In celebration of Thanksgiving, Documented asked our WhatsApp community readers to share how they would be celebrating the U.S. holiday. Here’s how three immigrants responded.
For the first three years after arriving in the United States from Costa Rica in 2021, Kathy Umana, 36, said she didn’t have time to celebrate Thanksgiving.
In previous years, she said she prioritized adapting to her new country. The language barriers made it difficult to build a community here. Often, she would feel alone and miss her family back home, including her two children, whom she left behind after a dispute with her ex-husband. The inconsistency of job opportunities also deterred her from paying attention to those holidays. For many Thanksgivings, Umana said she would work to send money back home.
But over time, she found a sense of community through a church she attended and she built new friendships along the way. Her English improved and her job opportunities increased.
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This week, four years after arriving in Brooklyn, Umana says she is celebrating her first Thanksgiving with a family that invited her to join them for a feast. She does not know what to expect, other than knowing that they will spend the afternoon together.
“I feel more familiar with the country, which is one of the reasons why I am celebrating it this year,” she told Documented in Spanish. “Many things have changed in my life, workwise, emotionally and in my stability. So I started to become part of the country.” She said that her job as a babysitter has also given her more flexibility.
She is grateful about finding a sense of belonging through her faith, encouraging others facing challenges to stay positive. “Things are better now,” she said. “I can take some time for myself. I am very grateful for God.”
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Diana V., 28, and her husband, Ricardo C., 30, are also celebrating Thanksgiving for the first time this year. The married couple migrated from Venezuela in December 2022 to seek asylum. In the beginning, they stayed at a shelter in Queens before renting an apartment in Yonkers last November.
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Like Umana, Diana, who now works at Bloomingdale’s after obtaining her work permit this summer, said that Thanksgiving is a holiday they are gradually getting used to celebrating as their lives have become more stable.
“We are in a country where we start adapting to the cultures and traditions to better process the journey of migrating and to avoid feeling excluded. This tradition is very joyful,” she explained. The couple will spend the holiday with their family.
“It’s a beautiful thing to be able to spend time together, a day to be grateful. Sometimes we don’t take a moment to appreciate what we have,” Diana said. She explained that she is also grateful for the bad things that have happened within the last year and the lessons it has taught them.
