To My Daughter, From Mom

By Nandiniy Velayudhan-Dhamrait

My daughter, you were 16 when I finally told you the whole of our immigrant story, how I came to the ‘land of the free’ on a Delta plane without enough money to afford an American fast food joint. How your dad was deported because when he lost his job, he lost his visa, and how I waited here with you in my belly until he found a job ticket into America to bring him back to you, me, America, freedom.

My daughter, do you remember your aunty Swati who would only marry an American man for his green card ticket out of India, or your two cousins Pardeep and Vijay, who tried to escape India through the wheel bay of a British Airways plane?

You ask who Vijay is—he froze to death before he reached the freedom of the UK that his brother did.

The things our family will do for freedom, hope, the things that I will do for your freedom, freedom of the American dream. But still, day after day,

I look at you to remind myself of why I stay in this country despite everyone here and my own mind telling us to go back to where we came from. My daughter, my immigrant story is for you. I will brave oceans for you, raise a mountain for you, murder a nation for you, and you will never know because you are not here to carry your parent’s pains, because I expect you to carry dreams, because that is what this world will expect from you too it is why you are in America, it is why they call you the first generation and not the daughter of your immigrant parents.

I built the American dream for you with my bare hands, so take our culture, our tongue, our food, our clothes, our celebrations, and throw them in the trash if you want, but do not forget my story, because it is yours as well.