Immigration Story

Coming To America

Danny and his family initially came to the US because his father received a scholarship from a Boston College and Harvard joint program to get a PhD. Danny's family flew from Jakarta to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to London, London to Saudi Arabia, and then Saudi Arabia to Boston. On their flight, their family was separated; Danny and his two younger brothers were seated in the front of the planes while his parents were seated in the way back. In addition, the airline lost two of their pieces of luggage, containing family photos and clothes. Once they got to Boston, they were extremely exhausted from their flight and the twelve hour time difference began to sink in.

Danny explained how Boston College was very disorganized with providing housing for their international students, so his family was not given a place to live at first. Danny and his family were able to temporarily stay with his parents' friends in Boston. They stayed in a two bedroom apartment so it was very cramped during the time that they lived there. His family also continued to struggle with adjusting to the time change so they would wake up in the middle of the night and be hungry. Due to the noise of making food at 3:00-4:00 AM in the morning, his family was asked to leave ten days after their arrival.

They moved to another two bedroom apartment in Fenway. For the next month, they moved frequently to several other apartments around Boston. Finally, in September, they were given a one bedroom apartment by Boston College. However, the living conditions of this apartment were terrible. It was smaller than the apartments they had previously lived in, and "when you turned off the lights almost a hundred cockroaches would come out, it was disgusting" said Danny. Regardless of the poor living conditions, Danny's family called this apartment home for the next three years.

Danny's family was tight on money when they first arrived to the US. His father was a minister in Indonesia and didn't make close to what the American's average salary was. They didn't have a car, so they walked wherever they needed to. They had enough money for food, basic necessities, and their rent but that was about it.

Adjusting to American Life

Danny had a hard time adjusting to American life because it was very different from what he was used to in Indonesia. He felt like an outsider for a while because he was in a country he knew nothing about. On top of that, he did not know any English so it was hard for him to communicate with others. He was enrolled in the English Second Language program which is how he learned to speak, read, and write in English. He developed many friendships with other students like him in ESL because they had similar experiences to him. In school, Danny received a lot of support from his teachers and classmates as they made an effort to make him feel comfortable. He really enjoyed math because it was easy for him to understand considering that he was still learning English at the time. There were some instances where he was picked on in other classes, however, other classmates stood up for him.

Another major adjustment was the food in America. Danny explained that "he didn't like any American food" at first and it took him a long time to acquire a taste for it. The main reason was due to the amount of dairy used in American food because in Indonesia they did not eat much dairy at all. Danny also had a hard time adjusting to the cold weather in Boston. When he first came over in July, it was similar to the temperatures back home. However, as time went on and the seasons began to change it was difficult for him as he was accustomed to warm, tropical weather his whole life. He experienced freezing cold temperatures, ice, or snow before so he struggled to enjoy the winters. For the first three years of his life in the US, Danny hated living in America and wanted to move back home. He miss his family, he missed his friends; and he missed the the culture he was accustomed to in Indonesia.

Over time, Danny slowly accepted American culture and began to enjoy it. He went to Newton South High School where he made many friends and met his future wife. He then went on to study engineering at Wentworth Institute of Technology.

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