My family hails from Jamaica. My mother’s side of the family was extremely poor, but when she got married and moved in with her husband, she grew to be fairly wealthy, or so I was told. She decided to make the move to the United States in order to better help my sisters, as I wasn’t born yet. We don’t have any family heirlooms or anything of the sort from when she moved to the US, but I’ve been told stories of how my mother worked three jobs in order to care for her kids, and send them off to good schools. It was a trait that both my mother and my grandmother on my father’s side shared. They both came to the US in order to better the lives of their children, my grandmother from China and my mother from Jamaica. My mother worked throughout the 9 months before I was born, and only then did she manage to quit two of her jobs in order to keep her current one, as an administrative assistant at Siemens Healthcare. I’ll always appreciate all she has done for me and my siblings, and I’ll always make sure to thank her for her efforts in providing for us. My sister, Melissa, helps her whenever she can with money, as she’s one of her first kids to go to college. I’ll be the second. I aim to make her proud, and I’ll do what I can. 

– Chad Porter

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