Living in China was hard, but moving to America to chase an “American Dream” is way harder. Especially when English was your second language, but i'll explain it to you later. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Zao but all my American friends and co-workers call me Johnny. I was born in Shanghai, China, on June 5th, 1974. I lived in a family with my loving mother, a diligent father, and a caring sister. The life I had in China was not so great, I lived in Shanghai but we were very poor and the flat we lived in was dirty and small. It wasn’t a big deal because we had such a small family, but it was cramped. My dad and I would work as construction workers and do odd jobs around our city. At the top of this, I had to go through school because my parents wanted me to prioritize education. As years would pass, on my nineteenth birthday after graduating my dad and I would work and save enough money to buy plane tickets to America for me, my sister and mom. When I was told that we were moving, I felt excited about going because I thought this was a chance for us to make a better life for ourselves. At the same time, I felt terrified about leaving the safety of my home country and going to a whole new place where anything can happen. Sadly, my dad had to stay in China because he didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket for himself. Knowing that I would argue over this, my father would tell me that once he saved up for another plane ticket he will go to America to live with us. He gave the leftover money that him and I had worked hard for, and told me to
“find an apartment for your mother and sister and go to college once you made money there”.

I’ve never been on a plane before, but the feeling of the plane taking off on the runway, with the rumbling of the plane speeding up to takeoff and the thought that it can crash or malfunction at any minute made me feel very sick. When the plane was actually in the air, I became relaxed but my ears had this weird feeling in them. For some weird reason, chewing bubble gum actually helped get rid of this weird feeling and eased my plane sickness. We were close to arriving at this airport in New York and during that time I took a peek out the window, I saw these skyscrapers that almost reached the plane circling this grand and beautiful city. In the water, what I saw standing proud was the Statue of Liberty. At the time, I knew what it was because of school but I never saw a picture or seen it for myself. It was this huge statue of a lady, she was bearing a torch while carrying a book. The sight of the statue and the river behind her amazed me and I thought to myself, “the American dream may finally come true!” When the plane landed we had to go through a thing called customs in the airport. The security went through all our stuff and asked us a few questions, they also gave us a thing called a green card. This made us residents of the United States but they told us we can still get deported from the country.

We took a bus into the grand city, my family and I knew no one here so we were kind of worried. In the city, there were so many people walking around; and the amount of cars flooded the streets. All you can hear on the busy streets were the annoying honks of cars, and the chatter of the people who walked by you. The air was cold and the city had this fresh scent, walking out of the bus onto the street felt like you just stepped into a whole new world. This place did not feel like Shanghai at all! Everything seemed great about this place, with the exception of a few things. When we would walk around and explore the city, everyone would bump into us and not even say sorry! The people here always seemed to be in a rush. We didn't know anything about this place but my mother and I managed to find an apartment to live in. The sad part is, it was more expensive and only a little bigger than our one back in China! The good part about the apartment we had was that it wasn’t as dirty as the one we had in Shanghai. The apartment also had this stale scent to it but the view in the apartment was very nice.  We paid a few months of rent in advance and now we were almost out of money. It's been a few days since we moved and I isolated myself in my room. I had the chance to call my father and check in with him on a landline.  My mother told me to go walk around to try and meet new people and maybe even find a job.

I took a walk around the city and saw so many amazing things! It was close to night time and all the buildings began to light up the sky, it was almost like I was in this dance club and the party was about to start. I found a map that showed me all around N.Y (that’s what the locals called it) and the parks took up almost most of the map. I visited central park, it was this huge park with people doing many activities i've never seen before. People did yoga, walked their dog, or did any type of exercise and just walking in general. I visited places like the natural history museum and the library, but the workers there said I wasn’t qualified for a job because of my lack of English and that the only work they offered was volunteer work.

