Immigrant Stories | The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants

Welcome to episode 30 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz, and I am on a mission to change the narrative of immigration one immigrant story at a time. Today’s guest is Vera from Redeemed Christian Lifestyle. She is a Christian life coach who focuses on helping Christian professionals with their spiritual needs, and she runs a Christian teaching...

Welcome to episode 29 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz, and I am on a mission to change the narrative of immigration one immigrant story at a time. Today’s guest is Mekdes Haddis. She is a speaker, author, business consultant, and coach. Mekdes came from Ethiopia to attend college in the United States. Her parents felt that receiving higher...

Welcome to episode 28 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz where I am on a mission to change the narrative of immigration one immigrant story at a time. Today's guest is Burcu Onaranel. She is the owner of Joy, LLC, international speaker, and host of The Coffee O’Clock Podcast .  In her podcast she shares joy and inspiration with guest from all...

Welcome to episode 27 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants podcast! I am your host Heidy De La Cruz, and today’s guest is Andrea Rotondo from Liquid Cents Bookkeeping . Andrea was 16 when her parents decided to move from Ecuador to the United States. Her dad got a great opportunity to take over a business in the US, and her mom always wanted to live here, so it was the perfect time for...

Welcome to episode 26 of The American Dream In The Eyes of Immigrants podcast. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz and today’s guest is Chinedu Akunne from The Immigrant Investor Show . His podcast is about highlighting the immigrant hustle, like pains, wins, and lessons, to help motivate those stuck along the way. It’s a monthly podcast that has been heard in over 45 countries. Chinedu and I connect...

Welcome to episode 25 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast. I am your host Heidy De La Cruz, and we are celebrating one year of this podcast this week!!!! The official anniversary is April 19!!!! So, to celebrate, I am doing a $50 gift card giveaway on my Instagram starting tomorrow (April 19 until Friday, April 21, 8 pm EST). Follow me on Instagram for the official rules to ent...

Welcome to episode 24 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants podcast. Today’s guest is Francy Devarie – the podcast host of “ Life With Francy Podcast .” She came to the United States from Puerto Rico when she was 15 after she was married at 14! Yes, this is definitely a story to listen to! Francy’s story is a story of hardship to triumph and is such an impactful story. It was moving to h...

Welcome to episode 23 of the American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast! I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. Today’s guest is Marija Dobratic. She is a life coach and the host of Legacy Stories LIVE Podcast – another podcast elevating immigrant stories, which I had the honor and pleasure of being a guest on. In today’s episode, we talk about Marija coming to the United States from Bosnia and h...

Welcome to episode 22 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants podcast. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. If this is your first time here, welcome; if not, welcome back. Today’s episode is a little different – this story is about a grandmother, Martha Sherman, who came to the United States before World War I, and it’s told by her granddaughter Betsy! Martha came from what used to be Russia...

Welcome to Episode 21 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast; I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. Today’s guest is the founder and creator of Ace Candles, Thalia. Thalia is from Puerto Rico, the youngest of three, and she was nine when her parents decided to move to the United States. Although she knew English before they moved, she was still placed in the ESOL program (English for...

Welcome to episode 20 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. If this is your first time listening, welcome, and if not, welcome back. I'm so glad you're here today. In today's episode, I speak with Mariana, who came from São Paulo, Brazil as an adult. She received the opportunity to come to the United States through her employer, which was a dream come t...

Welcome to episode 19 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. Today’s episode is with immigration attorney Gisselle Martinez. She and her family moved to the US from Colombia when she was twelve years old. They first moved to South Florida and then to Iowa, which was a complete culture shock. The struggles she and her family went through when they...

Welcome to episode 18 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants podcast. This episode is another sibling episode, but this time it’s two sisters, Sandra and Noemi. Their parents came from Mexico and talked about their experience growing up as children of immigrant parents. They talk about having to help their parents out in the fields picking oranges in the summertime and then helping at the...

Welcome to episode 17 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast, I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. This episode is very special because this episode is with my husband and his older siblings. They share their memories of living in the Dominican Republic and then moving to the USA. You will listen of their very humble beginnings and they struggle they endured adapting to living in a n...

Welcome to part two of episode 16 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast. I am your host Heidy De La Cruz and today we continue with my conversation with Dr. Angela Gala. In this episode Dr. Gala talks about the opportunity, she had to come to the United States with the Public Health International Leaders in DC. She also had the opportunity to travel to various countries because o...

Welcome to part one of episode 16 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. Today’s guest is Dr. Angela Gala, Nutrigenomic Coach and she is from Cuba. We start the conversation talking about her life in Cuba. She gave the background of her parents, how they met, where they live etc. She provided some Cuban history about the revolution. She had the o...

Welcome to episode 15 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast; I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. Today’s guest is Melissa Alves – she came to the US at age five from Peru. We talked about her first memories of the US – when she first arrived, she remembers waiting a long time in a station wagon at a gas station for her uncle to pick them up. And she remembers crying every day becau...

Welcome to episode 14 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants podcast. I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. In today’s episode I speak with Noor Pinna, she moved to the United States from Pakistan at the age of 5 because her father left his family. And she speaks about the journey coming here and honestly, it’s such an impactful story. The connection wasn’t the greatest when we were recording...

Welcome to episode 13th of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast; I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. We have our first video episode with the founders of Little Dreamers Publishing , Nayeli, Nidia, and Nadia. Three sisters started this company to provide bilingual books to Spanish-speaking families. We spoke about their journey of being undocumented in the US and then getting legal s...

Welcome to episode 12 of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast; I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. Today’s guest is Adina Appelbaum, an immigration attorney, and financial/business coach. She and her husband run Immigrant Finance, where they help immigrants with their finances – like getting into investing and starting their businesses. Adina tells us about her time in Egypt doing im...

Welcome to episode 11 of The American Dream In The Eyes of Immigrants podcast – I am your host Heidy De La Cruz. In today’s episode, I speak with the owner of Trinket Traces Jewelry , Karen. She was born in the Philippines and shared her experience of living in the Philippines with nannies and having people help around the house but not having any of that here in the United States. We also talked...

Welcome back to another episode of The American Dream In The Eyes of Immigrants – I am your host Heidy De La Cruz. In today’s episode, I speak with Mabel Ninan; she is the author of Far From Home Discovering Your Identity as Foreigners on Earth. Her book talks about her immigration journey and how, during the journey, God helped her remember that Earth is not our forever home. This episode is fill...

Welcome back to another episode of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants Podcast; I am your host, Heidy De La Cruz. For today’s episode, I spoke with Rosalba Fontanez. She talks about coming to the US when she was 17 with plans to work packing tomatoes and send money back to her family. This was her way to help raise her younger siblings because her father had passed recently. To her surpri...

Welcome back to another episode of The American Dream in The Eyes of Immigrants. Today’s episode, I talk to immigration attorney Chris Acklin. He gives his background on how he got into immigration law, he answers immigration questions my followers were interested in knowing and provides insightful information about the immigration process. A little disclaimer: technology was not on my side the da...

Welcome to part two of episode 7 with Dali from Nicaragua. In this episode Dali shares her experience in the immigration detention center when her and her family first arrived. She shares about visiting Nicaragua after 30 years! And we ended the episode by talking about food. I truly hope you enjoy listening to today’s episode and learn a few things because Dali gives us a few fun facts! Please sh...