First Days Project
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  • SHAAN JAGTIANI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Salwa, Kuwait and arrived in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2018.
    TANIA CUSNIR'S FIRST DAY
    I left Bogota, Colombia and arrived in New York City, New York in 1998.
    JUAN MALDONADO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Tegucigalpa, Honduras and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 2014.
    SUN PAIK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Seoul, Korea, Republic Of and arrived in College Park, Maryland in 1982.
    KOMAL SHAFIQUE'S FIRST DAY
    I left Rawalpindi, Pakistan and arrived in Mesa, Arizona in 2016.
    TAYYABA SABIR'S FIRST DAY
    I left Taxila, Pakistan and arrived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 2015.
    ATASHI ACHARYA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Bombay, India and arrived in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1967.
    YOUSEF KHAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Peshawar, Pakistan and arrived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 2015.
    SHUKLA SARKAR'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kolkata, India and arrived in Washington, District of Columbia in 1972.
    SRIRAM K'S FIRST DAY
    I left Madras (now Chennai), India and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1987.
    RAJ MOHAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember because Halloween. When I came, everyone was wearing costume. I never knew of this before because in India we never celebrated. So, when I came, I was confused. I thought all Americans were like this. ‘Weird’, I was thinking (laughter)."
    FIRST DAY
    I left Gujarat, India and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1999.
    RUT PATEL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Anand, Gujarat, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2009.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Bangalore, India and arrived in New York City, New York in 1969.
    PRIYA MANI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Mumbai, India and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1995.
    SARDAR SOHI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Shimla, India and arrived in San Francisco, California in 1959.
    RAJKAMAL BHATTI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Toronto, Canada and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 2000.
    FAWZIA AFZAL-KHAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I also didn’t realize how much I’d miss my native land, my parents, my friends, my music, as I carved out a life so far away."
    SONA G'S FIRST DAY
    "It’s okay if you don't fit in, just be yourself and eventually it works out."
    PG RAJAN'S FIRST DAY
    "But we were able to get whatever we wanted, in all spheres, in food, living habits, spiritually, culturally with programs, friends, music; everything was slowly coming up."
    PRISCILA SOTO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Barranquilla, Colombia and arrived in Freehold, New Jersey in 2013.
    BINA DARA'S FIRST DAY
    "So that I think was the hardest for me; not having family close by was hard."
    SARADA M'S FIRST DAY
    "Oh, absolutely. This is home. I don't know any other place."
    LATHA RAMDAS' FIRST DAY
    I left Mysore, India and arrived in Houston, Texas in 1983.
    FIRST DAY
    "In those days, I think South Asians were more proud of being “Americanized,” whereas now, South Asians are really proud of their own culture and they are not ashamed of being from India."
    BHARAT RAVAL'S FIRST DAY
    I left London, Canada and arrived in Houston, Texas in 1983.
    SARLA BHONSLE'S FIRST DAY
    " I almost had a heart attack because I thought that they were going on the wrong side of the street because in India, like in Britain, they drive on the left side. So that was my first thought."
    BHUVANA K'S FIRST DAY
    "I felt like I came to know myself only after coming to America."
    ARINDAM C'S FIRST DAY
    I left Bangalore, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1994.
    SULEKHA SOMASEKHAR ALATH PUTHENVEETIL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Pondicherry, India and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 2000.
    RANJANA VADHVA BEDI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Toronto, Canada and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1978.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Congo, Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The and arrived in Manchester , New Hampshire in 2015.
    SUPRIYA RAMANATHAN'S FIRST DAY
    "Having a place of my own, a car of my own, being independent. Being my own person and doing whatever it is I wanted to do, with full responsibility for my actions without having sort of a safety net or somebody to check on me or be worried about me. "
    POONAM GULATI SALHOTRA'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in Norristown, Pennsylvania in 1972.
    LAKSHMY PARAMESWARAN'S FIRST DAY
    "When I left, I was wearing a silk sari and I was all full of smiles; when I arrived here, my sari was in tatters and my shoes were biting, you know, the shoe bites, so my legs were full of sores. I couldn't even walk, I was limping. And I was practically in tears."
    RATHNA S'S FIRST DAY
    "The wealth of information I could get from a library was amazing. The librarians were very helpful. So I think that was my first thing, the learning experience in so many areas, fending for myself, going and discovering new things, some things that we were not exposed to [in India]."
    FIRST DAY
    I left Visakhapatnam, India and arrived in New York City, New York in 1976.
    R. PRASAD'S FIRST DAY
    "My non-Indian teachers, colleagues, friends, neighbors, and even strangers found these Indian clothes curiously interesting. In fact, a local newspaper, called Fargo Forum ran a feature spread in their Sunday interest section, displaying photographs of me around campus in my Indian clothing. The feature was titled 'They like their saris!'"
    SANJAY SUBBARAO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Bangalore, India and arrived in Long Beach, California in 2013.
    KRISHNA CHANDRASEKHAR'S FIRST DAY
    "Yes, I'm glad I was able to come to this country, it’s the land of opportunity, and I have progressed in my profession, much higher and better than I thought."
