My parents and older brother, who was only one year old at the time, moved from Boston to Los Angeles in the early 90s when my dad got a new a job on the west coast. While this move took them far from their roots in Boston and away from extended family members in other parts of the East Coast and Midwest, my parents bravery and willingness to take on the profound adventure of moving to the other side of the country is a spirit that lives with my siblings and I to this day. While my brother was born in Boston and my sister and I were both born in Los Angeles, all three of us consider ourselves natives of Los Angeles, Angelinos, at heart. As I mentioned earlier, the bravery of my parents to try something new and move to a place neither of them had ever lived before lives with my siblings today. Each of us, having seen the success of their move and life thereafter, have felt comfortable going far from home for college and, in the case of my siblings, settling in those cities after graduating. The attached photo is a picture of the Boston skyline, a gift given to my dad by his coworkers in Boston before moving to LA. The picture now hangs in my dad’s office in Los Angeles; the picture itself reminds all of us of our immediate family’s founding, but where it currently hangs is where all of us call home. Furthermore, while my siblings and I have left our parents to be empty-nesters in LA, we continue the tradition of remembering our home town with different pieces of LA paraphernalia--maps, posters, pictures--in each of our current residences.     

– Michael Fissinger

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant