Another immigrant story

I don't even claim to fully understand the extent of the discrimination and the anguish immigrants and their families recently affected have gone through. It is beyond my imagination. To be denied entry into your home must be the worst form of humiliation. And fear. And then to be shot, killed, become victims of hate crime! But I am an optimist and keep hoping that things will only get better from here.

In the light of this, I share a snippet of my own immigrant story. I do not even claim to equate the horrors of my story and the stories of people who were detained or were recent victims of hate crime. I have never suffered the horror and humiliation of refusal to entry, have never had a gun pointed at me, and pray that I never do. My purpose of sharing this personal story is to show solidarity among the immigrant community. Because specific immigrant experiences made me hardy, putting a thick cover on my skin and an extra spine while teaching me to let go of shame and self-doubt. And because although we are all a part of the tight-knit immigrant community, no two immigrant stories are the same.

I have been an immigrant since 2006. I moved to the US because I had heard great things about this country from other people, and I was mostly motivated to travel, see the world, go to a US university, and live independently. That was my basic agenda. I was 25 and believed that I had endless life possibilities (I still do). So despite vehement protests from the family, I said "okay goodbye see you!" and made a new home in an unknown country.

Between then and now, I have been severely affected by visa issues twice. I was working full-time both the time. As a result of this, I was forced to become unemployed and homeless twice. The first time, I was unemployed for eight months, homeless for five. The second time, I was unemployed for two months, homeless for two. For a single-earning member, it is like jumping off a cliff in the middle of the night in your pajamas and without a parachute, not knowing where and when you are going to land and if you are going to survive the fall. The sinking feeling of dread at the core of the stomach we talk about is a very real, bodily feeling I have experienced many times.

Both the times, the community jumped to help me, providing me shelter, food, a safe environment, a warm comforter, and love. I lived in different people's homes, in labs, at universities, sometimes sleeping on the couch, sometimes in my own room, but never in my car (though it was a real possibility too). Dozens of people leaped forward to take me home with them.

I had to leave the country. Twice. Never stayed illegally even for a day. Always came back legally. Both the times, some recommended getting hitched to a US citizen for reentry. Never contemplated doing such crazy shit. No self-respecting human should have to marry for need or convenience.

I was able to turn it around both the times.

The first exile was for five months. Went back to Kolkata. Had a blast. Came back to do a PhD with full scholarship in a great school. My life got even better.

The second exile was longer. Two years precisely. Moved to Germany. Had a blast. Traveled all over Europe. Came back as a tenure-track faculty.

Being an immigrant has taught me resilience. It has been a mental and bodily exercise to let go of the shame, embrace the uncertainty, and take whatever life offers. I hope that I do not have to leave a third time, but I am always prepared. It's like a fire drill one gets used to. With every move, I learnt to pack my bags more quickly than the last time. And I always figured how to find my way back. Because while Kolkata is home, this is home too. Homes do not depend on the country of birth or citizenship.

All said, I know that I still come from a position of privilege. If it ever comes to me going bankrupt and on the streets, I have a pretty good Plan B. I can always go back to living with the parents. There will always be free lodging, free food, plenty of love, and I am sure I can find a job too. That's a great backup plan to have. Not all immigrants have that Plan B.

The immigrant resilience should never be underestimated. Many who live in their privileged bubble and never have to deal with immigration issues have no clue what it feels like. 

I look forward to hearing other immigrant stories of courage. Because stories are powerful. Stories build human connections. Stories bind us together, especially during times of hardship. And because no two immigrant stories are the same. Please drop me a line if you write and publish your story.

sunshine

A Conference in Chicago- 6

This time in Chicago, I decided to skip the touristy things (because I already did them last August), and have a more local experience instead. I was staying in a beautiful neighborhood of Lincoln Park, resplendent with parks, walking trails, lakes, greenery, pubs, and restaurants. I started exploring one new restaurant every day, and walking a lot. The bus connectivity is great too, and entry to the Lincoln Park Zoo is free. Every day, I took a new street and continued to walk in a new direction. I did this for a week, and it felt like I had already lived there forever.

The other day, I stepped out to buy fruits and vegetables in a bid to eat healthy, and ended up discovering an Indian restaurant. People who know me well know my obsession with eating biryani. So instead of apples and bananas, I ended up having biryani that day.

The other highlight of my trip was meeting my PhD adviser. One of the brightest people I know, I am fortunate to have been mentored by him. It is interesting how our mentor-mentee relationship evolved over the last five years. Back then, I used to seek his permission, his approval for everything, and my biggest reason of worry was how to do well in a class exam. Five years later, I have realized that exams and grades do not matter, and I do not need his approval. I already have it.

He used to often tell me many useful things, one of which was that he is training me to be his colleague, his equal. I chatted with him for hours at the conference that day, and it was an invigorating, one-on-one discussion. I shared my new research ideas with him, and he did the same. Looks like a German-US collaboration might be on the cards. He promised to visit me in Deutschland soon.