    CHITRA CHANDRASEKHAR'S FIRST DAY
    " I don't remember what I ate but I remember in the airport I got a cup of tea, and that was the first time I drank a cup of tea from a tea bag. It tasted so bad, I couldn't drink it."
    FIRST DAY
    I left Madras, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1965.
    GIRI G'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in New York City, New York in 1994.
    ARUNA TAILOR'S FIRST DAY
    I left Nairobi, Kenya and arrived in Hackensack , New Jersey in 1972.
    PATTABI NEELAKANTAN'S FIRST DAY
    " I couldn’t carry my bags in Port Authority and was surprised when a man grabbed my bags and started walking – I thought he would steal my bags, but he gave them to me, told me to have a good day and left."
    ISABELLA WALLER'S FIRST DAY
    I left Caracas, Venezuela and arrived in Miami, Florida in 2014.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Mexico City, Mexico and arrived in Waukegan, Illinois in 1975.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Beijing, China and arrived in Knxvoille, Tennessee in 2008.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Seoul, South Korea and arrived in San Fransisco, California in 1995.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Shanghai, China and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2002.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Hyderabad , India and arrived in Irving, Texas in 1999.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Hyderabad , India and arrived in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1991.
    ARVIND RAJAN'S FIRST DAY
    "In some ways, I felt more at home in the United States than I did back in India."
    NARAYANAN MURALIKRISHNAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I was married recently and I had just moved here without my wife. She couldn’t get a visa and being apart thousands of miles wasn't worth all that much to me."
    PADMINI BANERJEE'S FIRST DAY
    "Having spent my life in India, where you could not imagine the absence of sounds or people, this almost-silent but quaint lamp-lit storybook street in Zurich for me became my emblem, my prototype, of this other world I had just entered."
    FIRST DAY
    I left Belgaum, Karnataka, India and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1983.
    PONNI SIVARAMAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Chennai, India and arrived in St. Louis, Missouri in 1978.
    FIRST DAY
    " I loved spelling and the spelling bee and I used to read the dictionary at that age. That's how I was able to learn the language with my sister."
    THOMAS ALLEN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Cochin, Kerala, India and arrived in New York City, New York in 2000.
    DARAGH MCMAHON'S FIRST DAY
    "And I’m like “oh my god, snow!”. And at that point in my life, I’ve only been in snow, I think, only twice. So just to see it again, and to know that— it’ll now be a yearly part of my life— it was just so exciting..."
    ZUHRA HUSSAINI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Hyderabad, India and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1986.
    SUDHA KRISHNAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in San Francisco, California in 2000.
    SUBHALAKSHMI PARMAR 'S FIRST DAY
    "I used to be a busy performer in Carnatic dancing, performing at least 50-60 performances each year. Nobody knew me here, and I struggled practicing on the fourth floor of my house, with neighbors who found it disturbing and annoying."
    SUBRAMANIAN KRISHNAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Bombay, India and arrived in New York City, New York in 1977.
    SATISH GUPTA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Bombay, India and arrived in New York , New York in 1972.
    FIRST DAY
    "That night, when I layed down to sleep- it all came to me. All this time I was excited thinking “I'm going to America, I'm going to America!” but that night I thought about my parents, my home, everything…"
    RAGHAV MALIK'S FIRST DAY
    "Looking back on that first day, and the events transpiring from that day, I can’t help but feel proud and blessed. "
    ARVIND PANSURIYA'S FIRST DAY
    "Every single thing amazed us: the streets, the ocean, the spread-out shops and restaurants, the crossroads etc."
    FIRST DAY
    "My parents were so called helicopter parents who took care of me for everything, and coming here, taking care of myself, paying the bills, studying for the exams, cooking for myself, it was a challenge."
    SIDDESH SRIDHAR'S FIRST DAY
    "So that's the thing. I was surprised. I wasn't nervous, really? I was definitely kind of excited, but not like 'jumping with joy'. I was excited, but I think I was surprised, and I think it's related to where the country was at the time. "
    SARAVANAN KANNAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Chennai , India and arrived in Atlanta, Georgia in 1998.
    FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1990.
    C. MOHAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I’ve been very happy about the fact that I risked coming to the US as a student without financial assistance."
    FIRST DAY
    "The streets were covered with graffiti, the drive home was filled with traffic, people were cursing at each other in the airport, and everything looked very unorganized."
    FIRST DAY
    I left Chennai, , India and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 2000.
    SEHRAN ALI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Karachi, Pakistan and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2015.
    VIPIN MEHTA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Mumbai, India and arrived in Cleveland, Ohio in 1969.
    RAHUL DIDDI'S FIRST DAY
    " In capitalism, it gives you a notion that you can, if you play your cards right, maybe you can grow to the skies, but actually very few can."
    NAVNEETH KANNAN'S FIRST DAY
    "So, my friends and I actually came up with this concept called “Earlier Flight Syndrome”, which is for some reason people who had come “earlier” felt that they were, one way or another, superior to people who had come later."
    KALPANA KANNAN'S FIRST DAY
    "There was an inherent pressure all my life that to go to America was to be something more and to stay back in India was even some type indication that you were not "good enough"."
