Sharon Xu lived in Beijing for many years, working as the Finance Manager in an American commerce company while raising her two sons together with her husband. Life was prosperous and joyous. However, every year in the winter, her two sons would always get sick with the flu as well as respiratory inflammations, which when serious enough, would send them to the hospital. The health of her children worried Xu.
“ I was so tired of going back and forth between the office and clinic, so I started to look for a place to relocate my family,” she said.
vacation. But it turned out to be relatively easy for Chinese elementary school students to adapt to the English language and the American culture.
Xu was unemployed in United States, but instead participated in charity and community events, which broadened her life. She also encouraged her children to venture outside of school to get to know the American culture.
“ My circle of friends has increased since I moved to the United States due to all the volunteering,” she said.
Considering her husband’ s career development, the Xu family in 2007 decided it would be best for Xu to take the two sons and apply for the EB-5 immigrant investor visa and move to the United States while her husband stayed in China. Upon hearing suggestions by the immigration agent about investment projects, Xu set her heart on the Philadelphia Expo Center expansion plan managed by CanAm. She believed that public construction projects were very dependable, which might also be why the other 243 immigrant investor applicants joined the project. In 2009, she received her temporary green card and was able to move.
In total, they injected $ 122 million into the Philadelphia Expo Center, not only creating 3,000 jobs, but also giving the center a new look. All of the investors and their families have already received their permanent green cards and after the maturity of their five-year contracts in 2014, they received their $ 500,000 repayment. Xu happily states that, in the beginning when she filed to be an immigrant investor, she understood that this investment capital carried a risk. After having prepared mentally to accept the risk, she did not expect to be repaid.
After immigrating to Southern California, Xu started volunteering at her sons’ elementary schools. Every year during the Chinese New Year, she would hold an introduction session about Chinese culture for the whole school and also helped at bake sales and PTA fundraising events. Due to the increased volume of new immigrants coming from China, Xu, and a few of her good friends, organized an inter-school Chinese PTA to help new immigrant families understand the American educational system.
Before coming to the United States, Xu heard the American elementary and middle school load was relatively light. However, in good school districts, which have a high ratio of East Asian heritage students, the study load seemed to be the same as in China, she said.
Her sons started out taking English as Second Language classes. In order to quickly enter the normal track of classes, they completed optional courses during winter
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