FROM THERE TO HERE

Five immigrant families discuss their move to the United States ZHIJIAN YE & SHINGHUA DING

While I’ve lived in American suburbs my whole life, my parents grew up in rural parts of the Zhejiang province in China. My dad’s father was a government employee and worked in the next town over. I never got to know him, as he passed away when my dad was in middle school. Although their family never went hungry, they had to work constantly for basic needs. Eventually, my dad’s mother, my nai nai, started working in the village-owned community farm to make more money to support their five children.

My mom’s parents were elementary and middle school teachers, and they moved towns a few times when she was young when her father, my wai gong, became the principal of different schools. He taught math and art while his wife, my wai po, taught Chinese and music.

For middle and high school, my mom went to a larger school in a bigger town, a lower-level city that’s now larger than Columbia, with teachers who came from different places. Some were sent from cities like Shanghai to teach in the rural area after China’s Cultural Revolution. She lived in a dorm with bunk beds with other girls and liked to sleep on the top bunk. For meals, each student had a tin container to put raw rice and water in; everyone carved their names into them since they looked the same, but sometimes they still got lost. The kitchen would steam the rice and the students later came back to it for lunch.

When kids go to college in China, they don’t have four years to build up GPAs or extracurriculars like in the U.S. Instead, they have one chance to take a series of subject tests called gao kao in a few days. This was very important, as colleges selected students solely based on these scores at that time. My mom was a good student and did well in gao kao.

“[My school] recommended me to go to three schools, and I [could] go to any of those three because they gave me priority,” she said. “I picked the one that’s farthest away from home because I wanted to go

to far places. I guess I didn’t get a lot of chances to go to other places. [I] just wanted to go farther, then I [could] explore.” My mom ended up going to her top pick, Wuhan University, in 1987. Her first choice for a major was Epidemiology, but she didn’t get picked for it. She ended up studying Information Technology, though she didn’t know much about the major. I asked if she was disappointed she didn’t get her first choice. “Not really. To be honest, a lot of kids didn’t know, because back then, we were not exposed to so many things like you guys,” she said. “Choices were much more limited back then, because [there was a] big population of students, and only so many colleges back then. There are definitely more choices nowadays in China.” My dad also did well on gao kao; in fact, only three people in his STORY BY SARAH DING / ART BY SARAH DING

grade were accepted by universities. He was second in his class and went to the Zhejiang University of Technology, a great achievement, he said, because enrollment rates at that time were very low. His classmates who didn’t get into college had to retake their tests the next year, or even a third or fourth year later. My dad was a little older than 16 years old when he arrived on campus in 1982.

His major was called Microbiology Engineering, which had to do with fermentation and making alcohol. Like my mom, my dad didn’t have much of a thought process when choosing his area of study.

“At that time,” he said, “you don’t care, because as long as you can go to college, that’s very good already, so no matter what kind of major, you just go.”

One key event in China’s history was the Cultural Revolution launched by Communist leader Mao Zedong in 1966, during which he shut down the nation’s schools. Because of this, my dad’s three older sisters have stayed in the rural village while he and his brother, the two youngest siblings, went to college.

“[My sisters were] just not very lucky at that time because they are older than us,” he said. “So when we got to middle school in 1976 ⁠— the Cultural Revolution [ended] in 1967 ⁠— they were already old and missed that opportunity, already. Otherwise, they maybe could also go to college.”

After college, some of my dad’s peers went to work at beer factories. He decided to instead earn his master’s degree and later became a professor at Zhejiang University, one of China’s most prestigious colleges. A mutual friend introduced him and my mom, who worked as a librarian there. They married a year later. I always wondered why they didn’t have any wedding photos when I was younger, but not many people had big weddings in China back then. They went to dinner with friends and family, instead. My wai po gifted them rustic gold wedding bands, which have since been switched out for my mom’s thin, diamond encrusted ring, but I have the old bands tucked away in safekeeping. My dad decided to pursue a PhD at University at Buffalo—SUNY in the United States in 1993. My mom stayed in China for six more months while she was waiting for her visa.

