I went to Cleveland in July of 1985. I got a room at the hotel at the Cleveland Clinic for sixty dollars a night, which was like paying half of my salary. Every day I was trying to find a house to rent for us, for my wife and son. In that first week they told me, “Go get your housing,” so I got a newspaper, checked the classifieds, and went by taxi looking at places. I certainly did not get much help. They told me they were going to pay me $19,000 a year, but I didn't understand what that meant. If you go to China and they were going to pay you 19,000 in Chinese money, what did that mean exactly? I ended up in a suburb of Cleveland called Shaker Heights. It was a diverse community, and we rented the first floor of a two-story small house.
In the meantime, I struggled to get an understanding of things. The cardiology training program did not have anybody else like me who did his basic training and medicine residency outside the United States. I was coming in at a very high level, and so I don't think they understood that I was coming through a US hospital for the first time at that level. I had never stepped foot in a US hospital before, and so the first few months were stressful. My wife later told me I did not smile during that time. I wasn't beyond my depth; I just didn't know the way. I spoke good English, but I did not know many of the standardized ways of doing things in US hospitals.
My wife's English wasn't as good as mine, but she's a remarkable woman because she adapted and stayed strong, and I have to give credit to her for taking charge of our lives and learning the ways in the United States, forming some friendships, improving her English, taking care of our baby, and everything else because I was working twelve-, fourteen-hour days. I was on call every third or fourth night. We had sold our furniture and car in Turkey, which put $5,000 in our pocket—it was all very stressful because I had to be successful because I didn't want to go back to Turkey after all this and be in a position of failing, but after the first three months I knew my way around.
I was very interested in academics. I knew all the way from the beginning of medical school that I was going to be an academic physician, who not only takes care of patients but does research to advance the field and gets that research published. Our full intention was to go back to Turkey after the three-year program would finish, which I did. I got an extension on the visa, so we spent four years in Cleveland. In 1989, we went back to Turkey. There was nothing available in Istanbul for me, and then Massachusetts General Hospital [MGH] in Boston offered me a job, an academic position with Harvard Medical School. MGH was the Harvard University Medical School hospital, so that was also very attractive to me.
I first went to Boston as a trainee, then stayed on as a junior faculty. By that time we had our second child, a daughter. Also by that time, my visa started to create problems. I could not stay in the United States and work in an unrestricted manner without a proper visa. I had to go back to Turkey. An alternative was to go to an “underserved” area in the United States to get a waiver.
With the guidance of the people at MGH, I took a job in Pittsburgh Veterans Administration Hospital and was there for a year and a half. The intention was then to go back to my old job in Boston, but by then the Cleveland Clinic became a much more academic institution and became prominent in the field of heart disease and cardiology and in 1994 for the first time was rated number one. So in 1992 we came back to Cleveland—by that time I had my green card—and it's been our home ever since. We've lived in the same house, raised our two children here. It's been a wonderful, wonderful time. My son is twenty-five; my daughter is twenty-two. My son graduated from Miami University of Ohio studying philosophy and literature, and my daughter is studying French and English literature at New York University.
I'm very happy I came here. Of course, the job played a very important role in my happiness, but I also think my wife is happy. We were always close, but making a life from scratch in a country that we did not know—just by ourselves with very little support—brought us even closer, and we have a very happy marriage and we're supportive of each other. My job allows me to use my strength to be a leader in the field that I work in and to keep my ties with the cardiology community in Turkey. I am always working with one or more of the young physicians or cardiologists from Turkey. I go back there three or four times a year, almost always related to some educational activity. I see a lot of patients internationally, but predominantly from Turkey, and it allows me to give back. But I feel as much a part of this country as I do a part of Turkey. I don't think that I have to choose to be Turkish or an American. I really think that I can be both.
I think if you come to the United States and say, “I'm part of this country because it is my inalienable right to pursue happiness and liberty and be better and take advantage,” this country tells you that you are one of us. Anybody coming here should realize that. You should not live here with a ghetto mentality. You should not live here as a permanent immigrant. You have to be a part of this country—then the opportunities open up. I really think that's very, very important.
This high-energy chocolate entrepreneur was born in Algeria and raised in Provence on the Mediterranean coast. At age fifteen, he apprenticed to be a pastry chef. At twenty-six, in 1986, he became the youngest chef to earn the Meilleur Ouvrier de France medal, France's prestigious craftsman award. He immigrated to America in 1988 to become pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Springs, California. He later moved to New York, became pastry chef at Sirio Maccioni's Le Cirque, and eventually left there to start his own chocolate business in a warehouse in Brooklyn with the help of two partners. Today, Jacques Torres Chocolate is a luxury brand with 2009 revenue of more than $10 million, famous for its bestselling boxes of bonbons. He has a bicoastal marriage with his wife, Hasty Torres, who owns and runs Madame Chocolat in Beverly Hills. He's written three cookbooks and hosted television shows on PBS and the Food Network, and he is the dean of pastry arts at the French Culinary Institute in New York. He lives on a boat at Liberty State Park near Ellis Island and feeds wheat bread to his pets, a duck, and Canadian geese that come by his boat. “I am more of an individualist, an entrepreneur, so that's basically why I like it here,” he said. “It fits my personality.”
