VOA常速英语: 被解雇的美国绿卡持有人在疫情期间艰难生活

After obtaining a diversity visa also known as the green card lottery, Eric Alamsha came to the US from indonesia at the end of 2019 with his wife Sari and two children. He used to work in the IT sector for eight years in the indonesian capital Jakarta, but even with extensive work experience he still has not been able to find a full-time job. Out of all the applications I sent whether retail or other jobs in the IT field, I only get call backs from essential jobs like in the pharmacies, grocery stores and home improvement stores. Maybe I have to put my search on hold to find the other IT jobs. In the meantime just to get by Alamsha is working as a cashier at a home depot store, a hardware outlet in the state of maryland. It's considered an essential business that's still operating in the middle of the pandemic.

Vina Agnesia was also a green card lottery winner from Indonesia. She took leave from her final year as a dentistry student in Padang on the island of Sumatra to move to new york city by herself at the end of 2019. With no college degree nor work experience Agnesia found it difficult to find a full-time job. She worked part-time as a server in a Japanese restaurant for a few months until it was closed due to the lockdown. She found herself unemployed in the US at the epicenter of a pandemic in one of the most expensive cities in the world. My parents are worried about me not only because of the coronavirus but financially as well, because I'm unemployed they are worried thinking how I can get by and then I told them don't worry. I'm legal here so I'm eligible to get government assistance. The assistance she's referring to is the 1200 dollars stimulus check as well as the pandemic unemployment assistance. Under the PUA Agnesia receives about 600 every week which she uses to pay rent, utilities, food and transportation while searching for work. Meanwhile the Alamsha family remains optimistic about living a new life in America in the midst of uncertainties. We came here for our children, for our children's education. We have already made our decision, so we have to go through it no matter what. I just hope things will get better. The Alamsha family and Agnesia are some of about 55,000 people that come to the US. Every year through the green card lottery many of them now just trying to survive. In Maryland Fina Muttaidi VOA news