When she moved to the U.S., her visa still didn’t allow her to work officially, so she babysat to make some extra money. My dad’s stipend was very little ⁠— $800 per month. They shared a two-bedroom apartment with another couple. I asked my mom if it was strange making such a big move.

“No, it wasn’t weird, because that was considered a privilege, a very good thing; not a lot of people got to come,” she said. “So, things have changed in the past 20 years, when it was back then. So, if someone’s going to America to attend school and find a job, that’s a really good thing, people would envy you.”

Then, my sister, Sam, was born in 1996. With my dad already being a full-time student and my mom preparing to earn her MBA, also at the University of Buffalo, they decided my wai gong and wai po back in Hangzhou would have to take care of her until they graduated. My dad took her back to China when she was almost one year old. They couldn’t visit Sam because their visa status meant they risked not being able to return to the U.S.

They wrote letters to Sam and sent clothes. My dad’s brother came to the U.S. on a business trip one time and showed them recordings of her. She came back to Buffalo about three years later.

“I think she was excited, coming back. Wai gong [and] wai po came with her so she didn’t feel like she’s going to a new place all by herself,” my mom said. “But she did have this one issue, because she didn’t like riding in the car ... she [didn’t] like the smell. So I had to give her some perfume to hold under her nose every time.”

Sam mostly spoke Chinese, but my parents taught her English, along with other skills like going to the bathroom and reading to get her ready for daycare. They could also now receive food stamps and Medicaid for kids. Wai gong and wai po, who were retired, stayed with them for a year to help take care of Sam and transition her to the new environment.

My parents graduated around the same time and moved to Haddon Township, New Jersey, but they both worked in Philadelphia, about a 40-minute drive away. My dad did postdoctoral research in a lab at Jefferson University and then UPenn, and my mom did temporary work until she found a permanent job as a financial analyst at a law firm. They made more money at their new jobs, and in fact, they didn’t qualify for food stamps when I was born in 2002.

It’s weird to think about how different my parents’ upbringing was from my own. I see my dad’s experiences I’ve never had to go through in his words and values, such as when he tells me to finish every last bite of my dinner even if I’m full, or how he pushes me to work hard at school to secure my future. I didn’t understand these things when I was younger and why it was important to know Chinese culture if we were living in America.

I still wonder if I had tried just a little harder to learn Chinese when I was younger if I would know the language better now, and be able to speak to my relatives better like my sister can. I have unresolved fears and sadness about my connection to my heritage and wondered if my parents shared these, but I see they accept me as I am. “I think you probably know more about Chinese than you realize. Sometimes you probably feel too self conscious about speaking, that gets in your way. If you don’t worry about how you speak, how people would react, then you can probably speak better,” my mom said. “Next time we go to China, you can try to talk in Chinese more. You’ll be surprised how fast you improve. Because like when we went back in the past, after a week, you can actually speak pretty well. So, don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”

I’m still in my youth and have plenty of time to learn more Chinese, my parents said. I should put aside my fears and move forward. A good first step is to keep having conversations like these.

SHYAMALA RAMESH & NOEL RAMESH ALOYSIUS

Although I claim to be more knowledgeable about Sri Lanka than my younger sister because I was born in Sri Lanka and she was born in the U.S., most of my so-called experience comes through the eyes of my parents. Fondly referring to our homeland as the pearl of the Indian ocean, both spent the majority of their lives across the globe, later moving to the U.S. in 2006, just two years after I was born.

My mom was born in Jaffna, a city off the northern coast of the island. She is a middle child, with one older sister and one younger brother, and grew up loving the seafood that came with living so close to the Indian ocean. My dad was born in Negombo, a city off the southwestern coast, but moved to Jaffna months after he was born. Being the oldest of five kids, his childhood revolved around climbing palmyra trees and playing with his siblings. Both of my parents spent most of their early life within their tight-knit ethnic communities, growing up with their parents, siblings, extended family and neighbors.

My dad attended preliminary schooling in Jaffna, and continued his education through a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1993 at the University of Peradeniya. My mom also started school in Jaffna. Once she graduated from 12th grade, she attained a medical degree in Sri Lanka.

