If opposition to chain migration, like that recently espoused by Donald Trump, had been active in the 20th Century, I wouldn't exist.
My maternal grandparents, Nicholas and Elizabeth Boytim, came to this country as a nuclear family. Indeed, they brought their infant daughter Ann with them. But the Petrovskys and Mahuskys, despite having lived only about 25 miles apart in the old country (AKA Carpathian Mountains), didn't get here as a unit. Indeed, they didn't even become a unit until a few years after they'd arrived.
Grandfather Joseph (Petrovsky) saw Grandmother Elizabeth (nee Mahusky) walking along Braddock Avenue with the cousin who'd sponsored her. After they married, Joseph and Elizabeth in turn sponsored one of Elizabeth's cousins, my "uncle" Mike Mahusky.
Joseph and Elizabeth helped other immigrants, whether or not those folks were part of the family "chain". From what are now Hungary, the Slovak Republic, and Ukraine, people came to southwestern Pennsylvania with the help of my paternal grandparents.
The state, and our country, are better because of them.
