Luck of the Draw
I have been having a debate with myself over whether Aymene Hamdi’s story is a “park story.” It’s not the usual kind of thing I write about here. But at a time when every day, the news is filled with fresh horrors about illegal deportations and efforts to vilify immigrants, his story feels important.
Hamdi grew. up in Setif, Algeria, the youngest son of three. His mom was a stay-at-home mom, his father who was a supervisor of the town’s transit center. When he was in college he heard about a long-shot route to legal entry to the United State: the Diversity Visa Program The program gives people from countries with historically low immigration rates to the Unites States the chance to obtain U.S. green cards or permanent residence through a random lottery. Only 55,000 people worldwide are admitted under the program each year.
Hamdi applied in 2012. No luck. He tried again in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017. “Every year, I would think about it non-stop, like this is my year,” he recalls. He was working as a teacher, thinking about moving to France to get a master’s degree in English when in 2018, his luck finally turned. He won the lottery — one of 2,897 Algerians randomly picked from a pool of 229,410 applicants, according to US State Department statistics. (In his first term Trump said he wanted to end the lottery program. It hasn’t been included in the current anti-immigration measures, and amazingly, despite having the word “Diversity” in its title, it has so far escaped the DEI butchers of DOGE. )
Hamdi arrived in San Francisco “with just a backpack and like 1,500 bucks.” He didn’t know anyone, unless you count the fellow Algerian he’d connected with through Facebook who agreed to sublet him in a room in his apartment.
As Hamdi shared his story, I couldn’t help but think of all the others who have made a similar journey to San Francisco over the past 175 years. The park, like the city, was built and has thrived on the labor, skills and creativity of immigrants. As Rec and Park spokesman Daniel Montes notes, “His path, though unconventional, is undeniably San Francisco: an immigrant arriving with nothing, building a new life, and finding not only a home but a purpose.”
Hamdi had taught French and English at home. But “coming here you have to adapt,” he says. “So I got into the security business, and that was like my first job. And honestly, I grow fond of it because I felt like giving the sense of safety to people, people needing you and appreciating your work, that made me really like it and want to expand in it.” Over five years he worked at various places – guarding parking lots, tech companies and St. Ignatius High School. The money was better than anything he could make in Algeria, and he was glad to be able to help his family.
In 2023, he saw a job listing by Rec and Park for park rangers. He’d been looking for public safety jobs but in most cases, first responders are required to be citizens. Rec and Park is the only city agency without that requirement. (“While rangers are considered law enforcement, the position doesn’t require citizenship because it’s in a separate job classification than a police officer,” Montes explained.)
Hamdi loved the idea of being outside in parks; already he was in the habit of taking daily walks in Golden Gate Park. “So seeing the listing, it was like God made it for me to see.”
After a lengthy hiring process including a written exam, an in-person interview, and physical test, Hamdi was hired in 2024, along with seven others. Once again, he beat the odds: in the past two years only 5 percent of those who have applied to be rangers won positions.
While advancing his career, Hamdi was also working toward finalizing his citizenship status. As luck would have it, both efforts culminated in ceremonies on the same momentous day.
On the morning of February 26, he joined more than 1,000 other immigrants from all corners of the world at the Paramount Theater in Oakland for their naturalization ceremony. “It was one of the most exciting things ever,” he says.
And that afternoon was his graduation from the Ranger Academy. He raced across the bridge to get to the Randall Museum in time to join his fellow Academy graduates for the ceremony.
To get “two really good things, good things that rarely happen to people and to have them happen on the same day was surreal,” he says. “I’m definitely going to celebrating [that day] every year.”
After seven weeks of field training, Hamdi began patrolling the parks on his own in late March. Even though he’s on graveyard shift, he loves the work. “Getting paid to help people in different ways is the most rewarding thing ever.”
“I feel like really fortunate to be able to come to the [U.S] the way I did,” says Hamdi, now 32. “I know not a lot of people have this chance, but I just believe that people how the right to make their life better. It's not a matter of how you come here, but as long as you come here for the right reasons, that what counts for me, I came here with a goal of making a better life for me, making a better life for my family.
“I come from a country where there is not a lot of opportunities…What I did in the past five years, and probably the last year I couldn't have done back home for 50 years. If somebody told me this before I came here that, ‘hey, this is where you're going to end up,’ I will be telling them ‘you're lying,’ I don’t think I’m ever going to be leaving this job.“
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I was interviewed yesterday for a fantastic show Roll Over Easy on the community radio station BFF.fm, every Thursday morning from 7:30-9:30. Hosts Sequoia and The Early Bird go all over the city in search of “the people and places that give the City its character. Our hope is that by the end of the show you'll be a bit more knowledgeable about the City, and be a bit more in love with it too.” They set up their portable recording studio — ie. three lawn chairs, a laptop, mics and earphones, a folding table and coffee thermoses — in the middle of JFK Promenade and we spent 45 minutes talking about the park, amidst an ongoing stream of people running, walking and cycling by. At one point Phil Ginsburg came jogging past us. It was tons of fun. I think the interview will eventually be available online. Meanwhile, check out some of their other recent shows, like their trip to the new Sunset Dunes park, or their morning with a birder in Salesforce Park, which, they were surprised to learn, is a terrific spot to see native birds.
Great piece.
I appreciated this story, Susan. In a time when so much is overwhelming, it feels good to hear about something sweet happening to someone, something good.