On a different note, a hilarious thing happened at the conference. I was sitting in a room, waiting for the presentations to start. As I looked around, I saw someone I had been introduced to yesterday sitting behind me. I waved and smiled, and she smiled back, a little reluctantly. Ignoring the cue, I started making small talk. At some point, my eyes fell on her name tag, and to my horror, I realized that I was speaking with a stranger. But she did look like the person I met yesterday. And before you tag me borderline racist, let me assure you that it's not just the Asians I get confused about. Often, I get confused between Whites or Blacks who look alike.

Looks like this is not the only embarrassing faux pas moment I had at this conference.

I totally missed seeing an old acquaintance professor as we were crossing the road. It was not until he started calling out my name that I realized this. We crossed the road coming from opposite directions, and I looked at him and looked past him, lost in my thoughts. He was nice enough to stall me and spend a few minutes asking how I am and what I am doing now. It was all the more embarrassing because he is a really famous guy, and the dean of a school.

I met someone, and spent a good few minutes telling them how hard the German language is and how things do not make sense, until they told me that they are from Germany.

But this one takes the cake.

In Germany, when you are at a restaurant and need to use the restroom, you usually open a door that leads to a passage with another door, and then you see the Ladies room and the Gents room. Either that schema was stuck in my head, or I was plain unmindful. I went out for lunch with a colleague. When he rose to use the restroom, I followed him too. He took a left, and so did I. He opened the door. I was probably far enough that he did not notice me following him. I held the door and entered inside before it shut on my face. I never read the sign on the door. I should have. And I should have taken the right door, not the left. I was in the men’s restroom! Those few seconds turned out to be the longest seconds of my life.

Conference talks. Meeting my adviser. Procuring biryani. Taking long walks in unknown roads. Taking in the sights and smells of a vibrant city. Gazing at the turquoise waters of Lake Michigan. Meeting the only friend I have in Chicago, and spending the next 24 hours eating nothing but dozens of idlis and bowls of sambar she made for me. Running to catch a Metra train, with two minutes to go, Kajol in DDLJ style. Listening to live music at the hostel every night as I fell asleep. And conceptualizing two new research studies while listening to others presenting.

That is pretty much a summary of my 10-day long Chicago trip.

I headed to Seattle next, to spend a month working at the university there. And traveling some more.

sunshine

A Conference in Chicago- 2

I love living in hostels. My first hostel stay was in 2009 (Hawaii). After that, I had some pretty interesting experiences in Paris, Portugal, Puerto Rico, and now Chicago. It is a wonderful way to be surrounded by action, and see a constant flux of faces from different parts of the world. And I absolutely love hopping onto a bunk bed and sleeping high above ground level. It reminds me of traveling in long-distance trains in India.

The following day, I had breakfast with a bunch of Europeans and Brazilians who are backpacking around the world. The interesting stories they shared abound. There is always a dude with the guitar, sitting by the porch in the evening and singing his heart out. And a bunch of nicely dressed people partying and drinking beer. Since I was jetlagged, I was falling asleep by 7 pm. So my first night in Chicago, I fell asleep listening to some live music right outside my room.

I'll prefer staying with strangers in a nice hostel any day to staying alone in a luxurious hotel.

An old man boarded the bus the next day with some difficulty. He wore a nice beret cap, formal clothes, and a walking stick. He walked slowly to find a seat. The nearest seat was occupied by a man, who was too busy browsing on his phone to look up. Grandpa took the opposite seat, behind the driver.

I was watching him from the back, awash with a sense of sadness. Why were old people left to walk alone and board public transit on the busy streets of Chicago? Why didn't he have company? Whenever I see old people, I wonder if my life will also look like this not too many decades down the line. A few stops later, the young man was still on his phone, too busy to look up.

As the bus left a particular stop, grandpa got up to get off at the next one. Suddenly, a cab pulled up from nowhere in front of the bus, and the driver had to brake hard. I am shuddering to write about it, reliving the memory again. Everyone lost their balance momentarily, and we heard a loud thud. Grandpa had fallen flat on the floor. The noise reverberated loudly, and it was so loud that my mouth went dry. I don't know what grandpa felt, but that noise made me dizzy. I know that thud from childhood, when my own grandpa had slipped in the bathroom, had a cerebral stroke, and never quite recovered after that. It was the first day of the year in 1990.

A bunch of men rushed to help grandpa up. His glasses were gone, cap had fallen, and he had that disoriented, helpless look on his face that would move you to tears. I held on to the rod tight, watching him as tears stung my eyes. It was no one but the cab driver's fault, but of all the people who could be hurt, grandpa got hurt. I kept wondering, why did his family leave him to navigate the busy streets alone. Old age looks so much like childhood. Just that in childhood, your parents and elders and the entire world is smitten by you. In old age, the parents are gone, and no one else cares.

"Are you alright, sir?", people asked him.