During my parents’ pursuit of higher education, their families met and organized an arranged marriage, leading to their engagement in 2002 and their marriage ceremony in 2003. My dad left Sri Lanka in 2005, one year after I was born, to study for his Master’s degree at the University of North Dakota. Rather than moving all at the same time, my mom and I moved to North Dakota in 2006 after my second birthday.

Although the language barrier seemed daunting, both my parents said they didn’t struggle with using and understanding English rather than Tamil, their mother tongue. They both used English in much of their higher education and primary and secondary school as well.

“In Sri Lanka, we grew up with our own ethnic group. We all spoke the same language, and had the same culture. Here, it was similar, so it felt like not that big of a difference besides the change in language,” my mom said. “But after you started going to school, we started seeing many people who didn’t share the same language with us, rather than the few we interacted with daily. Also, since we spoke [Tamil] at home, you were not able to pick up [English] that quickly.”

Once we picked up the language, adjusting to life in the U.S. also ran much smoother. My mom went on to say living here taught her some lessons she was unsure she would have learned in Sri Lanka.

“Once, I met this woman, maybe around 70 years old. She came to tennis courts to play pickleball,” she said. “I was astonished because back home in Sri Lanka, after living to 60 or 65, we stop outdoor activities and we just sit at home and enjoy the rest of our life ... Since then, I always remembered that here, you don’t need to stop trying new things or put yourself down even as you’re getting older.”

Both my parents said they were grateful for the opportunities in the U.S. for our family. My dad said there was more accountability for a person’s actions, rather than reliance on family, but it came with the benefits of more freedom overall.

“It was very difficult to open a checking account as a graduate engineer at a certain bank in Sri Lanka,” he said. “Even with my income as a graduate engineer, the bank would ask, ‘why do you need a checking account, what kind of business do you do, why can’t you manage with a savings account.’ Here, in my first week, a bank manager would say, yes, I’ll give you a savings account, a checking account, but you need to make sure you learn how to manage your money.’”

In Sri Lanka, there are large ethnic inequalities. The majority of people there are from the Sinhalese ethnic group, while the Tamil community my parents grew up in are a portion of the minority. The Sinhalese held prejudices against the Tamil people, and did not provide fair or equal opportunities for them in terms of employment and general welfare. This led to a 26-year civil war beginning in 1983, where the youngest generation of Sri Lankan Tamils fought to attain equal rights, or a separation of state from the Sinhalese. My dad was not an exception from these cultural inequalities. “However hard you worked, it was difficult to climb up with promotions,” he said. “In my first year in college when I went for my internship, my senior manager, who was Tamil, told me that after almost 25 years of commitment to his career, he was still just a deputy general manager. His juniors, who are from the majority, got all the promotions and were at the same status as him. At that moment I decided I would not become another person like him 25 years later, who was just upset and complained about his situation. So, here I am.” Despite the hardships, my parents have never attempted to conceal their love for our home country. They both encourage my sister and me to embrace our cultural identities through language, family and food. My dad’s never-ending trove of stories about his childhood never fails to depict what my life would’ve been like if I grew up in Sri Lanka, but he also reminds me of the abundance of paths I can pursue in the U.S. “You’ve got to be creative. You have to work hard and be on top of things in order to be successful here,” he said. “But even though there are all sorts of issues here, too, if you work hard, I don’t think anybody can stop you from thriving.” STORY BY ANJALI NOEL RAMESH / ART BY ANJALI NOEL RAMESH / PHOTOS COURTESY OF ANJALI NOEL RAMESH

MANISHA JAIN & SANDEEP GAUTAM

I’m the daughter of two immigrants who navigated a system built against them to come to the U.S. Neither ever knew they wanted to leave their home country, but they always wanted to have the best life they could. My parents grew up in Delhi, India and went to Maulana Azad Medical College in the city. After marrying, they lived in a hostel while working. My mom was studying for the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) test, and my dad aimed to be a cardiologist. After about one year, they decided to move from their home country,

“I moved to the U.S. because I didn’t think I had as many avenues of success in India and was frustrated by the practice environment,” my dad said. “I wanted to do cardiology, and I wasn’t sure if I would make enough money there.”

They mostly moved because of opportunities for my dad. My mother didn’t think the same as him — she was close to her family and didn’t want to leave. Still, she stuck with my dad.

