Growing up in Las Vegas, I'd always seen the United states as the place that saved my family's life. My mom was born in Armenia and my dad was from the Ukraine, where I spent the first few years of my life with my parents and my younger sister, Mariam. But my dad was being threatened because he was wealthy and married to an Armenian, so in March 1991, when I was 4 years old, we moved to the US.

We first arrived in Los Angeles and my parents filed for political asylum, which is emergency American citizenship for people who feel they are not safe in their home country. My parents didn't list Mariam and me on the official request becasue their lawyers said that since we were minors, we'd automatically be granted asylum if they were. Within a month, my parents received work authorizations and were told that the official notice that we had been granted asylum would come later, in the mail. (full article)

 

First published in CosmoGIRL!, May 2005. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be used without the author's permission.