"I don't know. I guess that I will know the pain tonight", said grandpa in a painful voice. There were no visible signs of injury, but that fall was bad. The bus moved to a corner and stopped. Grandpa thought that his stop is here. He started to get up again. He was visibly embarrassed and confused.

The driver made an announcement. He said that he cannot let the old man leave like this, and he had to call the doctor. So it would take a while, and everybody is welcome to wait, or get on the next bus, and they would not have to pay bus fare again. Everyone nodded and understood and started to get off. Grandpa protested, saying that he was going to the church and he would be late and he felt alright. But the driver insisted that he could not let him go without making sure that grandpa was alright. Most people wished him well or touched his arm before getting off the bus and disappearing into the crowded streets of Downtown Chicago.

In less than 5 minutes, I had witnessed two thought provoking things. First, what the scary picture of old age looks like. Second, what good citizenship looks like. I don't know if the driver did it out of humanity, rules, or the fear of being sued, but he did the right thing. And hats off to grandpa, who still goes on with his life, attending the church and traveling in buses. And for me, it leaves me so much to reflect on. I might have a thousand things in life that are not perfect right now (okay, make that a hundred), but I am sound, physically and mentally, and do not have to depend on anyone. If I don't feel like driving or taking the bus, I can walk, jog, and sprint. I do not forget things easily, and am usually not ailing or in pain. But these are the perks of being my age. Things will only go downhill from here.

And thus, I spent my third jet lagged night being alert and awake, hoping that grandpa was sleeping soundly, and was not in pain.

sunshine

A Conference in Chicago- 1

Coming home

Six months after leaving the US, I went back to attend a conference last April. The familiarity of everything American dawned on me at the airport, even before I had left the German soil. I had traveled to four other countries in between, two Asian, and two European. However, none of them involved such an elaborate screening and security check process.

An airline official was ready with a long list of questions at the airport. Am I a terrorist? Am I carrying illegal substances with me? Have I received any unknown package from anyone at the airport? Instead of getting perturbed, I started to re-realize that I am indeed going to the US. I went through this for eight years, and something felt very familiar and strangely reassuring about it. 

There was a final point at the airport after I had checked in my bag and gone through security clearance. There was another security checkpoint near the gate. I was traveling with a German colleague, and interestingly, he was allowed to skip that last security check, while they asked me to go through security once more. They even patted me all over this time. I don’t even have to guess why the colleague was allowed to go and I was not.

It was an eight-hour long flight to EWR, followed by another shorter flight to ORD. Things were uneventful during the flight. As we took off, I looked below and strangely, did not feel even an iota of sadness about being away for 1.5 months. For a brief second, I wondered if I should feel anything at all, but let go. It is what it is, and emotions can rarely be forced.

The food was horrible, cold, and bland, the chicken rubbery, and the cutlery all plastic. I knew that I was definitely flying an American airline (On a different note, the best food I have had is while flying Emirates and Turkish Airlines. The last time I flew Turkish, they served an eggplant preparation. I have never tasted a better eggplant preparation before!).

Immigration at EWR was easy-peasy. The officer greeted me in German, and I told him that I understood no German. He checked my documents, asked me why I was here, and that was it. When I said that I used to live in the US, he even added, “Welcome back, and enjoy your stay.”

My next aim was to find a power socket. I suddenly realized that I needed no adaptor (I have to use the American to European adapter in Germany; my laptop is from the US). The power cord fit in perfectly. It was symbolic. It felt like I was back at a place where I fit in perfectly.

Being unlost in translation gave me a high. Suddenly, I could understand every announcement, every small talk people around me made, could navigate around machines and ATMs, and did not have to use the "Translate to English" features anymore. I needed to buy a ticket, and my credit card worked perfectly, not protesting a bit. After using cash for the last six months, I was back to swiping my credit card. These little things gave me a certain comfort that came from the familiarity of how to navigate around and get work done (for example, I have two medical bills in my bag right now, and I have no idea what they say, and if both of them say identical things. So I will wait until Monday to ask a colleague to translate all of that for me. I am of course back in Germany now).

Anyway, back to Chicago. I flagged a cab to take me to my hostel. I was so happy to hear fluent English that I start chatting up. Cab drivers make excellent people for conversation anyway, since they meet so many people on a daily basis. And this one sure was one of the most interesting ones. When not driving cabs, he spends his free time reading about the brain. And learning Deutsche at the nearby cultural center (I was too quick to ask, "Why on earth?"). He told me about the neocortex in the brain, neural network, why old people become forgetful, why people are afraid of studying science, and a bunch of other interesting theories of his. He was from Russia, and knew that New Delhi is the political capital, Mumbai the commercial capital, and Calcutta is the cultural capital of India. I was almost tempted to ask him to have dinner with me, so that I could continue to listen to him. Just listen to him speak interesting things in a language I understood. That is the extent to which I had missed hearing English.

Much later, while dropping dead out of exhaustion in my room did I realize that in my excitement to talk, I did not ask for a receipt. I never got reimbursed for that ride.

sunshine