The New American Dreamers
Story by Jane Gordon | Photo by Julie Bidwell
 Benjamin Franklin fretted about the huge influx of immigrants to America after the Revolution. “Unless the stream of these people can be turned away from this country to other countries,” he said, “they will soon outnumber us so that we will not be able to save our language or our government.”
One hundred years later, the New York poet Emma Lazarus, herself the product of Portuguese Sephardic Jews, wrote a far more tolerant salve to address the worries surrounding immigration. Her poem, which continues to grace the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, has been a resounding welcome to the millions of immigrants who have arrived in the United States:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Another 100 hundred years have passed since Lazarus wrote her lines, and immigrants to the United States still see in their visions a land of opportunity and dreams. To make those dreams a reality, the four featured here have embraced an ethic of hard work as a path to success. Eoin Patterson of Simsbury moved from his home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to give his children the experience of America. Gwendolyn Smith Iloani of Farmington left her native Jamaica as a child and grew up to create the largest African American woman-owned private equity firm in the United States. Fauzia Mohammod of Avon, an artist who was widowed with two children in her native Pakistan, moved to Connecticut to start a new life. And Walter Derungs of Simsbury left Switzerland with his wife for an adventure, never to turn back. Their stories are compelling examples of how immigrants have shaped American life, just as life in the United States has continued to shape them.
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Eoin Patterson
Native country: Northern Ireland
Latin teacher, Ethel Walker School, Simsbury
I came to the United States about two and a half years ago. I had been teaching Latin and ancient Greek in high schools in and around London, and in Somerset.
Whatever you may say about the United States, it’s the greatest country in all of human civilization. I study ancient history, and I wanted to give my children the experience of this country, while giving them a European – an Irish – background.
My wife, Sara, is Scottish. My status is that of resident alien. My intention is to stay here for as long as I possibly can because I love it here. I’m going to apply for residency, come this summer. My first daughter, Orla, 7, is a citizen of Ireland. My second daughter, Tara, 6, is a citizen of the United Kingdom. My son, Gabriel, 2, is an American.
Both my wife and I always talk about Ireland, and we’ll have visitors from Ireland and Scotland regularly. We’re going back to Ireland and Scotland this summer to see family; that’s really important to us. The two girls speak with very strong American accents, but they can’t escape from their identity, what with the way Sara and I speak. We celebrate our heritage at St. Andre’s festival in Goshen in the fall. He is the patron saint of Scotland, and my wife makes a point of taking the children. We celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. So much of the current American identity is Scottish and Irish already; Boston is as Irish as anywhere in Ireland. One time I went into a bar in New York City and all the guys were off-the-boat Irish.
The two things that have struck me since we arrived is how incredibly kind and generous strangers have been on a personal level, and how on a bureaucratic level, the governmental institutions are very difficult to deal with. The DMV, even in America, I don’t know how the greatest country in the western world thought up an institution like that.
As a whole, though, I’m really impressed with how proud Americans are of their country, despite the criticisms people have of the president. People don’t make it very obvious, but the support for the troops — whether or not people believe in the war in Iraq — is very touching. My wife was in an airport and some soldiers were coming back home and everybody there applauded.
I work for Habitat for Humanity sometimes, and last year I chaperoned some kids to Florida for spring break. In Bradley Airport, the queues were terrible and I was on my own — the other chaperone had gotten stranded — and we made it to Charlotte. We had started traveling at the crack of dawn, and we were just waiting and waiting for this flight to take us to Florida. I had been chatting with people at the gate, so when we boarded the plane, the stewardess came up to me and she said, ‘Are you the gentleman with Habitat?’ and I thought there had been trouble with one of the kids. Well, a woman in first class had offered to swap seats with me in coach. She must have overheard and seen all of us. She said, ‘It seemed like you were a bit tired.’ Isn’t that incredibly kind?
We love the weather here, we love the people. There’s just huge potential for us and opportunities, even just to travel, and the kids are really thriving. It’s just wonderful.
