Airman fulfills 'the American dream'

  • Published
  • By Capt. Brus E. Vidal
  • 376th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
MANAS AIR BASE, Kyrgyzstan (AFPN) --  She is of Bulgarian descent, her last name is Irish and she picked up English as her fifth language.

Although Senior Airman Deliana Kelly, of the 376th Mission Support Group, has lived in the United States for less than five years, she feels she is the living, breathing embodiment of “the American dream.”

The dream began in 1990 when her parents, who sought refuge from a life of poverty in Bulgaria, applied for an American green card.

Once Airman Kelly and her sister, Valentina, turned 18, they also began applying for green cards. And finally, after nearly a decade of trying, a member of the Kizirian family was selected in the green card lottery -- Deliana Kizirian. But after watching her parents apply for a green card for so many years, the moment was truly bittersweet.

“I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I wasn’t entirely happy because I realized I had to come to the (United States) by myself and leave my family behind,” she said.

Despite her mixed emotions, she also knew this was an opportunity to realize the family dream, so she said she took the biggest step of her young life and came to the United States.

When she arrived in June 1999, she had to start building her life from scratch. She knew only one person already here who lived in Los Angeles.

In the 18 months she lived in Los Angeles, she changed jobs four times. Her career path started as a clerk at a convenience store. She then worked at a department store for two months and took another job before landing a job as an accounts receivable assistant at an international business.

“It was a nice change from the retail business, but I soon found out that the company was not making as much as it was spending,” she said. “About six months after I started working there, I was told not to come to work the next day because the company was ‘shutting down,’ in the words of the owner.”

So, in October 2000, she once again looked in the newspapers and an Air Force recruiting advertisement caught her attention.

Airman Kelly joined the Air Force under the delayed enlistment program and left for basic training in January 2001.

Ultimately, her decision to join the American military also led to the fulfillment of yet another major dream, to become an American citizen. On July 3, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the executive order that expedited naturalization of aliens and noncitizen nationals serving on active duty during the war on terrorism.

Rather than waiting the mandatory five years after receiving a green card just to apply for citizenship, she automatically became a U.S. citizen.

Growing up in Bulgaria, along with her ability to quickly learn languages, is now serving her well here, Airman Kelly said. She is fluent in both Russian, which the locals speak, and English. She studied English for only one year before coming to America. She also studied French and Armenian and was enrolled in a Bulgarian law school. All of those studies translated into college credits and she is now well on her way to a bachelor’s degree in management and human resources.

Receiving her college degree will be yet another dream fulfilled, but Airman Kelly said she has one more major dream she hopes to fulfill.

“I want to bring my parents to America in July so they can witness a re-creation of my wedding vows,” she said.

Airman Kelly and her husband, Sean, who she met in a bookstore as they were browsing for similar titles, did not have a formal wedding ceremony. On her one-year wedding anniversary, she hopes to include her parents in that dream.

To date, her life has been a series of fulfilled dreams, and she feels this is an opportunity to thank her parents for encouraging her to chase those dreams and show them first-hand that she is, indeed, the living embodiment of “the American dream.”

“I did it for my family -- I didn’t want to disappoint them. Knowing how much I have achieved in such short period of time makes them very proud,” she said. “Also, being able to be there with me, on my wedding day, will make them very happy.

“All my achievements mean a lot to me as well but again, I could not have done it without the moral support my family gave me,” she said. “So I thank them for that.”