What did you carry with you?
A hope, a memory, an object, a promise. What did leaving home feel like?
A collection of coming-to-America stories
You brought more
than a suitcase.
You brought a story.
The people you left. The first place you called home. The life you built, one unfamiliar day at a time.
Immigrant Songs is collecting personal stories of coming to America for a possible future book.
Share your journey ↗Get to know the projectYour own words. Your choice of name. No perfect English required.
Many beginnings. A shared horizon.
Why these stories matterHistory lives in
History lives in
the details we remember.
Coming to America means something different to every person. A goodbye at an airport. A first job. An act of kindness. A language learned. A place that slowly became home.
Founded by Saleem Safdar, attorney and author.
My father’s story of coming to America from Pakistan inspired me to create Immigrant Songs. His journey helped me appreciate how much a single life story can hold—and how much it can mean to the people who hear it.
There are countless other stories like his that deserve to be appreciated and shared with the world. Through Immigrant Songs, I hope to bring those voices to a wider audience through this website, possible YouTube interviews, and a future published book.
We welcome stories of hope, difficulty, belonging, and everything in between—in your own voice or through a family member’s memories. You decide what you are comfortable sharing. Story submissions include permission for possible website and book publication and use of submitted audio on the website, with your chosen publication credit. YouTube storytelling is optional. Recording or publishing an interview requires a separate agreement.
Submissions are reviewed privately. Sending a story does not publish it automatically or guarantee selection for the book.
Every journey starts somewhere.
You don’t need to tell your whole life. Start with a moment that stayed with you.
What do you remember first?
Tell us about your first days in America—the surprises, the challenges, the people.
When did it feel like home?
What changed you? What traditions did you keep? What would you tell someone arriving today?
Your story, treated with care.
Will my story appear online immediately?
No. Submissions will be reviewed privately. Book selection is not guaranteed. Your submission includes permission for possible website and book publication, including submitted audio on the website. Publication is not automatic or guaranteed.
Do I have to appear in a YouTube video?
No. The optional YouTube box lets us relay your story through narration and/or use your submitted audio in a video podcast using your chosen publication credit. Your recorded voice may be heard if you choose that permission. Appearing on camera or participating in a new interview is optional and requires a separate agreement.
Can I use a pen name or stay anonymous?
Yes. Choose your preferred credit in the form. Your contact email will remain private. Consider whether details in your story could identify you even without your name.
Publication permission & withdrawal details
By checking the required submission-permission box, you authorize Immigrant Songs to privately store and review your story, contact you about it, and publish the written story or a transcript in whole or in part on immigrantsongs.com and/or in a future Immigrant Songs book in print or digital form, including a book offered for sale. You also grant non-exclusive permission to publish your submitted audio recording, in whole or in excerpts, including its recorded voices, on immigrantsongs.com. You confirm that you have the necessary rights and permissions, including permission to publish any other person’s recorded voice. This permission is non-exclusive: you retain ownership and may share your writing elsewhere. No payment is promised, and publication is not guaranteed.
We may edit text and audio for length and clarity without changing the meaning. We will use your chosen publication credit. Your contact email and private correspondence will not be published.
You may withdraw permission before publication by emailing immigrantsongs@yahoo.com. After publication, you may request removal of your story from our website, but copies of books already published or distributed cannot be recalled, and we cannot remove screenshots, search-engine caches, or copies held by others. The required submission permission lets us transcribe audio for review and possible website or book publication and publish the submitted audio recording and its voices on immigrantsongs.com using your chosen publication credit. Use of that recording in a YouTube video podcast requires the optional YouTube permission. Recording or publishing a new interview requires a separate agreement.
YouTube video podcast permission
If you check the optional YouTube box, Immigrant Songs may adapt and relay your story through narration and/or publish your submitted audio recording, in whole or in excerpts, in a video podcast on YouTube, including a podcast that earns revenue. Permission includes publishing the voices in the submitted recording. You confirm that you have the rights and permissions needed to authorize these uses, including permission to publish any other person’s recorded voice. Permission is non-exclusive, and ownership remains with the respective rights holders. No payment is promised. We may edit for length and clarity without changing the meaning and will use your chosen publication credit.
You may withdraw this permission before publication or request removal of a published video from our YouTube channel by emailing immigrantsongs@yahoo.com. We cannot remove copies, clips, downloads, or caches held by others. This permission also lets us contact you about a possible interview; you do not have to participate. The optional YouTube permission covers your submitted audio. Recording a new interview or publishing your image or that interview requires a separate agreement.
Privacy notice
Immigrant Songs is responsible for this collection. Contact immigrantsongs@yahoo.com with questions or requests to access, correct, delete your submission, or withdraw unpublished-story permission.
We collect the details you provide about yourself and, where applicable, the person whose story you share, any audio file you choose to submit and its transcript, your submission permission, your optional YouTube video podcast permission, the consent wording version, and the submission date. These will be used to review stories, communicate with contributors, and document publication permissions. Written submissions and consent records will be stored in a private Cloudflare database; audio files will be stored in private Cloudflare file storage. Access will be limited to the organizer and specifically authorized collaborators. New-submission alerts, including written story text and any notes submitted with audio, may also be delivered to the organizer’s Yahoo email inbox. Audio files are accessed through the private review page. Cloudflare and Yahoo process these notifications. Cloudflare will process website requests and anti-spam checks; information may be processed outside your country.
This website uses no analytics, advertising, or external fonts.