    RUPA SHAH'S FIRST DAY
    I left Mumbai, India and arrived in Houston, Texas in 1982.
    MUNEEZA AGHA'S FIRST DAY
    I left London, England and arrived in Miami, Florida in 1985.
    DARSHNA SHAH'S FIRST DAY
    I left Vadodara, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1988.
    KRUPA SINGAMPALLI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Chennai, India and arrived in Toledo, Ohio in 1999.
    GIRISH BHAT'S FIRST DAY
    "And it turns that he was hanging around at the airport to recruit Indians coming fresh off the plane."
    VIJI RAMAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in New York, New York in 1975.
    JAY RAMAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in New York, New York in 1975.
    LAKSHMI KALAPATAPU'S FIRST DAY
    "In my first days, when I was walking in the park, people would say hi and start chatting with me."
    RAJAN RADHAKRISHNAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Chennai, India and arrived in New York, New York in 1993.
    CHAMPAK PANCHAL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Toronto, Canada and arrived in Houston, Texas in 1996.
    SISIR BISWAS' FIRST DAY
    I left Calcutta, India and arrived in New York, New York in 1969.
    ORPHEUS JOHN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kerala, India and arrived in Staten Island, New York in 2007.
    HARISH JAJOO'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1980.
    VENUGOPAL MENON'S FIRST DAY
    I left Edinburgh, Scotland and arrived in New York, New York in 1969.
    RATHI MENON'S FIRST DAY
    I left Singapore, Singapore and arrived in Houston, Texas in 2002.
    BRANDON SHAMIM'S FIRST DAY
    I left Lahore, Pakistan and arrived in Charleston, West Virginia in 1976.
    AISHA SIDDIQUI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Mecca, Saudi Arabia and arrived in Parkersburg, West Virginia in 1985.
    INDER SINGH RANDHAWA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Jalandhar, India and arrived in Houston, Texas in 1994.
    ZEESHAN VASAYA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Mumbai, India and arrived in Houston, Texas in 2004.
    CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI'S FIRST DAY
    "Being an immigrant helped me grow hugely. I got to know people of so many different backgrounds and cultures. I learned so much from them. I learned the ethics of hard work and the dignity of labor. For my first year in the US, I was working to save money to go to graduate school. I was working minimum pay jobs, but I always felt good about the fact that I was working and saving and being independent."
    PERIYANAN VADUGANATHAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left South London, England and arrived in Rochester, New York in 1991.
    NIRMALA GARIMELLA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Hyderabad, India and arrived in New York, New York in 1994.
    KUMAR BASHYAM'S FIRST DAY
    "I think being American is a state of mind. I cannot put it in a box. These are the attributes of being an American – respect, tolerance of religion, race, language, culture, and bringing around the best of what humankind can do. I do believe this is the week we are celebrating 50 years of space. Neil Armstrong said 'One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' That is an example of Americanism. Think mankind. It is not I."
    TONY SHEVLIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left London, United Kingdom and arrived in New York, New York in 1988.
    YARAN CUI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Chongqing, China and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2016.
    FRANCOISE DEPAUL MUSAFIRI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kinshasa , Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The and arrived in Federal Way, Washington in 2012.
    SHADRAK MUSAFIRI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kinshasa, Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The and arrived in Federal Way, Washington in 2012.
    EDITH OLGUIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Mexico City, Mexico and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 2007.
    GREGORIUS HANZEL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Jakarta, Indonesia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2017.
    SAM PARK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Seoul, South Korea and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2001.
    MASSIMILIANO CHIODO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Crema, Italy and arrived in Berkeley, California in 1989.
    NAY WIN NAING'S FIRST DAY
    I left Unknown, Thailand and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2010.
    ELENA MEDVEDEVA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Sakhalin Island, Russia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2001.
    THANA WITCHAWUT'S FIRST DAY
    I left Bangkok, Thailand and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2016.
    KIRARA NAGATSUKA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Tajimi, Japan and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2016.
    GEORGE FILIP'S FIRST DAY
    I left Cluj, Romania and arrived in Queens, New York in 2006.
    PATRICIA AMBRUS' FIRST DAY
    I left Caransebeș, Romania and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2007.
    SANCHIT SINGH'S FIRST DAY
    I left Hyderabad, India and arrived in San Francisco, California in 2014.
    JINMING ZHANG'S FIRST DAY
    I left Beijing, China and arrived in Houston, Texas in 2014.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Mexico City, Mexico and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1998.
    RAJIB KARMAKAR'S FIRST DAY
    I left Durgapur, India and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 2013.
    ASHA MISHRA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Mumbai, India and arrived in New York, New York in 1979.
    LINA LY'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1979.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and arrived in Kalispell, Montana in 2001.
    CHI-WEN SHIH'S FIRST DAY
    I left Taipei, Taiwan and arrived in Bloomington, Indiana in 1977.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Punjab, India and arrived in Milpitas, California in 1992.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Dhenkanal, India and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1993.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Mumbai, India and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1993.
    SHAHEEDA SHEIKH'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ahmedabad, India and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1981.
