Discussion » Questions » Jobs » I met a man who had been the principal of a school in his native country before emigrating to the US, where he was a janitor at a strip mall
Randy D

I met a man who had been the principal of a school in his native country before emigrating to the US, where he was a janitor at a strip mall

because none of his qualifications were recognized in the US, so he had taken the first job he could find. He was in his late fifties when I met him, has poor health, and I don’t know how long he has been in the US at that point. His US visa was not employment based nor education based, it was family based. He was not in a position to both take the necessary courses and then get certified to the same socio-economic status he had once enjoyed. He told me that many American citizens had entered his country seeking high-end jobs and their credentials were immediately accepted, often without question or scrutiny, and that while the cost of living and salaries didn’t compare to the US, they lived at an upperclass level there.
  Do you personally know any immigrants to your country whose lives almost instantly took a drastic negative direction due to those types of circumstances?
~

 

Posted - April 26, 2021
Tags : None

Responses


  • 9854
    I have a friend who is Tibetan and lived in India as a child. I'm not sure what her father did for living, but she described a fairly affluent lifestyle with a big house and servants. Since coming to the US as a political refugee her father has worked in a warehouse.
      April 27, 2021 6:48 AM MDT
    3

  • 44221
    This may or may not apply, but I'll share anyway. I was teaching at the Navy electronics school in Great Lakes when the US embassy in Iran was taken over by rebels on November 4, 1979. We had a few scores of Iranian students scattered throughout the training center. I asked one of them what will happen to them. She said they could not return home, since they were in the Shah's Navy. She said they would be taken prisoner and perhaps executed. Hence, they were stranded here. I don't know what happened to them...they just disappeared.
      April 27, 2021 8:30 AM MDT
    3

  • 22900
    Wow.
    :(
      November 10, 2021 9:23 PM MST
    2

  • 17397
    A similar story.  In the first two years of marriage we lived in an apartment in an old building owned by my FIL.  We had to keep the building and yard clean and neat and hubs had to shovel coal for the heat and hot water for the building.  Anyway, a couple moved into the building from Tiawan I think it was.  They were both teachers but could not teach here.  They were learning English with plans to become credentialed and teach again.  They didn't seem really poor; he had some type of job but she stayed home.  She made the terrace out front beautiful with her flowers.  
      April 27, 2021 3:06 PM MDT
    3

  • 1818
    i meet a lot of people like this here in Toronto. i met a guy who was a veterinarian in mexico, but in Canada he was just working as a cleaner in an apartment building. He was a nice guy  

    it's very sad because these people work under the table and get abused and exploited by their employer 

    my job i worked before my mat leave was full of people like this, in a little better situation because they had work visas. it was a lot of people who were professionals in their home country (dentists, lawyers, IT professionals)  but because their credentials aren't recognized here they have to take low paying entry level jobs. 
      November 10, 2021 10:05 PM MST
    2