The Forum’s English at Work program teaches customized English and digital literacy skills for limited-English-proficient employees to better interact with customers and increase their career and earning potential.

What’s your name? Inocente

Why did you immigrate to the U.S.? To get a job that would allow me to provide for my family.

How has the English at Work impacted you? The program has boosted my confidence not only at work but in my personal life, like reaching out to my children’s teachers with questions or navigating doctor appointments.

Read Inocente’s full story here.

We’re excited to celebrate our 5-year anniversary with Whole Foods! Through this partnership, we’ve helped employees like Inocente gain the language skills needed to succeed. Learn more about our English at Work program here.

"The diversity of our teams is of utmost importance for our future growth, and we are committed to creating opportunities for our team members that will allow them to grow."
-Richard Goss, Whole Foods Market, Executive Leader of Operations for the Northeast Region

Per recent DHS estimates, about 9.2 million of the 13.6 million green-card holders residing in the United States on January 1, 2019, were eligible to naturalize. Since 2013, the Forum has worked with some of the nation’s largest employers to address this need. Learn more about our citizenship assistance program here.

What’s your name? Bernadine

Why did you immigrate to the U.S.? To get a college education! I studied at Trinity University and majored in Information Technology Systems and minored in Economics.

How has the New American Workforce program impacted you? This program walked me through the naturalization process and gave me the financial resources I needed to finally become a citizen. I was able to vote for the first time in over 30 years living in this country!

Read Bernadine’s full story here.

You can support the National Immigration Forum’s programs that help immigrants like Inocente and Bernadine reach their American dreams.

Immigration is our passion here at the National Immigration Forum, and many of our staff got inspired to do this work from their own immigration stories. Get to know a little bit more about two members of our staff here. Afterward, head over to our Twitter to read more staff stories.

What’s your name? Danilo Zak

What do you do at the Forum? I’m the Senior Policy and Advocacy Associate, focusing on asylum, border, and legal immigration issues.

What’s your immigration story? My paternal grandparents fled Poland during the Holocaust and had my dad while on the run in Uzbekistan. Eventually, they made it to New York in the 1950s. My mom was born in Japan and lived in India for a while before her parents decided to come to the U.S. for work and to continue to raise their family. I think a lot about how it was fairly easy for my mom’s family to move from country to country, but for my dad’s family, it was about life or death.

Learn more about Danilo and his work at the Forum here.

What’s your name? Helena Coric

What do you do at the Forum? I manage the New American Workforce citizenship program, working with the country’s leading corporations and municipalities to support immigrant integration.

What’s your immigration story? I was born in Croatia and came to the US with my mom in the 90s during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Watching my mom navigate immigration courts and USCIS offices alone for nearly 15 years showed me the strength and resilience it took to be an immigrant.

Click here to learn more about Helena and her work at the Forum.

Check out our latest Only in America podcast series where we share what it’s like to come to the US—and what our nation’s immigrant heritage means for the American identity.