    JAE KIM'S FIRST DAY
    I left Seoul, South Korea and arrived in Syracuse, New York in 2012.
    SHOURYA JAIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Pune, India and arrived in St. Louis, Missouri in 2011.
    OSCAR RODRIGUEZ'S FIRST DAY
    I left Colima, Mexico and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1993.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Misthra, Gambia and arrived in Newark, New Jersey in 2003.
    YOUNIS AL-RIYAMI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Nizwa, Oman and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2017.
    ARNOLD PASIA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Manila, Philippines and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1998.
    BRIDGE HU'S FIRST DAY
    I left Beijing, China and arrived in Pinehurst, North Carolina in 2014.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Hong Kong, China and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1987.
    LIEN PHAM'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and arrived in San Francisco, California in 2014.
    LULU MCMANIGAL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Shanghai, China and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1996.
    ABEER HAWAMDEH'S FIRST DAY
    I left Amman, Jordan and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2015.
    RADHEY SINGHAL'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1962.
    TIM LUO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Beijing, China and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 2007.
    MICHELA RONZANI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Milan, Italy and arrived in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2005.
    WAI LAU'S FIRST DAY
    "I was very happy because it was the first time I traveled so far from Hong Kong."
    FIRST DAY
    I left Seoul, South Korea and arrived in Richmond, Virginia in 1975.
    ABELARDO BUSTILLO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Manila, Philippines and arrived in Buffalo, New York in 1962.
    BILAL SIJOK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Tripoli, Libya and arrived in Portland, Oregon in 2014.
    DARCY REES' FIRST DAY
    I left Adelaide, Australia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2018.
    NIKOLAY MELNIK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kurchatov, Russia and arrived in New York, New York in 2006.
    YOUNG VAUGHN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Seoul, South Korea and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1989.
    JáNOS SZANYI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Budapest, Hungary and arrived in College Station, Texas in 1987.
    TAMARA BENASSULI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Geneva, Switzerland and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2018.
    JACK MA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Guangzhou, China and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 2012.
    CINDY HUANG'S FIRST DAY
    I left Taipei , Taiwan and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2011.
    ALBERT CHE'S FIRST DAY
    "I didn’t realize until I got there that it was kind of in the middle of nowhere."
    NALINI JUTHANI'S FIRST DAY
    "I was confused and conflicted that I was entering a country where my identity was an Other."
    GODAN NAMBUDIRIPAD'S FIRST DAY
    I left Castlegar, Canada and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1972.
    JOYCE TENG'S FIRST DAY
    I left Shanghai, China and arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1989.
    NIKKI LEE'S FIRST DAY
    "In hindsight, we should have made more fuss but that's not how we were brought up."
    SHALIZEH PATEL'S FIRST DAY
    "Hello, my name is Ayla. I am 10 years old and I am the daughter of an immigrant."
    PINGALI MOHAN RAO'S FIRST DAY
    "I didn’t talk to my parents, it was too expensive to make international calls. We didn’t have internet back then of course. I would send postcards and my father would write me back."
    ANU RAO'S FIRST DAY
    "The main obstacle to assimilation is people’s attitudes. If they are hostile towards you, then you feel like an outsider. I was shielded because my new husband’s friends, the people I met volunteering at the hospital, and strangers everywhere were nice to me. Thanks to this, I was able to make myself part of the American scene."
    KAREN SMITH MONROE'S FIRST DAY
    I left Southhampton, England and arrived in Brooklyn, New York in 1968.
    SHARDA BADRI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Berbice, Guyana and arrived in Linden, New Jersey in 1976.
    MARY HUBBURD'S FIRST DAY
    I left Manila, Philippines and arrived in Seattle/Vancouver, Washington in 2010.
    HARRY SHEN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Nanjing, China and arrived in Tuscan, Arizona in 1990.
    DANICA GROAH'S FIRST DAY
    I left Frankfurt, Germany and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2006.
    ISABEL LOOMIS' FIRST DAY
    I left San Jose, Costa Rica and arrived in Washington, District of Columbia in 1951.
    BISHARA KHAROUFEH'S FIRST DAY
    I left Al Ahmadi, Kuwait and arrived in Lafayette, Louisiana in 1984.
    FIONA NJORORAI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Nairobi, Kenya and arrived in Dallas, Texas in 2006.
    CHYNA DEBOER'S FIRST DAY
    I left Manila , Philippines and arrived in Adna, Washington in 2008.
    YEN-WEN LIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Taipei, Taiwan and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 2009.
    FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in San Francisco, California in 1997.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Chennai, India and arrived in Houston, Texas in 2012.
    IMRAN KHAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kuwait, Kuwait and arrived in Buffalo, New York in 1999.
    MARIA VILLEGAS' FIRST DAY
    I left San Jose, Costa Rica and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2004.
    ANTONETTE 'TONI' DAYAO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Quezon City, Philippines and arrived in San Francisco, California in 1983.
    MINWOO YIM'S FIRST DAY
    I left Sydney, Australia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2017.
    VIVIAN CHEUNG'S FIRST DAY
    I left Hong Kong, Hong Kong and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2012.
