The Land of Opportunity
I sat down with Jude, a friend and colleague of mine, to talk about his experience moving from Haiti to the U.S. when he was 11. The conversation below has been edited for clarity and flow.
First, tell me a little bit about yourself.
All right, where do I begin? My name is Jude Anasta. I was born and raised in Haiti. I moved to the U.S. when I was 11 years old. I didn't speak English, I spoke Creole and French. I grew up outside of New York City, in the Catskills, where the population of Haitian people was slim to none. I am currently a product manager for a FinTech company. I am also a polyglot, so I speak five languages now. I love to travel. And I love people. And I love entrepreneurship.
Why did you move from Haiti to the U.S.?
My father had been living in the U.S. for a long time. It was more of his vision for all of our family to be here together. But I would say ultimately, it's for better opportunities.
What was that experience like moving to the U.S. when you were 11?
The initial experience was excitement and shock at the same time because my core values growing up in Haiti were different. When I moved to the U.S, I had to learn everything from scratch again, whether it is a new language, new way of learning in school, new ways of speaking to friends and making friends. So I would say, it was exciting, because I was in a new country. But at the same time, it was a big culture shock for me, and a huge learning curve. At school I still had to perform like every other student. They didn't have any different criteria for newcomers, so I was being graded the same way.
I could relate to a lot of that because I moved here as a teenager as well. Of all the challenges you mentioned, which one was the hardest to overcome?
I think fitting in was the hardest challenge to overcome in the beginning since I did not really fit in with any particular group of kids since I was a foreigner and I did not speak English. Overtime, it became easier and I had my group of friends that I hung out with.
Do you feel that you have found a sense of belonging now?
I would say so. I think now I do, mainly because I've been here for a long time. New York City is super diverse, and I would say my core friends are very diverse. Everyone is unique and different in their own wonderful ways. And I love that.
That's amazing. One thing I'm really interested in is family. How has your relationship with your family transformed over time?
I think my relationship with my parents is pretty much the same. I'm very close to both of them. I speak to them on a daily basis and tell them as much as possible about what I'm doing, even though they might not understand it. They are very supportive. I would say they feel very proud of, not just me, but all of us, moving to a foreign country and being able to accomplish the little that we've accomplished thus far. Has it really changed? I think, to be honest, I feel like I'm closer to my father now than I ever was before when I was younger. And I've always been close to my mom.
How has the immigrant experience shaped who you are today?
That's a good question. I would say I still hold on to my core values that I learned as a kid growing up in Haiti and they still shape the way I make decisions today. I feel like there's more pressure on me to always do well because I'm not just representing myself, I'm also representing other people that look like me, other people from my country. So I think because of that, I have to carry myself in a different way while holding on to the old values that I've learned from my country and my parents. We've learned the U.S. culture and all these different things, but there are certain core values that are super important that I still hold on to. For example, family is one of them. For us Haitians, family is super important.
Okay, gotcha. And speaking of Haitian culture, do you belong to a strong Haitian community here?
I would say there's a huge community of Haitians throughout the U.S., whether it is in Florida or New York. I have not really had the luxury to interact with the Haitian community as much as I would like to. I grew up upstate New York where there wasn’t really a Haitian community. Because of that, I had the opportunity to learn about other cultures.
Okay, I can relate to that. My family moved from Vietnam to Connecticut, and we've lived there ever since. In Connecticut, there's not much diversity, there’s not a strong Vietnamese community. And now, even living in New York, I don't really come across a lot of Vietnamese people. So I feel like growing up my friends have been from different backgrounds, different ethnicities. It just forces me to meet people from all walks of life. It’s definitely a cool experience. My next question is, what do you most appreciate about the entire experience?
Oh, I really appreciate this country. I truly believe that the U.S. is certainly a land of opportunity. I think if you move here and apply yourself and give your best, you will be rewarded for it. There's a lot of things I've been able to do in my personal life that I don't think I would have been able to do in Haiti. So I'm very grateful for my experience so far. I've learned a lot. I've met a lot of incredible people.
I definitely feel the same way. I don't think I can have in Vietnam a lot of the opportunities that I have here. But I guess there are also trade-offs. It is just very different and it’s hard for me to compare.
We grew up here so we don't know how life would have been - would we have been the same person? We can only hypothesize or guess what our life could have been, based on what we are observing now. I think, again, being raised here is great, because we've learned so much and been able to figure out what our passions are and find resources to help us accomplish those things. There’s a lot more resources here than in Haiti. So my passion and what makes me happy now could have been totally different if I was still in Haiti growing up there, because all problems would have been different.
I agree with that. Let’s wrap up this conversation on a fun note. You mentioned entrepreneurship early in our conversation - what are some of those ventures that you have taken on?
My first venture started when I was 15 years old. My best friend and I, with the help of our mentor in high school, created a DJ service company. We both liked music and we saw that the school was spending a lot of money for DJs that were not in tune with the type of music us kids listened to and decided to create a DJ service company. We ran the DJ business for the longest time, and the business is still there actually. From there in college, I built multiple different websites. And then after college, I built a mobile app called Madhat to help young people to be more creative on social media. The app was featured in a lot of publications, and we had partnerships with Tumblr. I’ve launched some other mini ventures after that as well.
That’s super impressive to hear! I gotta check out all of those. Were you also going to start a podcast about immigrant experience?
Yes, so now that we talk about that, I have to really make sure that happens! It’s been a long dream of mine to create a podcast to talk about the foreigners’ or immigrants’ experience in the U.S. I think it’s very similar to your collective. There's a lot that could be said, and we all could learn from each other. I would love to hear your story as well as other people's stories. The stories we share hopefully will inspire someone like us, or someone not like us.
I love that. I think we have a similar goal. I created this platform to inspire other people by reading these stories from immigrants and people from similar backgrounds.
I hope that you continue to talk to other individuals who move here at a young age. Again, it's such a vulnerable age to move to and grow up in a new country when you're trying to figure out your identity. I think your platform will inform others about this experience who might not know what this experience is like. But more importantly, it can also inspire someone who's going through that very experience. They can read and learn and become empowered. I think it's super important and very powerful. So I urge you to continue to do just that. And I hope that it becomes very successful.
Jude Anasta is an experienced product manager fluent in five languages and an entrepreneur. Jude was born in Haiti and raised in the Catskills, New York.