On Sunday I flew to Sweden, a direct flight from JFK airport NYC to Arlanda airport near Stockholm. I don't sleep on planes so near the end of the flight I was in the galley in the back of the plane talking to a couple who were flying to visit home.
Johan and Alma are emigres from Sweden. They came to the United States in 2002 and setup a towing business in Vail, Colorado. Johan made a thriving business rescuing the cars of stranded skiers traveling to the Colorado mountains. They liked America and in 2010 applied for citizenship. That became a thirteen-year ordeal interrupted by COVID.
Their daughter Emilia was flying with them. She was three when they arrived in America. She went to a local preschool the following year and told her mother she would never go back to that school. "Everyone speaks Finnish at that school. Nobody speaks Swedish," she said. Alma assured her they were speaking English and she would soon learn. The family spoke Swedish at home, but Emilia and her brother were fluent in English quickly.
The family moved to Jupiter, Florida, just before the COVID epidemic. Both Alma and Johan had bad cases of COVID but recovered and last year finally became American citizens. This is their first trip to Sweden since becoming Americans. Johan said he will be happy if he never sees snow again. Alma still likes seasons.
The family has dual citizenship and breezed past those of us who are not EU citizens in the customs line. I waited ninety minutes for the first stamp in my new passport. When I got impatient, I remembered the customs lines I walk past when returning to America.
After I arrived, I ran into immigrants to Sweden from around the world. At the airport train station, I got coffee from a women in a lavender hijab. The next evening I got a pizza made by a Kenyan. The following morning I got coffee from a woman from India.
In the parts of the world that are free, immigration and emigration runs in every direction. People pursue the life they want to the ends of the earth. On the other hand, no one is trying to immigrate to Russia, North Korea or almost any country ruled by religious dictators. Freedom is its own reward.
