Stories and Lifestyle

Preface One of our customers was so kind as to provide us with this report. She has agreed to be available to be available for those who have serious questions. Find more information at the bottom of the page. This is a report about her personal experience. We don't take responsibility for any advice you might possible find in this article.

A small American dream (by Christina Siller) What is the small American dream or the great dream of America? To emigrate for good? Live and work there for five years? Just try your luck there without knowing whether or not you will ever return to your home country? I am sure that each and every one of you has his or her personal and individual American dream, no matter whether it is still merely a thought or already partly realized. One thing is certain, though - if you want to realize your dream, you will often have to go a long and sometimes difficult way. But that's the way it is with dreams, especially the big ones - if it was so easy to get them, if you could buy them in the supermarket or get them as a gift, they wouldn't be the real thing, right?

My personal dream had started off as an accident, more or less. In 1999 I went to the US for the first time, with my best friend, her parents, her brother and her grandfather. Her parents had just bought a house in Florida (for vacation) and invited me to come with them and spend my vacation there. However, they could only stay for two weeks, then they had to fly back home. I extended my vacation to a total of four weeks, my boyfriend came over and we went up the East Coast in only eleven days (from Florida to Washington DC), visited a friend of mine in Charlottesville who was currently studying there, and could thus gather many impressions during our first visit to the US and get a picture of the great America. It only took us a short while to develop our own small American dream. In 2000 we were back again, in Florida one more time, because we wanted to see even more than we had during the few days last time. Still in the same year we saw a TV commercial for The American Dream and decided quite spontaneously to participate in the lottery, separately, of course, to have a better chance of winning. And I won on the first try - we couldn't believe it! We hadn't expected that!

I found out about my luck on April 28, 2001. I remember so well because that's my uncle's birthday, it was a Saturday. In the afternoon, we were at my uncle's birthday party and at night, around 9pm, I received a phone call from The American Dream, telling me that I had won! Since then, our dream has become reality more and more and of course I wanted to follow through with the green card - wait for the forms, fill out the forms in English and send them back, wait for the appointment at the consulate in Frankfurt, go to Berlin to the American Dream winners' seminary, see the embassy doctor in Munich for a medical check-up, show up for the embassy appointment in Frankfurt in January 2002 (went very well in my case), first entry within 6 months (our 3rd vacation, this time on the West Coast - California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada), wait until I had my green card sent to me, getting the green card via the American address of some friends. This year we made our 5th vacation in New York and our 6th vacation in New England and Canada.

Up to now, all I can say is that I am a very lucky winner and we will move there for good in 2-3 years to try our luck. Up to now, my boyfriend has not succeeded in winning a green card himself, ever since then he has tried again every year. This way would of course be the easiest one for us, getting married and facing very long waiting times of ca. 4-5 years is not really a suitable alternative for us, since first of all we do not want to wait that long and second of all it is becoming more and more difficult for me to maintain my status due to the admission controls that are becoming tighter every year (Editor: if they had gotten married within ca. 6 months of receiving the winners notification, the future spouse would have immediately received a green card as well. Currently, my boyfriend is going to night school in addition to his job to become an engineer. He won't graduate before mid-2005, that's why we can't go there right now. We hope that he will win also before he graduates. If not, then I will maybe have to go alone at first and he has to follow later or he will have to look for a German employer that would send him to the US. Either way this won't be easy, especially if you have a partner or, like some people, even a family and kids.

Generally speaking, admission always went rather well for me, even if I had to put up with some unpleasant questions from time to time. As friendly, helpful, open and nice the Americans usually are, the authorities and officials sometimes aren't. You notice immediately that they have become a lot stricter since 9/11 and many new measures have been introduced to get the terrorist problem under control. Unfortunately, the system isn't fully developed yet, which means that often innocent tourists and future immigrants who don't mean any harm and just want to realize their dreams are being wrongly attacked. Quite frequently, they are making your life more difficult these days, before, many things were a lot easier than they are today. It is important to be well prepared each time you enter the country, think of arguments or bring evidence that shows that you are already doing everything in order to immigrate into the US as soon as possible.

You should also acquire a Social Security Card the first time you enter the country. Also important are an American bank account, an American driver's license, and, for later admission, prove that you have applied to several companies and want to attend job interviews. With time, you will be able to think of more and more tricks, even if it is important to always stick with the truth. Good arguments are vitally important for unpleasant questions, and you can mostly prepare those in your head.

Never forget what you're fighting for, this is an unbelievable chance that you simply have to make use of (or, at least, you should try). I firmly believe that it meant something that I won, on the first try even! You can't just give up a chance like that one!

We, at least, really do want to try, even if you can never know from the start how long you will be staying, that depends on so many things, you shouldn't put too much pressure on yourself.

By the way, I am 26 (almost 27), living in Nuremberg/Fürth and working in marketing at Direktbank. We would appreciate friendships with other US enthusiasts, especially to establish contact for later and support each other. If you are seriously interested in contacting me, you can find me email address in the winners section on the American Dream homepage.