“We had nothing to lose or to gain,” she said. “We thought about corruption and lack of support. But at that time, everyone was leaving. Either they were coming to the U.S. or the U.K.”

For my parents, the biggest choice was deciding where to go.

“We were going to the U.K, because some of my friends were going and your visa wouldn’t be rejected there,” my dad said. “But then another friend, Krishnan, said people who did medicine went to the U.S. and people who did surgery went to the U.K.”

They made their decision based on just that. My parents had gone through medical school and to them, the U.S. was the way to go.

“It’s all peer pressure,” my mom said. “We wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for [Krishnan].”

In order to come to the U.S., a medical graduate had to take the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). To take it, one had to go to Bangkok or Manilla, and my dad chose Bangkok.

“Your dad had just received some more money and our options were to either get a car or have him take the USMLE,” my mom said. “A U.S. visa for us wasn’t a guarantee either, so it was a gamble.”

My dad ran out of money in Bangkok but still booked a flight back home to Delhi. After passing the test in 1999, my parents flew to Baltimore to my dad’s first U.S. job. Their apartment was in the middle of the city, on the 23rd floor of Charles Tower. My mom stayed at home, since she hadn’t taken the USMLE and couldn’t practice as a doctor. My dad worked in his residency, taking long shifts.

“I would [go to the top] of the 30 floors, and think ‘oh god, where did I end up,’” my mom said. “And I would wait for your dad to come home after working for 24 hours.” My dad said he remembers how lonely my mom was at home studying for the USMLE. My dad promised her if she took the test, he would save up money for her to go home in India. She did, and when she came back, she still missed home. “When I was in India, I never even left the house for a night. But, then I came here. And on the 23rd floor you can imagine how homesick I was,” my mom said. “I would call home so much. Phone calls were 55 cents per call, and our phone bill was $200. Our rent was $540. We used to get Blockbuster credit because of how much I spent on calls.”

They furnished the house with a mattress and a small black table with four chairs. My dad remembers he got a TV for my mom; it was $50 with a single antenna, and they would mess around with it only to get a bad signal. But my dad felt happier here in the U.S. It became apparent the move was the right choice for him. “I liked what I was doing, and I felt that professionally

I was more satisfied,” he said. “The biggest challenge was your mummy was home alone most of the time, and she missed India a lot.”

My parents moved out of that apartment after a short time, and they still remember the people who helped them out in the beginning. They moved to Baltimore because

my mom was in contact with a few people there, but it was the community around them that supported my parents, such as my dad’s co-resident who lent her car for his driving test. My parents used to travel to meet people they knew, such as those who also went to their medical school. Mostly, driving was their escape. “Every night, when [your mom and I] could, we would drive around for fun. The first time we went to New Jersey, we found an Indian channel on the radio. Your mom went crazy,” my dad said. “We didn’t have the GPS so we used to have a map open, and [your mom] would always give the wrong directions.” My mom retorted she gave those directions on purpose. They would go to places that reminded them of their home — my parents watched Bollywood movies together, and my mom liked to go to Niagara Falls because they had Indian food. It was my parents’ way of trying to make the U.S more familiar. “We used to watch movies on Chotti Diwali, [an Indian holiday], because new movies would come out in theaters then,” my mom said. “Once, everyone in [your dad’s] residency program watched it with us together. They cursed us out later because of how long it was.” My parents laughed over these small moments, but my mom kept coming back to tell me they didn’t know how life was going to work out. She had a hard time putting how she felt at the time into words. “You can’t really say anything about events that didn’t even happen or choices you never made,” my mom said. “There’s so much struggle, so you just don’t realize what’s happening in the first few years.” Looking back, it may have seemed like a spontaneous decision, but it was rooted in a want for a better life. They both have built a second home here, yet their attachment to the world they grew up in will never cease. My parents consider their life in India as the one that is truly theirs, seemingly separate from the struggles they had in the U.S. “Overall, we feel that emigration was a good decision for us. We have no regrets,” my dad said. “Regardless, we would prefer to move back to our home country after retirement.” 14 STORY BY SHRUTI GAUTAM / ART BY SHRUTI GAUTAM / PHOTO COURTESY OF SHRUTI GAUTAM

I’ve witnessed firsthand the conflicting, bittersweet emotions that come with leaving behind an old country and life, even if it’s in exchange for a better one. In 2000, my mother and father moved from their hometown in Caracas, Venezuela to Miami, Florida on a work visa. While my mom was grateful to leave Caracas in hopes of a safer place to live and start a family, she also struggled for years with homesickness, especially as Venezuela entered a humanitarian crisis.

