My partner and I actually each ended up making a collage, using several of the same images. This is the other version.
Interview Questions and Responses
Name : Nadine K. Minani
Age : 21
Country of birth: Rwanda, Africa
When did you come to the US? (year, your age then) : 1994, 8 years old
Native language: Rwandan
Do you still speak your native language(at home), do other family members? Yes
Did your family all arrive in US together? Yes
What family do you live with? I currently live with my Dad. Other siblings have their own homes in various states.
Do you have other family or contacts from your birth country in the US that you are in touch with? No, almost everyone is in Europe or still in Africa
Anything you'd like to mention about their experiences coming here or adapting to life in the US? [Assuming you mean my family] The hardest adaptation was learning the language and learning to manage finances. Often work was available but managing money was problematic.
Are you or your family members in touch with family or friends that remain in your birth country? A few cousins here and there.
Do you plan to return to your birth country ever? Depending in the political climate and financial feasibility there may be a visit in the future but it is not a priority.
Can you describe your situation in your birth country (when it was more stable/ before you intended to leave)? My family was fairly well-to-do and we were all educated in the European system which continues well into university and post-graduate levels. My family situation was, compared to other, rather ideal; both parents alive and present and a good quality of life overall.
What events led you to leave your birth county? The Rwanda Genocide of 1994, aka the War of 100 Days which followed the presidential assassination and coup d’état of the Rwandan government.
Was there a particular event that forced your leaving, a 'now we go' moment? Was there time to plan your departure? There was an initial, emergency relocation to Burundi, a neighboring country. The family became separated, some in refugee camps, but we eventually found each other and had a brief period where we resumed normal life, including attending secondary school before war spread to that area also and we had to move to the US which called for a little more planning.
What allowed you to be able to leave when others could not? Luck, my father’s political position, and his connection with the red cross.
What was your path, from initial leaving to finding a permanent home in the US? I have no clear idea; my father and older siblings handled a lot of the planning.
Challenges in coming to the US:
citizenship: Expensive but doable before the Homeland Security Act, now it is much more complicated .
documentation: Simple in our case because we were sponsored by a church.
financial/ employment: Again, the church saw to it that we received work.
language: My father and oldest siblings were proficient and spoke Swahili which some graduate students (in TN) knew and were able to teach us English faster that way.
social, cultural adjustments: Difficult in general but highly different in each case, mine was made easier by my young age.
How do your memories of your experiences growing up affect you today? Certainly but I wouldn’t say negatively, they just give me a unique perspective.
What of your birth country's culture have you kept or lost? Almost all of it (lost), even the language is slipping away but then again the culture I knew no longer exists anywhere, not even in the country I left.
What do you particularly like and dislike about living here,or about American culture? My one complaint would be that America is very ethnocentric, strangely though, that goes for the country as a whole as well as each of the individual races living within it. But it seems to work out!
How do you think your experience shapes your views on US immigration policies? I don’t think US immigration policies are much based on previous experiences with immigrants. Past experience is so overshadowed by socio-economic politics that this question is missing the mark a bit.
