America was built by immigrants. Those privileged enough to have lived an American life for many generations with ancestral histories long forgotten may not know the hardships so many immigrants endure in leaving behind their home and everything they know in the hopes of a better life for themselves and their families. I’m the first generation of my family to have been born on American soil, and I’d like to share my grandmother’s immigrant story. In a recent phone interview, I asked my grandmother a series of questions to learn more about her history. I’ve kept this story as closely to her recent telling of it with as little elaboration or embellishment on my side as I could. My wish is that with this one story, the struggles and successes of the immigrant experience may be better understood and appreciated.

My grandmother, Gorica or Baba as we call her, came from a rural village in the rolling hills of Serbia. They had no running water in the house. In her daily life, she milked the cows, fed the sheep, tended the garden, and harvested fruits from the orchard. She and her family lived the simple life, yet it was difficult living with little materially. She married my grandfather at the age of 17. My grandfather’s father, a humble farmer, was captured by the Nazis and taken to a German labor camp. During that time Yugoslavia became a communist country. Grandma lamented that the communists took their land and everything they had. When WWII ended, my great grandfather was freed and offered a ticket back home to Serbia or to America. He chose America and this is how our family immigrated.

When great grandfather, Sveta, earned enough money, he was able to bring my grandparents to America. It was a long process to get the Green cards and my great grandfather sponsored them. They had to wait 2 or 3 years. Baba Gorica was 25 years old when she immigrated with her husband and two young children in New York with no money. My mother was 5 years old and my uncle was 8 years old when they arrived on April 16th, 1966. Grandma cried for 2 weeks and then went to work. Everything was new and surprising when she arrived. It didn’t take long to realize that they came for the better. There were no jobs, land, food, or livestock back home due to the communist takeover in Serbia. America was a golden opportunity.

When settling into Chicago, a family friend found her a job at a local box-making factory. She worked a low-paying job for $.99/hr running a machine that put glue on one side of the boxes. It was a big adjustment. They didn’t have a car and she walked to work.

Grandma learned English from her co-workers, slowly writing words she learned phonetically on a paper towel, and brought them home to my grandfather to ask when they mean. One day a kind Black woman who my grandmother still remembers by name, Ethel, told her she doesn’t need to be working there any more, that she has something better for her. Ethel helped my grandmother and told her where to go to another factory that was hiring for higher pay. Grandma filled out the application with the little English she knew and was hired for twice the pay. Now she earned $2/hr. Later she worked multiple jobs, including the night shift at another factory, while my grandfather was a carpenter and the children went to school during the day. After her night shift ended in the morning, she had just enough time to take the kids to school. My grandparents earned enough money for a downpayment and bought a house. They did everything they could to make ends meet and afford a decent life for their children.

Because they were constantly working to afford a living, it took a toll on their family and home life. The children, my mother and uncle, didn’t get as much attention as my grandmother would have liked. Grandma put in a lot of overtime working 7 days a week, while cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids. My grandfather didn’t earn as much income as she did.  She described many sacrifices that needed to be made.

Coming to America was an adventure, seeing different people and languages altogether. Grandma described learning about different cultures from her coworkers on her coffee break. On weekends she was a seamstress and earned $2 hemming pants and garments for neighbors. Grandma mentioned at the time in the 1960’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed and the riots broke out. She witnessed the division and as an immigrant, she kept her head down. Her work was most important to her to support her family. She had good relationships with her Black co-workers and invited them to her home, though she received criticism from other neighbors who were not as welcoming.

She tried to bring her entire family to America from Serbia, but some came only temporarily, making a little money then going back to Serbia. When I asked if she ever wanted to go back, she very strongly and clearly said, “no, there was nothing to go back to. There was no going back.” With the income she earned, she was able to purchase medicines and supplies she mailed back home to family that remained in Serbia.

Grandma described working hard, paying her bills, providing for her family’s education. She is most proud of accomplishing a secure life for her family. She had a 4th grade education in Serbia and eventually was able to earn her GED at the community college in Chicago. The dream was to leave the muddy village, with no television and no electricity in the house. Grandma says she didn’t have big dreams, though, but only to live within her means and make good use of what they had. She emphasizes the value and importance of education, hard work, and saving money.

Grandma came from poverty and has created something out of nothing. She said she has both worlds- the knowledge of surviving, gardening, canning food for over the winter in Serbia, and having an American life. To be able to provide for your children what you didn’t have was the most important thing. In her immigrant story, she said she wasn’t thinking about herself. “There is no ‘you’ when you have a family. When you have children, you have to provide for them” Grandma said. This selfless attitude allowed her to have the strength to keep going and make the most of the opportunities the new country provided her.