Looking back at myself, I probably looked like an idiot walking around the city with a crazy look on my face searching for a job. I felt hungry, so the first place I found was a pizzeria. Lucky enough for me it had a HELP WANTED sign on the front window. I looked inside and the place looked like an average pizza spot, it had eight tables to the left of the restaurant but only two tables on the right. There were two tables on each side of the front entrance so people can eat outside if they wanted to. I went in the restaurant and the whole place smelt like delicious pizza. I asked the clerk for food and the boss, he introduced me to him and I told him that I needed a job in my broken english. He could barely understand me and the fact that I couldn’t speak english was proven, so I thought my chances of getting an actual job was slim at the time. When he did actually understand me, he began to talk really slow and asked me for things like my name and age. In my broken English, I just said the first American name I could think of (I go by John now) and I told him my age and my social security I was given when I moved into the country. I told him my story and he thanked me for my time, shakes my hand, and said that I now have a job as a busboy. My duty was to clean tables, the windows, and mop up floors and the kitchen. The work wasn't as bad as the construction work in China and I was surprisingly getting paid much more than I was in China! My boss, Remy, was a very nice guy and he even offered me free pizza everyday after work. He was your average Italian man, and he seemed a little old school which I liked. Remy was pretty tall and had graying hair and the build of a football player, he always called me nicknames like “Johnny Appleseed or Johnny”. All my money went towards rent money for our apartment, and money for my dad's plane ticket to America.

Weeks and weeks go by and every day I would call my father to check in on how he’s doing. My father tells me that he’s been feeling older and works been catching up to him, but he can’t wait to meet us in America, and the thought of seeing us again motivates my father to work harder. I told my father about how working in America was amazing compared to China, and that the weeks working here helped me grow accustomed to the English language. I also told my dad that he would love it here and that our family will be so much happier in America. Months passed now and I started to wonder where my father was, he would never pick up or return any of the calls and I began to worry. The news I would later learn would lead to the worst day of my life. My mother told me in tears that my father passed away in a hospital in Beijing. The cause of his death was still vague, and I never got to hear my father's last dying words. I was told that my father was injured in a freak accident on the job. My mother didn’t tell me how he got injured, but she said that the wound caused an infection which led to his death. The feeling of not being able to be there while he passed made me feel helpless. I blamed my father's death on myself because I thought that if I worked harder, he might’ve been able to move to America sooner. I went into a depression and wanted to give up, but I knew that my father wanted me to continue on with my life in America and work even harder to help the family. The only thing that gave me closure was a letter my father wrote to me in his dying hours. Reading the letter itself destroyed me, but I kept on pushing on and read every single word on the letter. I read the letter every single day and I memorized every word, I would read it before I slept. What was said on the letter was some personal things so I’ll keep that secret, but he basically told me to keep going in life and to never give up. He even told me to go continue in my studies in college and that the money in the envelope will support my mother and sister for awhile. He also said that I was the man of the family, but admitted that I was always the man of the family ever since we moved to America.

I checked inside the letter, and what was in it was an abundance of cash. I gave it all to my mother and told her to use it for rent and food for her and my little sister. I even asked Remy for longer hours at the pizzeria. I told him what happened to my dad and when I did he almost broke down into tears. He asked me why I needed the longer shifts and I told him it was for college. Remy told me how he never had a son, and that my work ethic made him feel so proud of me even though I had great problems in my life. He told me how in the past months that I was a son to him and that he would feel obliged to help me pay for my college tuition. I felt grateful for Remy, and told him that it would mean the world to me if he did. He also said that I can work less hours at the pizzeria and that he’ll pay me extra to help support my family. When I told my mother that Remy would help pay for college and give me extra pay she cried in my arms. She said in these exact words
“This is the best news I’ve heard since I was told we were going to America”.

So that’s what I did, I’m in college now and I’m studying the English language and human studies. I’m using events in my life to help me study the lives of immigrants moving to America. I’m trying to find a career in social work, and my goal is to help other immigrants learn English and find a better life in America like I did. I still work at the pizzeria and when I start my career, I plan on paying back Remy every single dollar he used to help me start my life. Remy was a second father to me, and he’s taken me in as the son he’s never had. I also met this amazing girl named Jen, she supported me through my hard times in college and I plan on marrying her. My life in America is just beginning, and I plan to make it even better than it is now.