My maternal grandmother’s grandparents came from Russia and Austria-Hungary. My maternal grandfather’s parents came from Austria-Hungary. My mother’s side came from Eastern Europe right before World War I, before the country split into Austria and Hungary. My fraternal grandmother’s great grandparents came from Austria-Hungary as well, but they came much earlier in the 1880s. My fraternal grandfather’s family is mixed of Polish, Romanian, Ukrainian, German, and Austria-Hungarian ancestry. Once my family immigrated to New York, they moved south to the warm weather. My maternal grandmother’s family moved to Miami in the mid-1950s because her sister had asthma. My maternal grandfather was born in Pennsylvania. He moved to Florida to follow a lot of his family. After he had four kids with my grandma, he decided to pack his bags and move to San Francisco in the 1960s. He told my grandma, “are you coming or are you staying?” when she already had a life set up in Florida. She decided to stay and he abandoned my mom and her brothers when she was only two years old. My fraternal grandparents went to NYU and moved together to Miami so my grandpa could go to the University of Miami School of Law in the early 1950s. My grandpa was drafted into military training during the Cold War so he moved to Arizona. This is a picture of my great grandparents that immigrated to the United States from Austria-Hungary in the early 1900s, even though my migration history is more than just international.

– Jennifer Friedman

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