her about Memorial Day. We stood with the rest of the crowd as the men and women of the armed services walked by. We clapped for what they’ve done for our country. And what they’ve done for her, a new immigrant. While she yearns for the day she can return home to see her family, I know that her family here in America is important and dear to her. She told me that she has 5 children now, my two (almost teenagers) and the three little ones she cares for in D.C. As I stood with my friend, an immigrant to America and watched proud Americans standing and saluting our men and women, I thought about her bravery in coming to this country. At the time she knew no one. She’d been invited by a distant Aunt to come and work in an Embassy in DC and when that fell through she began to care for other people’s children. She moved to Rochester with us, gladly and learned to love the snow and the cold and most of all the people here. We employed her well beyond our means and our need mainly because of our sponsorship of her green card, and hopefully her eventual citizenship. When she earns her green card (very soon we are told) I know that it will be one of the good deeds of my life to have ushered this bright, capable, hard-working young woman to America and to our family. Happy Memorial Day to all Americans, new and old, and in-between.
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June 10th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Excellent experience! It’s great to hear about immigrants getting their green cards. I too am an immigrant. I’ve had a great experience here in the United States so far :D