I was born three years after my parents immigrated to the U.S, but as long as I can remember, Venezuelan culture was deeply ingrained into every aspect of my upbringing, perhaps more so than American culture. I grew up in a predominantly Venezuelan neighborhood of Miami, surrounded by children of Latin American immigrants like me. I spoke only Spanish for the first years of my life, and we took trips to Caracas every holiday. For every American tradition, we celebrated the Hispanic version instead; we waited for el niño Jesús instead of Santa Claus and el Ratón Pérez instead of the tooth fairy.

My mother tells me now her emphasis on keeping me connected to my heritage was, in some ways, a coping mechanism for her homesickness. By recreating the feeling of being in Venezuela as closely as possible for my brother and me, she was trying to bring a sense of her country back into our lives to make America feel more like home.

“Especially at the beginning, I was pushing to get that sense of home back,” my mom said. “I learned to cook meals that I never even liked when I was in Venezuela just to have the smell of those foods in my house again and have it feel more like home. I tried many things, like trying to keep visiting and keep my kids connecting with their grandparents. But later I realized that the idea of ‘home’ comes from within me, not in Venezuela or in a house smelling like particular food.”

Over the years, my mom developed a complicated relationship with Venezuela, as the worsening living conditions there turned Caracas into a painful memory for her. Because of corruption and mismanagement under the current government, Venezuela spiraled into chaos. Food, medicine and other basic supplies have become nearly impossible to find, which increased death rates and spurred outbreaks of easily treatable diseases. Homicide rates in Caracas are now among the highest of any country in the world, and President Nicolás Maduro has descended into complete authoritarianism, censoring free press, staging illegitimate elections and imprisoning political opponents to stay in power. For all these reasons, our visits to Venezuela became less frequent as I grew older. Whenever we did visit, we were coming back to a country we no longer recognized, as most of our family and friends fled the country and immigrated to wherever they could get a visa; some went to Spain, some to the U.S. and some even as far away as Korea. By 2010, we no longer visited Caracas anymore — we likely never will again.

“We ended up visiting a country that didn’t feel like home anymore. It was really weird, because the places were so familiar but nobody was there anymore,” my mom said. “It was a really uncertain feeling of not knowing where your country, your family is anymore. That affected my attachment to Venezuela in a negative way. It felt like a painful place with a lot of missing people. It was heartbreaking.”

My mom learned to derive the feeling of ‘home’ from other places. In 2015, my family moved from Miami to Palo Alto, California. The move greatly distanced us from the Venezuelan-American community I’d grown up in, and it was a major step out of our comfort zones. But my mom made an effort to engage with this new community as much as possible. She started focusing on her career again after a long hiatus, taking a job at Stanford University she fell in love with. She reached out to other Latin American moms at my school and ended up meeting some of the best friends she’s ever had. And since moving to Columbia last fall, my mom looks back on her time in Miami and Palo Alto as fondly as she would on her old life in Caracas.

“Just as I’ve learned to appreciate those memories that I chose to keep from Venezuela, I now choose to keep from my time in Miami and California, and hopefully from my time in Missouri,” she said. “It’s like I’ve been connecting memories and traditions and friends from all those places, and I keep them as close to my heart as Venezuela once was. So I feel ‘home’ has been moving and changing along with me.”

Despite all of the time we’ve spent away from Miami and Venezuela and the happiness my mom eventually found in the U.S, she never stopped speaking to us in Spanish, cooking us Venezuelan dishes and trying to keep us connected to our culture. But now, it’s no longer because she feels homesick. She does it because through these traditions, she formed a deeper connection with my brother and me, which is what’s most important to her.

