I am an immigrant. Actually I am twice a “chain” immigrant, a term I never took into consideration until recently.
One morning at breakfast in 1955, my father announced that he, his wife — who herself was a war refugee from Poland — and my brother were emigrating to the United States. Did I want to come? I was 14 then. My answer was quick: I was born French, I would live French, I would die French. I went on to live in Paris with my mother, whom I loved dearly, with her husband in a two-room apartment — not two bedrooms, two rooms.
My father, who was a chemist/metallurgist, was being sponsored by his wife’s aunt and uncle who lived in Minneapolis (chain #1). A year later, my younger brother, as part of a court agreement, came back for a two-month vacation in France. While we never lacked the basics, such things as telephone (only the well-connected got them), television (we could not afford it), refrigerator (no need, we shopped every day), a car (sheer luxury, a dream, don’t even think about getting one), or owning a house (perhaps as an inheritance) were never envisioned. In one year in the U.S., my father had not only the telephone but also a television, a refrigerator, a car (never mind that it was a 1951 Chevy), and was buying a house.