When I Got Here
Immigrants share inspiring personal stories of why they left their homelands, how they got to the U.S., and the lives they are making here. They meet the challenges of a new land with determination, perseverance, resilience, and creativity.
Listeners will see America through their eyes and renew their appreciation for the land we love.
When I Got Here is narrated, edited and written by Byron Harris. Harris is a longtime Dallas journalist and winner of two Peabody Awards.
Original music by John Wesley Gibson, composer-in-residence for the Dallas Winds.
Learn more about Literacy Achieves: LiteracyAchieves.org
Episodes
17 episodes
Kay and Venna (Philippines): A Simple Life
Kay and Venna Juperatum made a plan to come to the U.S. so they could support their parents in the Philippines. They left family and Kay’s career as a television and radio personality behind. They would rely on Venna's medical train...
•
10:34
Ion Zanca, Young Heo, Efren Guzman: Something Different
This is a story about how music brought three immigrants together: a Romanian viola player, a South Korean bass player, and a Mexican drummer. They are part of the Grammy-nominated Dallas String Quartet, DSQ. They structure th...
•
14:31
Thear (Cambodia) Called to Lead
After the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia, Thear Suzuki’s family started from zero. Thear was three years old. Her story of survival, persistence, and self-discovery led her to high level leadership in consulting firms and the...
•
16:12
William (Rwanda): Miracle Man
William Twayigize is a Hutu who miraculously survived horrific experiences as a refugee, a Tutsi prisoner, and a Nairobi street boy to complete an elite education and achieve a distinguished academic career. A transcript of his epis...
•
17:12
Jose (Cuba): Cigar Entrepreneur
Jose Hernandez's ambition to become a doctor in Cuba was thwarted. Hear how he came to the US and planted seeds that revived his grandfather's business. Jose has grown it into a firm with international reach.
•
14:33
Arang (South Korea): Different. Don't Be Afraid.
Arang Cistulli came to the US from South Korea as a very young child with her family. She grew up in a small Ohio town where her father was a medical doctor. Her story is bookended by prejudice she experienced as a child and by rece...
•
11:39
Mylinh (Vietnam): Resilient, Resourceful, Rejoicing
In 1979 Mylinh Luong left communist Vietnam with her father, mother, and four siblings in a crowded fishing boat. She was six years old. She vividly recalls the deprivation, squalor, and brutality of the journey and life in a Malays...
•
14:46
Ana (Mexico): A Girl from Gail
Ana Arellanos was born in Mexico and came to Texas, undocumented, when she was five. She grew up in Gail, a small town in West Texas. Now, at age 34, she is a U.S. citizen and an immigration attorney. She knows the system from...
•
14:23
Big Al (Iraq): The Price of Peace and Freedom
Ow-z (Aws) Al-Darkazali, known as “Big Al,” is an Iraqi dentist. At first euphoric over the ouster of Saddam Hussein, he grew so discouraged with the outcome that he gave up everything and left home to rebuild his life. After false ...
•
14:36
Alexandra (Venezuela, Canada): Immigrant, World Citizen
Alexandra Bacalao is an immigrant from Venezuela by way of Canada who came to the US as a schoolgirl. Now a physician and scientist, the podcast is the story of how she sees America through a complex matrix formed from the other countries...
•
14:49
Jabeen (Pakistan): Mothers, Children and Language
Jabeen, a Pakistan-born woman watched her mother, who did not know English, struggle to the point of suicide in England. Jabeen’s own knowledge of English was essential to overcoming loneliness when she found herself without friends or fa...
•
14:11
Fable and Fact: Professor Jeffrey Engel
Jeffrey Engel is a historian who directs the Center for Presidential History at SMU Center for Presidential History | Center for Presidential H...
•
17:34
Daniel (Haiti): Poor, Lonely, and Lucky
Daniel, a Haitian whose parents brought him here as a boy, goes through a “serendipity of experiences” to overcome the poverty of his youth, become an engineer, and learn to be a black man in America. Is Daniel really lucky or does he mak...
•
17:17
Mayela (Mexico): Welcome and Unwelcome
In this episode, a young Mexican woman, a university graduate and marketing executive, wrestles with feeling welcome and unwelcome, free and lonely. This immigrant's experience shows the power of words—and the prejudice behind them—to hur...
•
16:38
Femi Omonije (Nigeria): Redefines His American Dream
The story of Femi Omonije, a Nigerian man who learned how to be a successful businessman—and a black man—in the U.S. He had to change his assumptions about American culture. He redefined his American dream. He achieved someth...
•
19:41
Ruth Villalonga (Venezuela): A New-but Flawed-Paradise
This episode features a young woman journalist who fled economic hardship, social chaos, and terror in Venezuela to make a new life for herself and a new family in Texas. Now a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion executive, she has a window ...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 2
•
18:04
Ruben and Alina Esquivel (Cuba): Starting Alone, Growing Together
This is the story of Ruben and Alina Esquivel who were forced to leave Cuba when they were teenagers.60 years ago Ruben and Alina's early lives were shaped by two dictators Fulgencio Batista, the president of Cuba in the 1950s, a...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 1
•
15:26
