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April 20, 2009
Interesting Story
Last night, Don and I went out to dinner at Shangri-La in West Bloomfield (best Chinese food EVER!!) with my parents and Uncle John and Aunt Nancy. As they were chatting, I found out some things I never knew before.
My parents were telling Uncle John and Aunt Nancy the story about how they came to this country. I knew that Mom & Dad had come to the U.S. when Mom was 8 months pregnant with my sister in 1966 and she was born a month later. (As I heard it before, Dad had to convince the airline to let Mom on the plane because they were afraid she would go into labor in the air. But Dad said if anything happened, he could take care of it since he's a doctor.) So my sister came close to NOT being born in the U.S.!
What I didn't know was that Dad was here to finish his medical training while Mom worked at a bank. Their visa was expiring and they were preparing to leave the country within a couple weeks I think. Mom said she had some customers that worked for Immigration. They told her that because there was such a shortage of American doctors (who were recruited to serve in the Vietnam War), the government had just passed a law saying that any foreign doctors who wished to stay in the country could get their green card without having to go through the usual legal rigmarole. So Mom went to her friend's office, he gave her a form to fill out and 2 weeks later, they had their green cards!
The most interesting part of this (to me) is that this happened in July of 1970. I was born 4 months later in November. I came THIS CLOSE to being born and raised in Thailand! I can't imagine HOW different my life would be had it not been for that law. Interesting!!!
Posted by Amy at April 20, 2009 02:19 PM
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