    ANN CHEN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Battambang, Cambodia and arrived in San Francisco, California in 1979.
    KAISA RAUTIAINEN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Tampere, Finland and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 2002.
    PAULA PABUSTAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Manila, Philippines and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2009.
    VIVID LIU 'S FIRST DAY
    I left Taipei , Taiwan and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2015.
    ALVA LIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Hong Kong, Hong Kong and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2012.
    FADUMO MOHAMED'S FIRST DAY
    "I had a hard life previously, and I refuse to let that happen again here."
    PAULA LAMAS' FIRST DAY
    I left Caracas, Venezuela and arrived in Miami, Florida in 2003.
    ROSATHE (LOOR) UNDERWOOD'S FIRST DAY
    I left Portoviejo, Ecuador and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1991.
    AYALNESH WOLDETSADIK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2001.
    LAM TRAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Saigon, Vietnam and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2008.
    AMEER TALAL MAHMOOD'S FIRST DAY
    I left Karachi, Pakistan and arrived in Everett, Washington in 2013.
    MISHA GARG'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in New York, New York in 2008.
    FIRST DAY
    "I was twenty-two years old when I finally made it to freedom."
    FIRST DAY
    I left Bratunac, Bosnia and Herzegovina and arrived in New York, New York in 1999.
    ALEYSHA VAN DIJK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Amsterdam, Netherlands and arrived in New York, New York in 2006.
    NOOR ADAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Nairobi, Kenya and arrived in Tucson, Arizona in 2003.
    FERNANDO AGUIRRE'S FIRST DAY
    I left Gomez Palapio Durango, Mexico and arrived in Detroit, Michigan in 1997.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Vietnam, Vietnam and arrived in California, California in 1992.
    HAMZA ELHABBAL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Cairo, Egypt and arrived in New York, New York in 2006.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Havana , Cuba and arrived in Miami , Florida in 1978.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Havana, Cuba and arrived in Miami, Florida in 1978.
    SERAFIM SILVA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal and arrived in West Babylon, New York in 1973.
    MAHESH SUBRAMONY'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan in 1994.
    ROBERT FEDORUK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2000.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Istanbul, Turkey and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 2011.
    CLAIRE ELLINGER'S FIRST DAY
    I left Vienna, Austria and arrived in New York, New York in 1939.
    MAHMOUD ZUBEIDI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Amman, Jordan and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1974.
    MARIO GODOY-GONZALEZ'S FIRST DAY
    I left Santiago, Chile and arrived in Grand Coulee, Washington in 1993.
    MANDY SIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Hong Kong, China and arrived in Bellevue, Washington in 2002.
    CLAIRE KOMORI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Tokyo, Japan and arrived in Pasadena, California in 2014.
    SOFYA YURYEVA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Neftekamsk, Russia and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 2011.
    SILVIA CASSIANO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Guatemala City, Guatemala and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1966.
    GABRIELLE PLAIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Harrington Park, Australia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2015.
    ARY P.'S FIRST DAY
    I left Unknown, Indonesia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1994.
    ROSE GABONE'S FIRST DAY
    I left Mwanza, Tanzania, United Republic Of and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2007.
    JORGE JUARES' FIRST DAY
    I left Aguascalientes, Mexico and arrived in Tukwila, Washington in 2003.
    MICHAEL CHRISTIAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ahmedabad, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1998.
    VIKRANT GHATE'S FIRST DAY
    I left Nagpur, India and arrived in New York, New York in 2003.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Hyderabad, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2010.
    THIERNO DIALLO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Conakry, Guinea and arrived in Bronx, New York in 2014.
    JADE GERETY'S FIRST DAY
    I left Jing De Zhen, China and arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 2008.
    IRAKLIOS KOCANI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Tirana, Albania and arrived in Salem, Massachusetts in 2015.
    JAY ARAPI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Fier, Albania and arrived in New York, New York in 2008.
    FIRST DAY
    I left n/a, Puerto Rico and arrived in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 2009.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Praia, Cape Verde and arrived in Boston, Massachusetts in 2012.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Ahmedabad, India and arrived in Newark, New Jersey in 1990.
    AL-MURAD GILLANI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Karachi, Pakistan and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1978.
    JUNAID BUTT'S FIRST DAY
    I left Rawalpindi, Pakistan and arrived in New York, New York in 1996.
    AIMEN SALAM'S FIRST DAY
    I left Karachi, Pakistan and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2004.
    NEEL PATEL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ahmedabad, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2003.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Ahmedabad, India and arrived in Chicag, Illinois in 1992.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Karachi, Pakistan and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2000.
    RUJUTA DESPHANDE'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2015.
    RAJESHWARI MEENAKSHI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Chennai, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2007.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Mumbai, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2007.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Kochi, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1999.
    VIRGINIA SULLIVAN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Panama City, Panama and arrived in New Jersey Port, New Jersey in 1964.
    DOMINIC AMIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Nairobi, Kenya and arrived in Syracuse, New York in 2015.
    SALAT A'S FIRST DAY
    I left Garissa Country, Kenya and arrived in Syracuse, New York in 2006.
    B.P. RAO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Hyderabad, India and arrived in New York, New York in 1959.