“I’m Venezuelan; I couldn’t have raised a family any other kind of way,” she said. “So no matter what, my family and kids are a reflection of my Venezuelan identity and they feel close to me because I was close to them. That could’ve happened anywhere in the world. And today, my kids are my home. That’s what home means to me.”

Touria El Joual, my mom, grew up in Rabat, one of Morocco’s four imperial cities. As a descendent of Moulay Idrissi, a late king of Morocco, she spent the early years of her life living in the palace in Dar al-Makhzen. Her blood is royal, and you’d know it based on a first impression. She can balance books atop her head while she runs in heels, and her diction demands the attention of everyone in the room.

She sounds intimidating, but my mom’s enthusiasm for life is infectious. She never fails to find joy, even in the most trivial parts of life. She hums while she does the dishes, speaks sweetly to house pets and savors every sip of her coffee. She laughs easily and smiles even more easily. Her hair glows a deep purple in the sun, and her feet are quick to find the rhythm of a song.

Hearing about my mother’s life growing up, I realized how strongly her personality is rooted in her community. Moroccans live by the saying “it takes a village to raise a child” — it seems everyone is deeply involved in each other’s lives, and the simple, polite conversation Americans engage in is something she’s never understood.

“No matter how hard life is, it’s still going to be a good life,” she said. “You develop a relationship with so many people, and for better or worse you always have a community of people behind you.”

When my grandfather collected his marriage certificate, the civil officer who knew of him proposed he change his last name from Ben mokhtar, “chosen,” to El Jaoual, “the traveler.” His children, my mom and her five siblings, wear this name today.

“I remember when I was very little, people would call me little Ahmed after my father; I looked just like him,” she said.

My mom recalls my grandfather’s beautiful deep complexion, high cheekbones and big bright eyes, but elaborates that his best quality was his curiosity — he was a man driven by wonder and the excitement of new experiences. Before starting a family, he rarely stayed in one spot for long. He traveled to every corner of Morocco and even fought in the resistance against the French. When he returned home from his galivants, the community would gather around him as he told his outlandish stories until the sun set.At the age of four, my mom lost her father to cancer.

“My mom was amazing, she raised six kids on her own. It was extremely hard for her, she was only in her thirties when she lost her husband,” she said. “She had many opportunities to remarry but she dedicated her life to her children. Her entire life was dedicated to taking care of us. I feel guilty sometimes.”

Across the street from her house was her elementary school. Since Morocco does not have the resources to provide public education to everyone, they only provide the best performing students with a completely free education through college. At the end of each school year, students take a pass or fail exam that decides whether they move on with education. If students fail the exam they have one more chance to repeat the grade. If they fail again, no more school for them. “It was common for us to work and work, only coming up for air when we noticed the sunrise creeping through the window,” she said. “But we always had fun. People there don’t get stressed out easily, they prefer to enjoy their journey.”

My mom passed the baccalaureate with flying colors and graduated top of her class. She was even featured in the local newspaper.

“My mom was so proud of me,” she said. “I was the first of my siblings to pass.” She continued at Mohammed V University, where she earned a degree in plant science. “My neighborhood threw me a giant party, by the time I got home there were people spilling out from the courtyard and into the street,” she said. “I could barely get back in the house.”

She chose to keep studying in the U.S. on a scholarship. My mom recalls how intimidated she was by American education.

“I told myself, ‘how am I going to keep up with Americans?’ America has a great reputation in the world in terms of science. Americans sent people to the moon!’” she said.

These thoughts consumed her during her first class, but she soon learned she had nothing to be worried about. Her classes became conversations with her professors; the work ethic and love for the little things she developed in Morocco became her saving grace. One thing my mom misses is the warmth of the community.

“I don’t think therapists in Morocco are doing well. There is always somebody in your family, extended family, neighbours or friends that is available to listen to your worries and problems and be genuinely interested and concerned about you,” she said. “In America, I like freedom. Nobody cares! But also nobody cares about you! People live kind of alone. I find that sad.”

She moved on to earn her masters and doctorate in plant and soil sciences, and currently works as a university professor teaching her passion. “What I like about my job is what all academics like, freedom,” she said. After all, her name does mean “the traveler.”