Coming to America: Early Life in America and Citizenship

By Deba Uwadiae

Coming To America is a realistic experience of early life in America from the very first day in the land of the free through the process of normalizing residency, desperate search for job, affordable apartment in a secured environment, acclimatizing with the four seasonal weathers and the actuality of becoming an American citizen.
It is a well-documented chronology of the life of a family of five from Lagos, Nigeria, West Africa who migrated to the United States in 2011 on the platform of the U.S. Diversity Visa Lottery program to liberate themselves from a raging economic storm, unsafe and chaotic environment and an unpredictable education for their children.
Coming To America became a new beginning but a predictable and stable climb up to the dream of an accomplished life and the attainment of the American Dream.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664139053

Deba Uwadiae

Deba Uwadiae is an international journalist and a media consultant. He graduated from the Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria and the Ohio Center for Broadcasting, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America. He is also an alumnus of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, Nigeria. He immigrated with his family to the United State of America in June 2011. He worked with the Vanguard Newspapers, Lagos, Nigeria between 1989 and 2000 as a senior correspondent before resigning to begin work as a publisher and aviation media consultant. He consulted for Virgin Nigeria Airways, Aerocontractors Airlines, Dana Airlines, Turkish Airlines, the United States Commercial Service, Lagos, the National Association of Nigerian Pilots and Engineers and the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies. Deba created and conducted the Annual Lagos Airport Marathon. He has published and edited two books – Aviation Communication Practice (2000) and 80 Years of Aviation in Nigeria – A Step Higher (2005). He is married to Tolulope Adama and has three children.

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Coming To America

Early Life in America

and Citizenship

Deba Uwadiae

Copyright © 2020 by Deba Uwadiae.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/04/2020

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Arrive in USA

Chapter 2 Journey to Columbus

Chapter 3 Social Security Number

Chapter 4 Driver License

Chapter 5 Job

Chapter 6 Car

Chapter 7 Apartment

Chapter 8 School

Chapter 9 House

Chapter 10 Citizenship

Dedicated to all immigrants from the beginning

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Chapter 1

Arrive in USA

Tuesday June 7, 2011

The Turkish Airways Airbus A340 aircraft from Istanbul, Turkey touched down on the runway of the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, Illinois, United States of America at about 3 p.m. ending an almost twenty-four-hour journey that traversed three continents—Africa, Europe and America. It was a smooth touchdown on a level runway.

The journey started on Monday June 6, 2011 at 7 p.m. from a quiet and dark Bashiru Owe Street, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria in West Africa. The barely 300-meter-long or about 328 yards dusty stretch of a street is usually a highly populated market place during the day as it has one computer college and a college of technology, housed in three different five-floor buildings, owned by the same person; one elementary school located in two three-room apartment in two opposite buildings; several computer accessories shops and offices of various professions. No wonder that part of Ikeja is called Computer Village! There is always no parking space from 7 a.m. and the crowd of students, workers, buyers and sellers is always a chaos every day, except Sunday. At night, the street becomes deserted and virtually ‘dead’ especially when there is no electricity which has become the norm for many years.

As the plane taxied to one of the gates at Terminal 5, the excitement of the family of five was palpable. The processing of immigrating to the United States of America which started with applying for the US Visa lottery on the last day of the exercise in 2009 had seemed a long wait but the aircraft touching down safely on the soil of the United States of America wiped out the seeming anxiety in the long wait.

We looked through the aircraft windows as the speed of the aircraft reduced getting close to one of the gates in ‘a stop and move’ fashion and finally it came to a stop. We could feel all the bumps and knocks on the aircraft as the gangway was being pushed close to the front door and as the undercarriage was being secured for safety.

Our two teenage children, Uyi (15) and Abi (14) were the first to, excitedly, step out of the aircraft into the gangway passage with their backpacks strapped to their left shoulders. My wife, Tolu, second daughter, Eki (9), and myself followed as three security men with their dogs positioned themselves at the end of the passage into the hallway with their dogs trying to sniff out the hand-held luggage of every passenger.

We walked the long hallway to the immigration check. It was a long and winding walk of about twenty minutes. There were already spiraling lines of multitude of visitors. Our line dragged for over forty minutes before it got to our turn.

Hallo! a very friendly and welcoming immigration officer collected our passports and the large white parcel we brought along from the American Embassy in Lagos, Nigeria with an instruction that it should only be opened by the immigration officers at the point-of-entry airport, being one of the documents of immigrants on the Diversity Visa Program 2010 (US Visa lottery).

The diversity visa program is unofficially known as the green card lottery system and individuals from around the world can apply for a U.S. Permanent Resident Card. The program will give foreign residents an opportunity to live and work in the U.S. Each year, the U.S. Department of State opens registration in October and applicants have the chance to fill out forms online until early November. The Diversity Visa program is administered annually by the State Department under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990. While the application is open to the residents around the world, the program is specifically aimed at attracting those who meet eligibility requirements and are from countries with historically low immigration rates. To be eligible for DV consideration, an applicant must have a minimum of a high school education and have worked for at least two years in the past five years. Additionally, the applicant must have gone through a minimum of two years of training in his or her field." (Immigration Direct). About 50,000 visas are issued annually on the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program and the first program was DV-1995.

The immigration officer treated one passport after the other beginning with Tolu, who is