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Gwendolyn Smith Iloani
Native country: Jamaica
Owner and principal: Smith Whiley & Co., a private investment firm
My father worked as a policeman in Jamaica, my mother was a stay-at-home mom. When I was 4 years old, my parents moved to New York to find work and find us a place to live. My grandparents in Jamaica took care of my two older brothers and me. My parents would visit us during that time, and my father would talk about how the streets of America were paved with gold. What he meant was that he wanted a better life for his children, and he felt America was the land of opportunity. But I was too young to understand that. So after my parents worked and saved money for two years to bring us over, I came here at 6 years old thinking the streets were actually gold. I was shocked to discover they weren’t.
After we got off the plane and we were waiting to be processed, I was standing with my parents and I had a pretty dress on, my hair was nicely braided and had a bow, and I thought I was the cat’s meow. This white boy came up to me and I thought he was coming to make friends. He spit in my face. My father picked me up and wiped my face off. I asked my father why the boy had done that, and he said nothing.
We moved to Brooklyn. My mother worked as a seamstress, my father worked at the New York Post. I had arrived in November, and the weathermen were talking about a big snowstorm and I was terrified because I had never seen snow. Snow in Jamaica is in the mountains, but I had never seen it. I thought snow looked like ice cubes and I thought it was going to hurt. We went to sleep and when we woke, there was all this white stuff. I went out in it and thought I’d drown. Then I started to enjoy it.
I had also never seen a TV. I remember the first morning I was there, we woke and had breakfast and my dad turned the TV on. My Friend Flicka was on, and we spent a week trying to find how the horse got in the TV.
My mother stopped working when we arrived. My parents eventually had eight children, and she worked taking care of us, and my father worked two jobs supporting his family. He worked for the Post and the Transit Authority as a conductor. We bought a lovely brick home in East New York, Brooklyn, and then he went on to buy four more houses.
Growing up, we learned the value of property. We were my dad’s workers. We would go and paint the apartments when people left. I learned how to fix little things around the house. My mother collected the rents and supervised us. We had four multi-tenant homes.
I moved to Connecticut when I was 21. In 1998 my younger sister became sick with leukemia and moved in with me with her 7-month-old twins and her 4-year-old. I got the kids when she died in 1999. By then, the twins were 2, and the oldest was 6. They are lovely boys. The twins are now 10, and the oldest is 14. I’m the mom and the dad. I try to raise them how I was raised. We eat with a knife and a fork. We eat properly – heaven forbid you don’t have that napkin in your lap – and follow proper protocols. We go to church. The other big focus is the drive to succeed. The sky is the limit and we are always trying to get there. I work very hard to be sure my sons understand that they can do anything they want. They need the right tools: an education, philanthropy, giving back, and pulling others along with you. We were taught that community service was important. On one hand you have to better yourself, and on the other hand you have to better others who are less fortunate. If you have nothing but a piece of bread, you divide your bread with somebody who may not have any bread.
One holiday that is important to me is the day that Jamaica won its independence. It is in August. We attend a lecture or a cultural event or a parade to remind us of where we’re from. I am a U.S. citizen, but I can never be president. It’s unfortunate, because I don’t like limits.
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Fauzia Mohammod
Native country: Pakistan
Writer, artist, substitute assistant teacher, mom
My parents are from India. In 1947, the partition of India took place, splitting India and Pakistan into two individual countries. I am of Pakistani descent, but I like to call myself a U.S. citizen. I still think about Pakistan, but feel blessed that United States is my home. This was my destination to begin with!
I was married in 1992. My husband was in the United States armed forces, an American of Pakistani descent. He studied and lived here for 18 years. It was during one of his vacations to visit his parents in Pakistan that we met. We married the next month. His intention was to bring us back to the United States and establish life here, which never materialized, at least not until later. He was a loving husband and a devoted father to our two children. Unfortunately, life is not always what you want it to be. My son was 3 and my daughter 1 when my husband had a fatal heart attack.
Life changed overnight. Suddenly, I was a widow and my children fatherless. Without a job, and with very little in my bank account, I was angry at my husband’s untimely death and at the enormous responsibility of taking care of my precious children, who seemed so vulnerable and small at that time. During that trying time, my sister and my brother-in-law became my ultimate supporters by saying, ‘Fauzia, our home is your home!’ My sister lovingly took care of my little ones while I searched for a job. Within days, I was working as an art teacher.