    HAMZA ELHABBAL'S FIRST DAY
    "We thought it was amazing, but in reality it was a complete, you know, mess. It wasn’t really good."
    ARCHWYN TAAITHUAK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Bangkok, Thailand and arrived in New York, New York in 2013.
    HO PHI LE'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2015.
    TUIJA THATCHER'S FIRST DAY
    I left Tuusula, Finland and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1994.
    RAY ALBRECHT'S FIRST DAY
    I left Rotterdam, Netherlands and arrived in New York, New York in 1960.
    DULCE SIGüENZA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Oaxaca, Mexico and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2006.
    PHILIP LAM'S FIRST DAY
    I left Guangzhou (Canton), China and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1969.
    SALIFOU DAO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ivory Coast, Cote D'Ivoire and arrived in New York, New York in 2009.
    MARINELLE ROJO'S FIRST DAY
    "At that time, I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that I felt small."
    MANPREET DHALIWAL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Dera Bassi, Punjab, India and arrived in Pittsburgh, California in 1987.
    SHADIYA MANADATH'S FIRST DAY
    "The natural beauty surrounding me somehow made this foreign land feel more welcoming."
    ADDIS ABATE'S FIRST DAY
    I left Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2012.
    SUZANNE WOLFE'S FIRST DAY
    I left Shoreline, England and arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1984.
    PAKOU VANG'S FIRST DAY
    I left Lampang, Thailand and arrived in San Francisco, California in 1987.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Seoul, Korea, Republic Of and arrived in Tampa, Florida in 1984.
    JACQUELINE LEUNG'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kwai Chung, Hong Kong and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 2013.
    KETY B'S FIRST DAY
    I left Raanana, Israel and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2007.
    EDWIN VILLANUEVA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Manila, Philippines and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1990.
    ALICIA SPINNER'S FIRST DAY
    I left Monterrey, Mexico and arrived in San Francisco, California in 2000.
    RAELENE BUSHBECK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Melbourne, Australia and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2001.
    ALE FLORES' FIRST DAY
    I left Culiacán Sinaloa, Mexico and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2005.
    HAYDAR SARIBAS' FIRST DAY
    I left Istanbul, Turkey and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1990.
    FIRST DAY
    I left Nurnberg, Germany and arrived in Seatac, Washington in 1998.
    JESSICA LIN'S FIRST DAY
    I left Taipei, Taiwan and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2009.
    SIKEY VLAHOS' FIRST DAY
    I left Lamia, Greece and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 1971.
    JAWED AZIZI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kabul, Afghanistan and arrived in New York, New York in 2010.
    IVONNE JURADO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Quito, Ecuador and arrived in Seattle, Washington in 2000.
    SHAUN SIK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 2015.
    WILL NAZARENO'S FIRST DAY
    I left Cavite, Philippines and arrived in Diamond Bar, California in 2010.
    TATYANA SHTEFYUK'S FIRST DAY
    I left Kharkov, Ukraine and arrived in Portland, Oregon in 1998.
    ABE HADJAL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Béjaïa formerly Bougie, Algeria and arrived in Los Angeles, California in 1987.
    MARTIAL ONANA'S FIRST DAY
    "It’s big, big, big and everything is big."
    TEVY LARSEN'S FIRST DAY
    I left N/A, Cambodia and arrived in San Francisco, California in 1982.
    XIANGFEI MENG'S FIRST DAY
    "The decision to study here was made by me…"
    KARAN BEDI'S FIRST DAY
    I left New Delhi, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 2006.
    GIGI LEUNG'S FIRST DAY
    "My first day was actually really wonderful. I didn’t want to go back and change anything."
    PEDRAM SALAMATI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Tehran, Iran and arrived in Kent, Washington in 2014.
    MINI PAUL'S FIRST DAY
    I left Trivandrum, Kerala, India and arrived in Chicago, Illinois in 1993.
    SURENDRA CHIRRA'S FIRST DAY
    I left Madras, India and arrived in Queens, New York in 1991.
    ZAINUB HUSSAIN'S FIRST DAY
    "I hated the coffee, though I use to love coffee in Pakistan."
    SANJAI MASTER'S FIRST DAY
    "The entire car drive I was anxious to get out of the car and explore the different world surrounding me."
    PARDEEP GILL'S FIRST DAY
    "Then your dad said, 'If you crying day and night I’m going send you back do you want me to buy you a ticket?'"
    ROOPA GURM'S FIRST DAY
    "The America I had seen was all in the movies, so this was somewhat underwhelming."
    KOTEESWARAN GIRIPALPILLAI'S FIRST DAY
    "I was a little scared to think that this massive body would be able to fly!"
    KAMINI SHAH'S FIRST DAY
    "Even though it was a tough transition I have grown to love this country and would make the decision to move to America again."
    BHARAT KOTHARI'S FIRST DAY
    I left Ahmedabad, India and arrived in New York, New York in 1985.
    MAISA SYEDA'S FIRST DAY
    "I was so excited that I immediately ran on the plane without even saying bye to my Dad."
