This image is of a military enlistment paper, these are meant to represent my Uncle's military enlistment.The reason I chose this object is because whenever my relatives come over for events like thanksgiving or christmas I would always hear crazy stories about my family during their earlier years. One such story came from my uncle that both revealed a lot to me about my family history but also just how much immigration can’t get wrong. When my family came to this country, my grandmother or the rest of my family didn’t really have any documents to say how old they were. So in the end my grandfather kinda just estimated my grandmother's age and let the rest of immigration eyeball that crap. My uncle, being a shorter person, probably got listed as 3-4 years younger than he actually is, because of this, a lot of my family members are really unsure about their age. This is important as my family came here around the time of the Vietnam war draft. My uncle claims this mistake was what saved him from the draft, he jokes constantly that if not for this, he would have been drafted and promptly shot by his own team. This object is important to me as it shows just how crazy real life can be, and also all the trials and tribulation my family went through to get here.

– Alex Andrew

Relationship:  Grandchild of im/migrant Grandchild of im/migrant