Life in Cambridge
Immigrating
Sandra is an only child, so she had no siblings that joined her in moving to the US. All of her cousins, aunts, and uncles remained in Switzerland as well as her father. Sandra was immigrating with her mother who was remarrying an American man after her divorce from Sandra's father. Therefore, when Sandra arrived in the US, she was only initially familiar with one person there.
Sandra remembers the actual immigration process as being pretty easy as she was just a child and she and her mother were immigrating legally. She reflects that "we came from Europe, and I think we probably had an easier immigration experience than most immigrants". Her mother had to go through an interview process to ensure that her marriage was not arranged in order to allow her entry into the US. Besides that, there were no obstacles in the actual process of immigration.
École Bilingue of Cambridge
First Memories
As Sandra was just 9 years old she states, "I remember feeling sad about missing home and friends and also pretty scared at not speaking the language". She was immediately enrolled in a school called École Bilingue which was a French and English-speaking school in Cambridge. She remembers it as a "safe environment" for her as she was interacting with kids she could communicate with more easily than if she had been in a public school. It would have been difficult for her to find kids in her normal day-to-day life that spoke French, so the school was a great way for her to transition into living in a place with a completely different culture and language from what she had been used to.
Sandra's mother's new husband and his family were a large part of her acclimation to life in the US. She recognizes that "right away they took me in and showed me their traditions and culture. They made a big effort to connect with me". Though she only spoke French and the family only spoke English, they were still able to connect in some ways which made the process easier for Sandra.
Differences in culture were a large barrier for Sandra. She feels that "the US is very isolated from the rest of the world. Maybe less so now, but everything is American and there's not a lot of understanding of different cultures sometimes". This made it difficult at times for her to connect with other kids who were confused as to why she didn't speak "Swiss" and often mixed up her culture with that of other countries like Sweden. Sandra was not familiar with holidays like Halloween, but other children often assumed that those types of things were something she would have already known about. Sandra comments, "In a big country like the US, people sometimes assume that everybody thinks like you or is like you, and when you're an immigrant it can be hard to be surrounded by that".
Sandra, her mother, and her stepfather the day she got her US citizenship.
Sandra chose not to get her US citizenship until she was around 30 years old. Until then, she had a Green Card. She could have become a citizen much sooner, but she decided that she wanted to stay Swiss and be a permanent resident of the US. She decided that "until the US and Switzerland had an agreement for dual citizenship, I chose to stay Swiss".
Cambridge is a city located in East Massachusetts. It is across the Charles River from the city of Boston.
City of Cambridge
Charles River between Cambridge and Boston