How My Family Immigration Story Supported My Career

By Dr. Lisa M. Wisniewski 

My family immigrated to the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. They all left Poland to escape communism and lack of opportunities.  My family immigration story has two parts. 

One part is my father’s story. He left Poland as a 15-year-old with his family. His family had the opportunity to move because my father’s uncle was living in the United States. His uncle settled in the United States right after World War 2. During this 1960s my father and his family came over to start a new life and never looked back. My mother’s immigration story began with Ciocia Zosia who I wrote about in a previous blog post. She was the first person in my mother’s family to leave Poland and move to the United States. She came being unaware of life in the United States, what her life would look like, and what opportunities were here for her. Once she settled, she started to bring her brothers and sisters over and including her mother, my great grandmother. This took a long time, many decades to bring over different members of her family. My mother came over in the late 70s and she did not expect to stay. She expected to visit and go back to Poland but there were a few circumstances that changed her decision while she was here. Namely her father died, and my grandmother moved to the United States the following year. They focused on building a life in their new home and eventually bought a house in the early 80s. 

My parents met in the early 1980s and began their own family. My parents worked multiple jobs, and they even focused on education with my mother receiving her associates degree when I was two years old. One of my earliest memories is that I remember her graduation, even if it was just a moment, I do remember watching my mother crossing the graduation stage in her cap and gown. As a child, I watched the three adults in my life, my father, my mother, and my grandmother set an example of what the immigrant experience in the United States but also it set the framework for me to pursue all my goals. While they did not go on to get bachelor’s or graduate degrees, a lot of the ways that they worked taught me skill sets that I needed in obtaining graduate degrees and becoming a researcher. Here are some of the key lessons that I learned from my family’s immigrant experience:

1. The need for a job: for a lot of individuals, the immigrant experience is firstly focused on getting a job. This means getting any available job so that you can pay your bills have a place to live and really meet the basic needs of survival. My family members often had multiple jobs at the same time. They usually worked in fields that had openings like manufacturing or hospitality. There was less of a focus on building your career and more on focusing on survival. However, my caregivers all shared with me how important an education is and how they wanted me to pursue college So what I learned from my family’s need for a job was to not be afraid of hard work and that working towards your goals is worth it. 

2. Education as a means to move up and make more money: my parents and grandmother shared with me the importance of getting an education. I think a lot of this was because they did not have the opportunities to pursue themselves due to needing to work or lack of opportunities back in Poland. They found the United States to be the land of opportunities and wanted me to pursue every option available to me. I did not question if I was going to college, the only question was which college I was going to go to. I had the luxury of deciding who I wanted to be and because I chose to pursue more degrees it helped me to gain additional income, flexibility in my career, and the opportunity to focus on that career. So, I quickly learned what a gift education is.

3. Learning to navigate systems:my family quickly had to learn to navigate systems. That meant systems like learning the English language, learning how to get a job in the United States, and how to function in a completely new society. This taught them to be resilient. They had to be resilient to simply survive. The skill set that came with them was that they were able to navigate different roles and different individuals that they encountered. For example, my grandmother worked at a well-known hotel chain and never spoke English, but she was able to interact with the hotel guests. One time she even helped a gentleman whose button fell off his jacket to sew it back on without even speaking English to him. He was grateful for her help as he was on his way to a business meeting. While she could not understand the context of what was happening, she was able to help somebody without being able to communicate with them. This is an important skill set in any career field that you would choose to pursue.

These are just a few of the lessons that I learned from my parents’ immigrant experience. It all shaped my career by teaching me some very basic lessons that apply to any career field or program or study. I’m happy to share more.