    ALKA KOTHARI'S FIRST DAY
    "It is so much fun, being in this country, because there were many more celebrations."
    SAURIN PATEL'S FIRST DAY
    "New country, new people, new traditions… it felt amazing."
    DINESH GULABDAS SHAH'S FIRST DAY
    "In those days, immigrants really stuck together."
    FIRST DAY
    "He looked at the redness in my eyes and he said, 'Sometimes we have to leave things behind.'"
    SERXHO MEHILLI'S FIRST DAY
    "I have a feeling that I am going to have some amazing experiences while staying and studying in the Salem State University."
    RIVA KOZIAJ'S FIRST DAY
    "I chose this new life and I will try to make it beautiful with all my strength."
    ZILING XIE'S FIRST DAY
    "They gave me confidence: 'Dude, you can do this, we trust in you! We are your backup!'"
    FIRST DAY
    "But I am getting much better at cooking and now I think I am a Michelin chef."
    ULRIKA HAGLUND'S FIRST DAY
    "They played 'Empire State of Mind' by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z on the radio. It felt surreal in a way, but in another way it made me more confident in my choice."
    VALENTINA MENDEZ'S FIRST DAY
    "My WHOLE LIFE was just in two bags; the other three had my mom’s life."
    OUMOU DILIKA'S FIRST DAY
    "I wanted to greet them when they looked at me, but instead they looked the other way. They all seemed to say 'Why are you looking at me like that?'"
    DAIANA MORENO'S FIRST DAY
    "My father’s death made me focus on school and care more about what’s important in life."
    FIRST DAY
    "I am a cute Chinese girl with a man’s heart. I like adventures and freedom."
    CAMILLA RISICATO'S FIRST DAY
    "For sure I didn’t go to the other side of the ocean to step back and wait for help. I wanted to get things done on my own, without the help of anybody else."
    FIRST DAY
    "As a teenager, I was so curious focusing on looking for delicious foods that I ignored the people around me."
    KLEMENTINA MATO'S FIRST DAY
    "I was now somewhere that I would never imagine I would be, somewhere where every day seemed to be different and adventurous."
    ROLANDO MARUCUT'S FIRST DAY
    "So there is no room to wiggle. If you wiggle that means the future of our family would be in jeopardy. And I cannot in my own conscience do that."
    FIRST DAY
    "She says that because of their words and actions, she was sometimes made to feel less important and felt like she was not allowed to cross certain boundaries."
    ALEX PENERANDA'S FIRST DAY
    "My chest was pounding, just thinking that I did something illegal and then they were arresting me."
    GENERATO MERCADO'S FIRST DAY
    "They can speak what we call 'Bamboo English,' which is broken English. But yes, we understand."
    ALAN C'S FIRST DAY
    "It was the first time I’ve seen a limo, first of all, so I didn’t where to ride. So I sat right next to the driver."
    DELIA N'S FIRST DAY
    "My first impression of the US wasn’t so great. I looked around, I said to myself, 'This is America? Why, all their trees are dead!'"
    PREETI SHRIDHAR'S FIRST DAY
    "You know, it was just magic. I was transported to a completely unreal place."
    RANJANA BHATT'S FIRST DAY
    "So if you’re open-minded, you can conquer all the fears. You can adjust."
    RITUJA INDAPURE'S FIRST DAY
    "I think the one that really sustained me and enriched my life was the library."
    MONIQUE SUMMERS' FIRST DAY
    "I brought my dog! He came with me, and of course a big suitcase. But that was about it!"
    GONZALO TELLO SANCHEZ 'S FIRST DAY
    "We took pictures of everything! We were like two kids in a candy land."
    ENRIQUE PEREZ SR.'S FIRST DAY
    "I came here when I was 16 years old looking for a better future."
    JANET CHAMBERS' FIRST DAY
    "The first week was not a pleasant experience for me in any which way."
    TUYEN TRAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I was like, 'I need a Vietnamese translator. Why would you bring up a white man?'"
    MADELEINE O'S FIRST DAY
    "People consider me kind of the archetype of the French person because I study French literature, I like good food, and this kind of stuff."
    TOM SENGUPTA'S FIRST DAY
    "That was the glorious time in this society. Everything was full of optimism, full of new ideas, and people thought beyond themselves."
    TINA YONG'S FIRST DAY
    "I have American citizenship, and working in American’s company, but I wasn’t born in here."
    MIN PANG'S FIRST DAY
    "Every year when my family gets together for Christmas, we also celebrate our anniversary in the U.S."
    KODUMUDI (KEN) BALAJI'S FIRST DAY
    "But, when looking back, those days are golden days. Those days were all really carefree."
    BEHERUZ SETHNA'S FIRST DAY
    "… anyone visiting from India knew that you gotta take this guy to lunch or dinner because he’s dying over there."
    UMER PIRACHA'S FIRST DAY
    "‘I mean, I don’t understand, why are you so disappointed?’ I was like, “Because I have an A-, not an A!'"
    SHIAMIN MELVILLE'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember looking around and thinking to myself, 'Oh my god there are so many foreigners here!' because there were so many white people. But then I realized that I was the foreigner."