Life for a widow in Pakistan is extremely different than it is for a widow in America. Sadly, a Pakistani widow cannot change or make her life decisions like a man can. In most cases, a single, divorced or widowed woman is required to live with her parents, in-laws or siblings, but rarely can live independently. There are enormous social pressures and norms to deal with, and a person sooner or later surrenders. But things shaped up a lot for me after I got the job. My heart was determined to provide a home for my children that they could call their own. I could not bring myself to be confined to set standards and decided that I would do what my late husband had wanted for his family. I would not let being a woman stop me from pursuing my dreams.
It’s been seven years that I’ve been in the United States and I have never looked back. I worked in the Bay Shore school district of New York for almost six years and made great friends. That’s where my children went to school and had the best of teachers. In New York, I also met that special someone who would love my kids as his own, become my soul-mate, and make me the happiest woman on earth. My move to Avon was mostly based on the cost of living in New York. I was searching online for a nice area in Connecticut, and Avon caught my eye. It is one of the best school districts in Connecticut, and my apartment is triple the size of what I had in New York in the same price range. The neighborhood is awesome and most of all, my kids feel safe here. The location is beautiful. I still don’t own a home, but I have provided for my kids a nice living condition, and they are growing up to be independent, confident, and mentally structured young people.
Do I miss my family back home? Yes! I do try to visit my mom and see my family every two years. I want the children to remember who they are. We observe our holy month of Ramadan and Eid celebration every year. Eid is like Thanksgiving. Friends and families get together to enjoy meals. Also, a big part of Eid is about charity for the less fortunate.
Ever since I came here, there have been more inspirations than struggles, and I think that more countries should be like America. I appreciate the smallest things and feel blessed every day. People here are conscious of other people’s needs. Take, for example, standing in line here. Nobody is going to push you away or try to get in front of you. The simple following of basic rules has made this country far superior to most of the world. There is acceptance of diverse cultures, races, and religions. Most of all, your voice is always heard. Your rights are intact and you are an individual. It’s a great feeling — to belong.
Last year I, too, became a U.S. citizen. It is a fresh start for my family all over again!
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Walter Derungs
Native country: Switzerland
Owner of three Canton businesses: Inkjet Warehouse, Cartec International, The Ink Store
My wife, Jeannette, and I got married 40 years ago and immediately said, ‘No furniture and no kids.’ We had a sense of adventure, and we wanted to go to another country. I repaired computers for an American computer company, and we went to Canada, and I found a job repairing computers. We barely spoke English.
In 1978, I went back for one year to live in Switzerland, and with my Canadian experience and language skills, I was able to land a job with a Swiss company that was investing in the United States, so I came to the United States on an investor’s visa. The company established a factory in Tennessee, and sent me as the guy to run that factory. I was always career-driven.
The sheer dimensions of America surprised me. There is much more personal space for everybody. We like that very much. The idea of a house with an acre of land or more is unheard of in Switzerland. In this country, 70 percent of the people live in their own homes. In Switzerland, it’s 30 percent.
I am a citizen here. My wife is a green-card holder. Two of our kids were born in Canada, and my youngest was born in Tennessee. The older two are citizens because they married American citizens.
The language initially was a challenge. But I must say in the 38 years I have been here, I’ve always felt I was very welcome. I never felt that people didn’t like me because I was a foreigner. North American people are very tolerant and open.
At some point, I went back with the whole family to Switzerland to give them a chance to experience Swiss life, learn the Swiss language, and get to know their relatives. They learned the European way of living. But my family wanted to return to the United States. I found a job in the newspaper with a guy who had three companies in Cincinnati. I was hired, and then the guy changed his mind, and decided he wanted to keep running the company himself. I had a three-year contract, and we settled for one-and-a-half-year’s pay. We decided not to tell the kids until after Christmas. We had two choices, start our own business or go back to Switzerland, because we were still on the investor’s visa.
So we started our own business. I moved the business to Simsbury; I had a minority partner in the business who lived here, and it didn’t make sense for me to be in Cincinnati. I said, ‘OK, I’ll move where you are, tell me where there are good schools.’ I’ve been very, very happy with that choice. All in all, we have moved 13 times.
It’s interesting how you start to grow roots and relationships. Emotionally, I feel at home here. It’s a process. I was able to do what I think is the American dream. We are not rich, but we live in a nice house and we should be able to retire one day. I feel that this country has been very good to us. We have worked very hard, but people who work hard here can fulfill their dreams.
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