The perfect life for typical US immigrants is multifaceted, encompassing a blend of personal achievements, cultural integration, and a raw boldness to chase and pursue their dreams.
Joseph Brian Kierulf and his wife Salve, both Filipino educators now teaching in Chicago’s public schools are one such couple of immigrants.
The couple plowed over vicissitudes of life, struggling but committed to spending their professional years mentoring Filipino children in Cebu despite long hours and meager salaries. Two years ago, however, Joseph and Salve were recruited by Chicago Public Schools to augment the shortage of teachers in the city’s 630 schools. They came with some 100 other educators selected to teach SPED, math and sciences.
The husband-and-wife Cebuano teachers are now experiencing the full benefits of solid teaching immersion and grateful for the opportunities yet to come for professional advancement in their fields. Joseph is licensed to teach special education in the US. Back where he taught for 6 years in Bulacao National High School in Cebu, he handled guidance counseling and Spanish, aside from special education. His wife is credentialed for special education as well and is now on her second year teaching at Edward K. Duke Ellington Elem. School.
For Joseph and Salve, the journey to the US as teachers was fraught with fear and apprehension. While they easily sailed through the layers of interviews and teaching demos in the Philippines, the prospect of reaching America for the first time was an entirely challenging episode: funds had to be raised for visas and travel expenses for a family of 3 (daughter Eliana Amarise is 5 years old) as well as for food, rent, health and utilities and local transportation. Riding out culture shock, language barriers, intimidating lifestyles, deviant social conventions and especially racial discrimination could be so daunting. And the legendary brutal Chicago winters! The family arrived in July 2024, ever so thankful that it was summertime.
The new recruits barely had a month before the start of classes to get settled in Chicago. They embarked on a major search for schools that need their specific talents and skills. While everyone had gone under prior serious vetting and professional evaluations, the new teachers had to apply yet to schools and seek interviews upon arrival, to be considered for teaching posts.
Joseph’s wife Salve was the authorized primary J-1 visa holder. She was fortunate enough to land a teaching post immediately but Joseph had to apply for work authorization yet as a dependent. While waiting for the okay to work Joseph felt anxious and concerned; pride was starting to vex him; role of husband and father lurked strongly in his mind. He was supposed to be the primary provider! Focused on finding immediate employment, Joseph prepared himself for any job, any job at all.
Once his authorization to work was released by the government, he sent out many applications and requests for interview. It proved to be a long and frustrating stretch. Meantime, he attended to their daughter in kindergarten at Horace Greely Elementary School and ran the home front while Salve taught full time.
For Joseph, this job-hunting phase triggered anxiety, short of desperation. He needed to act, and fast. He was done with online applications and virtual interviews. He mustered the nerve to personally seek a meeting with the principal of Horace Greely Elementary School where his daughter was enrolled. This was Joseph at his grittiest and moxiest form ever.
The first meeting was fuzzy at best. He didn’t have any idea how to progress his mission and was increasingly getting edgy by the day. The principal accommodated him with a couple more meetings where Joseph impressed the school official with his determination and tenacity. He shared his teaching experiences, his credentials in guidance counseling and special education and his pending application for a teaching license.
Eventually, Joseph was hired. “Thrilled” did not quite approximate how he felt, especially since he could finally teach, take to and fetch his daughter from the same school at the same time. Joseph admits he is now at the cusp of the American Dream he has heard so much about.
Joseph and Salve’s journey into teaching in the US began with an inspiring call from a great aunt in Louisiana who urged the couple to explore what she reported as recruitment of teachers for Alaska. This was followed by many attendant functions and activities, and great many more vicissitudes in life that Joseph and Salve managed to overcome.
Nowadays, the Kierulf family has settled more comfortably in their Chicago life. Daughter Eliana has blended beautifully in her diverse kinder class and her parents are working at jobs that they love and do best. When uprooted from their Cebu home, the Kierulfs were fortunate to come to the US at once as a family, escaping the usual many social problems resulting from distance factors and loneliness. Theirs was a bold, risky move that paid off well.
Connie Triggiano is currently Board Secretary of Circa-Pintig, a Chicago community theater organization. She works as Academic and English tutor assisting foreign students to pass IELTS, TOEFL, Celpic, ESL and other English exams to gain admission to universities in English speaking countries. She also trains greencard holders to pass US citizenship exams and interview. She worked for many years as Vice-President of Chicago-based Leo Burnett Advertising in its Manila office where she managed the advertising accounts of the country’s biggest brands: Procter & Gamble, Pepsi Cola International, BPI, Vicks, Wyeth and Cathay Pacific. She edited a travel newspaper in Singapore and taught college freshmen in a local university. Connie graduated with a BA degree, major in English, from the University of San Francisco in California while working as an information officer for a United Way agency. She took up MS in Advertising at the Asian Institute for the Development of Advertising, UST Graduate School.
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