I was born in Algeria in North Africa, but at that time it was not an Arabic country; it was a French territory. Then in 1961 it became Arabic. The French who were there left for France. My dad came from Spain and my mom came from France, so I'm a mixture of French [and] Spanish, and raised at a young age in North Africa in an Arabic community with a Spanish background. Then I grew up in the south of France in Bandol, a little town on the Mediterranean between Toulon and Marseilles, so I am basically a pure product of the Mediterranean. My whole ancestry came from here. My father was a carpenter and craftsman, so I grew up learning how to build things. From three years old to twenty-eight, I was in the south of France. I worked there. I did all my classes there. When I was fifteen, I began my apprenticeship at small local pastry shop and became a pastry chef….
I left France for America in 1988. I visited a couple of times before, fell in love. You know a lot of Europeans have this dream about America: The Promise. The Promised Land. The American Dream. Everybody wants to realize the American Dream, and I'm no different from anyone else. Also, there is a very attractive thing here. It's rectangular, it's green and it's called a “dollar.” So this dollar thing kind of attracts a lot of people—and, of course, the American Dream, the dollar is part of it, but also not just the dollar. I was successful in France, so for me it was the adventure, the people—I love Americans. I'm a big supporter of America, sometimes more than the Americans I know. So I became an American because I embrace this country. I love it. I love the American way. And now that's about twenty-two years that I'm here.
I came through in 1988. I came here for a job at the Ritz-Carlton Hôtel in Palm Springs, California. They hired me with a one-and-a-half year visa called an exchange student visa. At that time it was easier to get than now. And once I got here, I bought a motorcycle. I was twenty-eight.
I was a roommate with three ladies [smiles] in Palm Springs. They had a big house, a swimming pool—for me this was wow! America, you know?
During one of my first nights there a coworker took me to a bar called Pink Ladies, and those ladies in that bar didn't wear anything—I mean, very little or nothing—and the chef told them it was my birthday. It was not my birthday. But he told them it was my birthday, and I didn't speak a word of English, and suddenly all those ladies are on top of me, and so how do you want me to go back to France after that? I had all those naked bodies all over me. Welcome to America! I love America!
That was my introduction to America! So I'm thinking, wow, you know, I stay here! That was twenty-two years ago. Now I realize that we have to give money to those ladies. [He smiles.] But you know, I still love it, and that was my first experience, but all joking aside, I found out over the years that in America people have a certain courtesy that we don't have anymore in Europe, such as politeness. New York, for instance, has a reputation for being tough and tearing people apart and everything. My brother was here last month, and he told me that the people are so nice, so polite, so helpful…. Try it today: go out with a map, a subway map, and stand on the sidewalk, and in less than a minute, someone will come up and say, “Can I help you?” It's amazing. I find people to be very nice in this country. In France, if you ask, “Where is the Arc de Triomphe?” and it's on the right, they're going to tell you it's on the left just because you're an American or whatever. So we've lost a certain courtesy, a certain politeness, in Europe, but especially in France and also Italy. So I think America has had bad PR. If the rest of the world knew real Americans, they would love this country. They would love America. I mean, it's a great country.
[He pauses, serious tone.] Listen. I came here with two suitcases twenty-two years ago. Today I have a multimillion-dollar company with sixty employees at seven locations where I do my business. I mean, I started from nothing. Nothing! I came here with not even $2,000 in my pocket. So it's amazing. If you have a dream, if you want to work, and if God gives you health—because without that you can do nothing—with a little bit of luck you can make it in this country. You have a chance.
Look at Mr. Mars. You know, the M&M Company. Mr. Mars Sr. [founder Frank C. Mars], the one who started the company, who invented M&Ms, the Snickers bar, the Mars bar—that guy to me is a hero because he started from nothing and today that company is worth, I don't know, maybe $25 billion, or more. [Annual sales in 2008 were $30 billion.] I mean, it is unbelievable, that company's power! I never met him. He passed away a long time ago. But from a distance I admired him. I learned about him. I read about him. His way of thinking. He is one of those people for me who was like, wow! Another person I admire, but who is not an American, is Leonardo da Vinci. This guy had a brain that's—I mean, he was an inventor, an artist, a visionary. That guy had a brain that was just sparkling, and when you think about those people, you just wish you had one-tenth of their brain, unbelievable people….
I got my citizenship about ten years ago. I first got a J-1 visa. Then I applied for a five-year visa, then my green card. It's a long process. For my citizenship I learned the answers to all the questions. I knew more than my American girlfriend at that time. I passed my test. I succeeded, and then I took the oath with 280 other people. It was very emotional because suddenly there's the judge talking to you and telling you your duty to the country and you have to love this country to do it. And I love this country and I did it and I became an American and I'm very proud of it!
