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Giorgio Laurent!, 33, worked for his Italian family's thriving manufacturing concern in Milan before deciding that his future lay in the U.S. With his German-born wife Iris, Countess zu Dohna-Lauck, 28, he moved to New York in 1974 and started a real estate investment concern that grossed nearly $10 million last year and may double that sum this year. Most of his business is with fellow Europeans. Laurenti's scholarly partner, Roberto Riva, 38, was born in Peru of Italian ancestry, earned his degrees in Italy, owned a prosperous oil trading company in Houston and decided to settle permanently in the U.S. Says Laurenti: "Here you get rewarded for your merits, not for what your father has done." Michael Garstin, 29, a British-born London School of Economics graduate, came to the U.S. in 1974 as a trainee with the Chase Manhattan Bank. Says he: "I wanted to be nearer the source of power." His Scottish girlfriend, Annemarie Cairns, also 29, had a good job in a London public relations firm and did not initially share Michael's enthusiasm for New York when they married two years ago. While Michael is an up-and-coming executive at the bank, Annemarie has started her own public relations agency; after only seven months, it is already in the black. Says she: "You can't be weak-spirited in America. It can be very encouraging but very ruthless." On a personal note, she adds: "I can't help being charged here. My senses are heightened and I'm continually on edge. I keep saying, 'Wow! Is this really happening?' " Jacques Murphy, 46, notwithstanding his surname, is a French-descended Quebecois whose family has lived in Canada for five generations. Last September Monsieur Murphy and his wife Pierrette, also 46, loaded their two children and household belongings into two cars for the 1,654-mile trip from Montreal to Hollywood, Fla. Murphy had sold his insurance brokerage business, an office building and their house. The reasons for their departure, according to Murphy, were increasing governmental intervention in business, a flat economy and the prospect of Quebec's secession. In Florida, the Murphys became owners of a 26-unit motel and apartment complex on the heavily traveled north-south Interstate AlA. They paid $100,000 for the place, spent more than $40,000 to refurbish it from reception room to flagstaff, which now flies the Maple Leaf and the blue and white Quebec flag, along with the Stars and Stripes. With an eye to fellow emigres from Quebec, Murphy has ordered a sign saying PARLONS FRANçAIS. Quand même, the Murphys insist they want to become Americans and "live the American way."
Philip Wong, 35, was executive vice president of a supermarket and department-store chain in Jamaica and owned three Chinese restaurants and a food-packaging plant. He, his American-born wife Barbara, 28, their two children and nine of his ten brothers and sisters came to the U.S. to escape the threatening political climate and lawless atmosphere of Jamaica. Wong has a highly successful Chinese-Polynesian restaurant in the Miami Omni International complex, feels that the U.S. is "the last bastion of democracy and free enterprise."