Immigration and Women: Understanding the American Experience

3. “I Had to Start Over”: Entering through the Front Door

| 47 3 “I Had to Start Over” Entering through the Front Door In 1970, Anica and her family left Romania, fleeing the persecution they experienced there as Jews. After spending a few months in Vienna, they arrived in the United States, settling in Baltimore. On a stopover in New York City, Anica saw the Statue of Liberty, which, she said, is the symbol of hope for every soul that can breathe behind the Iron Curtain . . . . It stands for freedom; you can go anywhere you want. It stands for opportunity; if you want to work, you might have to work like a dog, but you have the chance. . . . It stands for a dream. We flew over, and at some point my mother said, “Here is the Statue.” . . . We were free. When many Americans complain about undocumented immigration, the common refrain is, “They should have come here legally!” Yet that is often expressed with little awareness about how immigrants can come to this country legally, or through the “front door.” In this chapter, we explore the stories of women coming to this country as “legal” immigrants. How do they come here? What are their experiences here? And how do American immigration policies facilitate—and sometimes inhibit—their aspirations? Before turning to the women’s stories, however, we discuss some of the background that provides the context for their experiences. Following a history of immigration policies that favored men of certain races and nationalities, U.S. laws now reflect broader principles and concerns. These concerns are shared by other industrialized countries and have become “orthodox.” As Nicola Piper notes, “Industrialized countries in Europe, North America, and Oceania . . . admit permanent residents on the basis of three long-established principles: family reunification, economic considerations, and humanitarian concerns.”1 In keeping with these principles , there are three main avenues to legal immigration to the United States: 48 | “I Had to Start Over” family sponsorship, employment sponsorship (economic considerations), and refugee/asylee immigration (humanitarian concerns). Two less common routes are the diversity lottery, which allows potential immigrants from less-common sending countries to compete for coveted visas, and “nonimmigrant visas.” Although it may seem odd to list “nonimmigrant visas” as a route to immigration, these can provide initial entrée for those who later adjust their status to a permanent one. For example, someone in the United States on an education visa may graduate and secure sponsorship from an employer, thus becoming a permanent resident. We use the metaphor of “front doors” to refer to these legal routes into the country. The rates at which people use these various “front door” visas vary tremendously . Looking at 2008 data, we find that the most common legal route to immigration to the United States is to be sponsored by a family member already here: 66 percent of immigrants were sponsored by a relative. The rates of employment sponsorship and refugee/asylee immigration are roughly the same, with 15 percent of visas granted to each group. The diversity lottery, a mechanism that gives preference to immigrants coming from countries that do not already send large numbers of immigrants to the United States, is the fourth-largest category, with 4 percent of immigrants entering that way.2 None of these categories is a specifically gendered category. Men and women both can, and do, avail themselves of each of these categories, and the employment and refugee/asylee categories are very evenly balanced with regard to gender. Women and girls are, however, more prominent in the family-related sponsorship categories: in 2008, 58 percent of this type of immigration was female. The diversity category was least heavily female, with only 43 percent of those visas going to women and girls.3 The Women’s Stories Betty grew up in Hong Kong, in a family of refugees from mainland China. Whenshewasayoungteenager,hercousinmovedtotheUnitedStates.Thisgave Betty an idea. She decided that she, too, would one day immigrate. At the same time, she was a student at a Lutheran school staffed by American missionaries, who also encouraged her dreams. Throughout high school, she worked hard, saved money, and researched American colleges and universities, seeing that as herticketoutofHongKongandtoAmerica.Shecompletedhighschoolandcame totheUnitedStateswithauniversityscholarship.Althoughshewasshockedthat theactualcampuswasnotasbeautifulasinthebrochures,sheimmediatelyknew shewantedtostayhere.“Ifeltveryathome,verywelcomed,”sheexplained. | 49 Family 66% Diversity 4% Employment 15% Refugees 15% Figure 3.3 Major immigrant categories, 2008 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Total Family Employment Refugees Diversity Figure 3.2 Gender breakdown of immigration categories, 2008 Male Female...