What I've learned about coming here to this country as an immigrant is you can't come here with an attitude. You have everything to learn before you're going to make it. You're not going to change people in this country; they're going to change you. You're going to bring a piece of your culture, but you're going to mix it together with the American culture. You're not going to impose it. You're not in whatever country you come from; you're in America, so be humble. Work hard. Have respect, and hopefully you will make it. If you have no humility, Americans will not forget. I mean, be humble and don't come off as Mr. Know-It-All; otherwise, you're not going to make it. I see that too often. Young chefs who come and say, “These Americans, they don't know what they're eating; I'm going to show them.”
No, you're not going to show them! You're going to learn what they want and you're going to get as close as you can, and that's maybe what you're going to do: learn about the culture! You have to learn about a people's culture before you can offer something different, which means you have to respect the culture first.
I would go back to France to live maybe, but not to work. To live is fine because I love the lifestyle. I love France. But working there? No! I prefer the American way. I go back every year. My mom is there. I love to go to the beach. I love to enjoy France, but America is home now. I am more of an individualist, an entrepreneur, so that's basically why I like it here. It fits my personality. For some other personality, it doesn't fit. Everybody's different.
By the 1990s, women accounted for more than half of all legal immigrants, shifting away from the male-dominated immigration of the past. Contemporary immigrants tended to be younger (ages fifteen to thirty-four) than the native population in the United States and more likely to be married than divorced. The 1990s also experienced a heavy influx of Hispanic and Asian immigrants, which hit a peak at the end of the decade. In 1990, for instance, more than 550,000 Vietnamese family members were settled in the United States. By 2000, that number was nearly nine hundred thousand. Mexican American family members were even more prevalent. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, legal Mexican Americans were 2.2 million in 1980, 4.3 million in 1990, and 7.9 million in 2000. Factor in another twelve million illegal immigrants, of which 80 percent are thought to be Mexican, and that brings the total Mexican population in the United States to roughly seventeen million people, or nearly 20 percent of the country of Mexico.
KEY HISTORIC EVENTS
1990:
President George Bush signs the Immigration Act of 1990, which he calls the “most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws in sixty-six years” because it increases legal immigration ceilings and employment-based immigration, emphasizing skills. On September 10, the main building at Ellis Island reopens to the public after a $165 million restoration, the largest restoration project of its kind in American history; its twenty-three interconnected medical buildings on the south side of the island continue to crumble and remain in a state of arrested decay.
1993: A New York Times/CBS News poll finds that 69 percent of Americans surveyed favor a decrease in immigration, reflecting a continuing trend of opinion less favorable to immigration.
1996: President Clinton signs into law the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which imposes new measures against illegal immigration and adds agents to the Border Patrol and to the INS.
1997:
Congress passes measures allowing hundreds of thousands of refugees from Central America and other regions to remain legally in the United States, while the US Commission on Immigration Reform, in its final report to Congress, endorses reductions in legal immigration.
1998:
As a result of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, more than three hundred thousand legal immigrants are deported by federal authorities because the act increases the types of crimes that would put legal immigrants in a “criminal alien” category.
1999:
US Supreme Court rules that foreigners are ineligible for refugee status if they committed a “serious nonpolitical crime” in their own country.
MIGRATION FLOWS
Total legal US immigration in 1990s: 9.8 million
Top ten emigration countries in this decade: Mexico (2,757,418), Philippines (534,338), Russia (433,427), Dominican Republic (359,818), India (352,528), China (342,058), Vietnam (275,379), El Salvador (273,017), Canada and Newfoundland (194,788), Korea (179,770)
(See ap
pendix for the complete list of countries.)
FAMOUS IMMIGRANTS
Immigrants who came to America in this decade, and who would later become famous, include:
Cesar Millan, Mexico, 1990, dog trainer
Pamela Anderson, Canada, 1990, model/actress
Sergei Fedorov, Soviet Union, 1990, hockey player (defected)
Milena “Mila” Kunis, Ukraine, 1991, actress
Glen Hansard, Ireland, 1991, singer/songwriter (movie Once)
Anna Kournikova, Soviet Union, 1991, tennis player
Maria Sharapova, Russia, 1994, tennis champion
Ryan Gosling, Canada, 1996, actor
Xavier Malisse, Belgium, 1998, tennis player
Byung-Hyun Kim, South Korea, 1999, baseball pitcher
His story is remarkable. It personifies the American Dream and the immigrant quest for freedom. He grew up on his grandfather's farm in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. When he was twenty-one, with images of Disneyland and Rin Tin Tin dancing in his head, he said goodbye to his family and headed north to America alone in his goal to become the “best dog trainer in the world.” Though he spoke no English and had only $100 in his pocket—the family savings, given to him by his father—he crossed the border illegally at Tijuana with the help of a smuggler called a “coyote.” He went on to found the Dog Psychology Center in Los Angeles and became known for rehabilitating aggressive dogs. Today he is internationally known as “The Dog Whisperer” from his hit television show, which first aired in 2004 and is now broadcast in more than eighty countries worldwide. “Mexico is my mother nation, but America is my father nation because America gave me the direction that I should take,” he said, having received his citizenship in 2009. “So how do I feel about finally being part of a country that I'm in love with? I have a great amount of appreciation because my children were born here, and I met my wife here, and the world got to know me here. It was hard to touch my dreams, but this is the place in the world where dreams come true.”
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