In the late 1980s, a 17-year-old Altaf Mohamed settled, along with his three brothers, in a small apartment in Jamaica, Queens, with my grandparents. Having lived three years by themselves in their parents’ house in Georgetown, Guyana, my father and his teenage brothers were finally reunited with their parents, who had set out to America to work menial jobs in order to sponsor their children's immigration to the United States. Immense financial turmoil in their home country inspired my grandparents to immigrate to America and to accumulate enough money to enable their children to migrate and attend schools in New York. 

Pictured here is my father, who had recently arrived in the U.S. and had just enrolled in his sophomore year at Queens College. He would later go on to earn a degree in Political Science from CUNY Queens College and sought voraciously to work for the federal government in order to honor the improvement of the living standards granted by life in the United States, a goal he is very proud to have accomplished. 

– Arslan

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant