Every immigrant lives to achieve the American Dream, though most come in search to America in search of that dream others come because it is there only way of survival, Marta Eticha was the second type of people. Marta Eticha, was born on February 25, 1968; in the little town of Wollega, Ethiopia. She had 11 siblings, 8 sisters and 3 brothers. Eticha’s mother and father raised her until she was 7, where they then sent her off to the capital, Addis Ababa, to have an education, she then lived with her sister and aunt. Eticha’s early life was one of loneliness, she rarely had people to talk to so she stayed holed up in her shared room of 4 often making up imaginary people or helping her sister and aunt around the house. As her sister was almost 16 years older than her she acted more like a mother than a true sister and she would often tell Eticha what to do and how to act. Eticha found her escape by often running into the mountains with her dog and enjoying the jungles of Ethiopia.
As an immigrant child from Ethiopia, Eticha was wired to chase higher education and a comfortable lifestyle, but in a developing nation where poverty and famine were widespread, it was hard to achieve the dream that she and her parents had envisioned for her. In high school, she could not bear any grade less than an A. Eticha simply listened to her parents and tried to fulfill their expectations, but what they did not imagine was that their hopes and dreams would cause her to break down. It was hard to feel “normal,” as she never really got along with other children as she never learned how to really make friends. “I was thrust to adulthood at 12, and I had to take responsibility for all my actions.” Eventually the mess of emotions and teenage anxiety had taken enough of a toll that she lost all confidence and trust in herself, grades plummeted along with any desire to pursue anything further along in life. Her parents seeing this thought the only way they could fix there now broken child was to arrange a marriage so that she could be of use to the family and have a well-off husband.
At 17 years old Marta Eticha was pregnant with her future husband’s daughter, and at 18 they had already been married. Her husband was a well-known doctor of Ethiopia and her parents were very grateful that he was able to take her in. Eticha, on the other hand, did not love her husband, she did not even like him, she absolutely hated him. The idea that she had to be with this person for the rest of her life though seemed normal to her, “Everyone around me was getting married, so it seemed normal for me to follow along.” By the time she was 25, she had three daughters was waiting on a son. When she was pregnant with her fourth child there was a complication with the birth that made her miscarry the child. After the miscarriage, she went through a state of depression and for the next 6 months she was not able to eat properly, was not able to go outside and suffered health complications. On top of all of this her father passed away although she had never been on good terms with her father, his death hit her on a swirl of emotions that “almost killed me.” Although there was an air of depression she was once again pregnant with a boy, after one and a half years of depression “I finally had a light at the end of the tunnel.” She wanted to name her new son “Moa” which roughly translated to winner/perseverance. After the pain, she had been through she wanted a symbol to the pain and a symbol of her victory as a name. Her husband, on the other hand, wanted the name “Jarra” and that translates to generational/once in a century. So they settled on Moajarra.
Eticha was living an upper-middle-class life in Ethiopia and her husband would often be in other countries in Africa where doctors would be needed on a much greater scale. So she would often get money from her husband and be responsible for taking care of the food, house, and children. Eticha was Oromo, the largest ethnicity in Ethiopia. The one in control of the government though was Tigrinya. Years of rivalry had caused tension between these two groups to the point where in the early 2000’s it was common to see police shooting down groups who were thought to be Oromo. It had now been unsafe for her and her family to be in the country; That was when her husband then left Ethiopia to the United States in 2004, and two years later she and her four children would follow.
When first arriving in the United States Eticha’s family of 6 lived in a small one bedroom apartment where her four children had to share a bed, and she had to share a bed with her husband. Though life was bleak there was a positive trajectory, her husband was a banker and she was working on her GED. That all changed when once again her life was flipped upside down when only after a year they arrived in the United States. The recession had hit and her husband had lost his job; she had to start looking for jobs, and the only jobs that would accept her were minimum wage jobs.
Since arriving to the United States Eticha was appalled by the amount of difference between Americans. The different races, heights, sexualities and multiple genders made no sense to the Ethiopian native. Eticha was only used to seeing either black men or women in Africa and she was surprised by the amount of diversity she was seeing. The strangest part about life was that she and her family would be considered “African-American,” which was unusual because she had often separated different types of Blacks by ethnicity and by heritage. As she noted “there are clear facial differences between the different ethnicities that were in Ethiopia. So being jumbled into a unifying word of “African-American” made no sense to her as she believed that different people with different heritages needed to be known for their own culture or else the culture would die and only the idea of being an African-American would remain.
Much of Eticha’s values changed from her life in Ethiopia to living here in America. She became more open of different views and learned how to accept people of all kinds. Because Ethiopia is a developing nation much of the social norms that were in place discriminated against women and people of different ethnicities. This was most known when much of Eticha’s friends and colleagues were stay at home mothers whose primary job was to clean and cook for their husbands and children. Coming to the United States her perspective on sexuality and race were changed, and although she had just been able to vote she had always leaned towards liberal values.
Eticha’s views on religion also had to be changed for her to assimilate with the American culture. Back in Ethiopia, she believed herself to be a part of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but when she arrived in the United States she had to join the American Evangelical Lutheran Church. This was mainly caused because the large number of Oromo immigrants who moved to Southern California started a church that was under the Lutheran Church name so when she joined the church she then had to change her believe so that she could become part of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Since arriving in Los Angeles in 2006, Eticha had taken on blue-collar jobs regardless of the low wages and dreadful working. It was now ironic to her that although she could once afford a maid in her native country, she became one herself in her new country. While her life was seemingly going very poorly the life of her children was greatly improving all her children lives. She felt they were no longer scared of the oppression they felt of the government and the raids that they would have in the middle of the night. For her seeing the smiles on her children's faces was the key reason why she was so accepting of the move to a completely different country, with a completely different culture. Compared to a country that is just rife with economic and political corruption the United States sounded like a safe haven. “The very fact that if a light goes out on my street, I can call the city and have someone come out and replace it, without paying a bribe or needing a friend in the maintenance office is awesome.” Voting as it is in Ethiopia is not fraudulent and will affect political outcomes.
Eticha had a difficult time making peers in the new country. Although most people would make friends through work or school, Eticha found her peers through a church. As she searched for churches near the area she found that there was an Oromo church near her and when she went she found a community she was able to find the people she could relate to. As time progressed and her ability to speak English increased she became able to make friends that were not only bound by them being Ethiopian. She made friends in work and was recently invited to events like weddings. “Getting that invitation was a confirmation that I had finally been an American, or at least felt like one.”
Often times she would not be able to trust the professional advice and would have to go to multiple people so that she could have correct advice. If she went to go to the doctor, the medicine will most often be fraudulently replaced with sugar pills. If she went to buy meat at the store labeled 'beef,' it will not secretly usually be ground up horse. The general trust she had to have in the American political system and more so in the government showed her adaption to the authorities. She also mentioned how the American Dream also seemed very real, compared to Ethiopia a staid nation, who place a greater value on tradition and the 'right' way of doing things. Americans are less concerned about doing it 'right' and more concerned about getting it done. This also allowed her to take control of her own life and not be controlled by her husband. So on August 2014 she separated from her marriage of over 25 years and began to pursue a field in nursing. Eticha wanted to be able to move away from the life she had in Ethiopia and wanted to be able to make a change for herself and her children. The dream to be comfortable, not being a maid and living on minimum wage jobs allowed her to finally tell her husband off and do what she wants without major repercussions.
All in all, Eticha felt like that immigrating to the United States was an experience that positively impacted her. Although she would have had a nice upper-middle-class life in Ethiopia, the safety of her and her children made it far too unpleasant. Adapting to American culture, changing her religion, and the changing of her own values made it possible for her to have a positive immigration experience. The oppression she felt when she was in Ethiopia allowed her to open her eyes to the open and free nation of America. She knew that you did not need generational wealth or the correct family name or caste lineage or history of being landed gentry to be respected, admired, and treated well. And your socioeconomic class can change throughout your life; between yourself and your children; between your parents and yourself; and because you want it to. You are not required to live the script of your birth. You can be someone different.