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After a whole lifetime of not knowing her father, who left to avoid being drafted for the war before she was born, Ana would meet her dad, as he finally accumulated the funds for them to join him. However, the United States would only allow 1,000 Macedonians to enter the country. It took her and her mother six years to be able to come over. Because they were from a developing country, they had to quarantine on Ellis Island for nine days
1951: Ana and her mother fly to Macedonia 6 years after WWII.
December 8th through December 17th, 1951: Ana and her mother were quarantined on Ellis Island.
Above: Arrival paperwork at Ellis Island
Below: Ana's naturalization document
“It’s hard to imagine leaving everything you know, everyone you love, and taking only what you could carry to a foreign land. Unable to speak the language and with barely any money, they [Ana and her mother] came to America; not just the physical land but the American promise of its freedoms and of its people.'' - Jim Galovski on his mother's travels
Ana and her mother coming to America was monumental for many reasons. But the biggest one was that this was her first time meeting her father, whom she had not known for the first 12 years of her life.
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