William Penn Life, 2015 (50. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

2015-04-01 / 4. szám

Tibor's Take with Tibor Check, Jr.

An immigrant in my own land

A FEW WEEKS AGO, a good friend invited me to the annual "birthday party" for the State of Ohio. It is an event held on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and is frequented by senators, representatives, lobbyists and a former governor or two. In addition to these dignitaries, many people like me attend-young professionals working hard for little money, trying to make it in the nation's capital.

At first, I was reluctant to go, but I am glad that I eventually did. In a large and sometimes lonely place like Washington, it was nice to meet and converse with people from my home state. In Washington, where your neighbors can come from Florida or California or Texas, it was almost like I was at home while at the Ohio birthday party. I made connections with a few congressional staffers, and to our mutual surprise, we all grew up within a half hour's drive of each other. The event itself was sponsored by the Ohio Society of Washington, D.C., a charitable organization that connects Ohioans living in the D.C. metropolitan area.

While at the party, I understood for the first time what it feels like to be an immigrant. Even within my own country, I had experienced culture shock.

In Washington, people dress

differently, drive differently and eat different foods than people back home. The interests of people in Washington, at a communal level, are dissimilar to those of people in the Midwest. It has taken me some time to become accustomed to different banks and grocery stores and gas stations. And, I feel a strange sense of pride when Ohio or Cleveland is mentioned in casual conversation or by the local news media. I find myself longing for Midwestern foods and shopping plazas with plentiful, spacious parking.

Put differently, I can finally empathize with my greatgrandparents, who came to the United States in 1913 and 1916. Like me, they left their hometowns seeking economic opportunity and a better life. I am sure that they and their peers fantasized about America, much like I did about Washington—where people are rich, where jobs are plentiful, and where the winters are short and the summers are long. Like them, I have begun to realize that the truth is a little more nuanced, and like them, I find myself becoming homesick from time to time. After a particularly hard day, I even contemplate whether I would be better off back in my hometown. I am sure that my greatgrandparents did as well. Like many young Hungarians immigrating to the U.S., I came to Washington intending to make my fortune and return back home flush with wealth. Like many Hungarian immigrants, there is a chance that I might never go back home.

Of course, modern technology has eased the emotional burden somewhat. When my great-grandparents came to the United States, spending what little money they had on an uncomfortable and dangerous transatlantic crossing, they would never return home. There was the occasional letter from Hungary, but they probably never spoke to the family members they left behind ever again. By contrast, I converse with someone in my family everyday. We share photographs and videos, they know what I've eaten for dinner, and I know where they have gone on a Sunday

afternoon. The 300 miles separating us is covered in six hours by car, and one hour by plane. I have been back twice already to visit, and they plan to visit me.

Still, I can understand the loneliness, and the gravity of the decision to leave one's home for the promise of another. Before my move, I often wondered why someone would leave Hungary, to give up their homes and families for a life that might not have

been any better than the ones they left behind. Given the intensity of my feelings of loneliness, I could barely imagine how my great-grandparents, and other Hungarians like them, must have felt when they came here. Economic conditions must have been truly and exceedingly bad for them to have made such a choice.

Moreover, moving to another country required a far greater sacrifice than moving a few hundred miles away. They came to a nation with different religious and ethnic traditions. My ancestors spoke a different language and had no marketable skills. At least I speak English, like my new neighbors, and at least I am an attorney. I could not imagine trying to find work—any kind of work-in a strange country. When I look at photos of my greatgrandparents, with their hunched backs and wrinkled faces, I can understand the thousands of minute stresses that scarred their hands and backs, the millions of worries that carved every line in their faces. I can hear the questions that haunted them: "Am I going to get that job that I wanted?" "Will we have money if we get sick?" "What am I doing here?" "Should I just go home?"

4 0 April 2015 0 William Penn Life

Photo of man opening suit to reveal Ohio state flag © Can Stock Photo Inc./mickaklootwijk