570-455-3636 Ext. 255
Johanna Perchansky of McAdoo couldn't vote for John F.
Kennedy when he ran for president in 1960.
She wasn't yet a U.S. citizen. "I know I missed (the
deadline) by the skin of my teeth," said Perchansky,
who came to the United States from Austria. "The whole
country loved him. I couldn't vote for him, but oh, how I
campaigned for him."
Not long after the election, though, she became a citizen.
Perchansky is one of the millions of people who immigrated
to the United States legally, following the rules set out by
her home country and that of her soon-to-be new nation.
Legal immigration isn't always an easy road, but it is one
that new citizens say they cherished taking.
"It's a very beautiful thing to become a citizen,"
Perchansky said. "It's a wonderful thing to come here.
It's a very good thing when it's done right."
Jill Johnson also believes in legal immigration, though it
was a long process -- even for the wife of a U.S.
citizen.
"I was worried if I could get here," the Hazleton
woman said. "It's hard to come here. It's a long
process."
Johnson waited six to nine months before the Philippine
government allowed her to leave for the United States to be
reunited with her husband.
The government gives all young people a hard time if they
try leaving the impoverished country, she said, and often
repeatedly denies applications.
Only the old, or those with property and money in Philippine
banks, leave with little trouble, because they have an
interest in returning, she said.
Young professionals, such as doctors and nurses, can leave
by obtaining work visas, Johnson said.
"If I had the intention of coming here, I should have
taken nursing," she said. "I didn't, though. I
didn't even want to learn how to drive."
Johnson came to the United States by fate. Her husband had
been corresponding with a friend with the intention of
getting married, but her friend's parents wouldn't allow it.
"She introduced me to him, so he won't feel bad,"
she said. "When she introduce me, my husband like me.
But I didn't want to marry someone I don't know."
A year after they first met, her husband wrote to her and
she wrote back, Johnson said. He married her the following
year and returned to the United States.
Johnson didn't like it here at first, because she didn't
know anyone, except her husband. The cold weather and her
fear of the unknown kept her inside until her husband came
home, she said.
Things changed when a landlord befriended her, introduced
her to people and treated her like a daughter, she said.
"I adjusted, even with the weather," Johnson said.
"I like here more now."
But those early days were difficult, she said.
"I was really a greenhorn," Johnson said.
Perchansky never felt people who called her a greenhorn were
prejudiced, she said.
"People called me a greenhorn. I was a greenhorn,"
she said. "I told them, 'The country had a choice with
me, I had no choice with you.'"
Perchansky came here as a young bride of a U.S. soldier who
had been stationed in Germany during the 1950s. "We
fell in love and that was that," she said.
Perchansky said she wasn't looking for a husband or a ticket
to the United States, but she got both.
"I loved my husband. I'd go anywhere with him,"
she said. "Home wasn't a place. It was a person. We're
married 49 years, and I would still go anywhere he went --
hollering all the way, but I'd go."
When her husband shipped out and came home to McAdoo, so did
she. Perchansky was lucky, though. She didn't have to wait
to leave Austria like Johnson had to wait to leave the
Philippines, because the immigrant quota from her country
hadn't been met.
Perchansky arrived at her husband's family homestead before
he did, she said.
She did have to wait three years to become a citizen,
though.
"You had to read and write in English. It was a
must," she said. "You had to know your history.
They ask you questions. It was good.
"People don't realize the privilege it is to be here --
to be an American and contribute to the country,"
Perchansky said.
Coming here illegally might be easier for some, but it's not
right, she said.
"I think they should be here legally," Perchansky
said. "It means more."
People should have to make an investment in the country if
they want the benefits and privileges that come with living
here, she said.
"Put something into it. Do something. Make it
yours," Perchansky said. "I did."
Copyright 2006, Standard Speaker.