    FIRST DAY
    "You learn. You know, there is no need to berate oneself that, ‘I should have done this right the first time.'"
    SAMATA DUTTA'S FIRST DAY
    "I had the best time of my life, frankly speaking. I went around to museums, I went on dates, I went alone around places and checked things out and I was doing this in the middle of the night, the middle of day, it didn’t matter."
    KARNI BHATI'S FIRST DAY
    "I came not to make money as many people do, but... I was coming to America to acquire a lot of knowledge."
    UPENDRA CHIVUKULA'S FIRST DAY
    "It felt like a Hollywood movie. I was tired but I think I never felt tired. I felt more excited. Goodness, I’m in America finally."
    PEDRO ALVARADO'S FIRST DAY
    "They would get up from wherever they were in the middle of the night and step on us. They would get mad because we were there and they’d ask if we wanted to fight them even though we'd been sleeping."
    SUSANNA ASRIYANA'S FIRST DAY
    "At the time I was 45 years older, but I did not feel sad. It was no English, but people were so good."
    DANIEL MACHAR'S FIRST DAY
    "Then age 10 I was took by force by army to go to war so I'm a child war soldier. I consider myself number one lucky guy because I see so many kids died in the war and the refugee’s camps."
    AYSHA KLOUB'S FIRST DAY
    "If I could share any piece of learning that I had from my family’s experience it would be the significance of finding connection, regardless of what community or ethnic group you find connection in, finding connection with other immigrant people."
    ELI ESHETE'S FIRST DAY
    "It wasn't fun. It wasn't fun simply because when we arrived in America, my brother got sick and we were thrown in this cheap motel full of roaches in New York with prostitutes all over."
    FRANCISCO BERNABE'S FIRST DAY
    "People tried to say hi and I didn’t know what I can say. I was like a mute."
    SHIYAN ZHANG'S FIRST DAY
    "I really like here. I like America, but I still miss China because my family is over there, like my parents, siblings, my friends... they are all in China so I miss China too."
    PHYLLIS ALLEYNE'S FIRST DAY
    "So when I hear people complaining about undocumented aliens, I ask them, what does that look like? And when I confess to them, they are completely shocked because that’s not what they are talking about."
    KEVIN LEDERMAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I had grown up in Johannesburg in South Africa and in 1985, the country was at the height of the apartheid struggle... the South Africa I grew up in was essentially white colonial South Africa."
    LIGAYA SALDIVAR'S FIRST DAY
    "My first job... I only get paid $2 an hour... big difference now is I know a lot of people and I brought a lot of relatives from the Philippines."
    CHITRA CHANDRAN'S FIRST DAY
    "And every time we would come to visit his sister, we would buy all the groceries from New York, which was once in three months..."
    HEZEL G'S FIRST DAY
    "But it was just hard because you don’t have anyone else who’s really -- worried, like genuinely worried about you, you know? It’s just… people don’t really ask you if you’re okay."
    BASIL VARKEY'S FIRST DAY
    "No voices of dear ones, no crows cawing, no stunning greens of coconut trees and bushes and no pleasing smell of jasmine flowers. The reality hit me; I am far away from home."
    GELU DUMITRU'S FIRST DAY
    "Happy then, happy now. Never want my life any other way."
    NIYAFATH CAKPO'S FIRST DAY
    "People always say do what you love as a job in the future and I feel like just dancing’s what it is because it just brings happiness to my life."
    TAMER ALBDEROUF'S FIRST DAY
    "It was so crowded that I was going to chart how much homeless you guys have here. Because we don’t have that much homeless in Egypt."
    DALMAR MUHAMAD'S FIRST DAY
    "I was amazed by all the people. I’ve never seen people of color other than my own race. You know what I mean, so it was just shocking when I see this, Asians, Whites, whatever… I was stunned."
    AHMAD ALI'S FIRST DAY
    "How will they treat me as a guy from Syria? Do they know about my country?"
    MARIA MOON'S FIRST DAY
    "I came when I was fourteen to the United States in 1962."
    SHINWOO AHN'S FIRST DAY
    "I really wanted to go back for the first five years that I came to the States, but now I like it a lot better."
    PAUL MCGARRY'S FIRST DAY
    "I flew over on Saturday night, just still recovering from a hangover."
    LEONA COAKLEY-SPRING'S FIRST DAY
    "I dove into that snow, and I started eating it, and people were telling me, 'You can’t eat this snow!'"
    SANDHYA VAN DEN EIJKHOF'S FIRST DAY
    "I was 17 years old. It was my dream to come to America and study here."
    SIGRUN WOTEN'S FIRST DAY
    "I’m originally from Germany, and I came from a small little island in the North Sea."
    MARINA GAGLIARDI'S FIRST DAY
    "It’s just a different feeling to be a tourist and knowing that you are going for a few days or a few weeks and then versus actually moving to the country with the expectation of being there for a couple of years at least."
    SWATHI M'S FIRST DAY
    "It was massive and it was enormous with high ceilings and glass windows everywhere."
    MICHELA TARTAGLIA'S FIRST DAY
    "So, I came, my plan was to come here just for one year, a sabbatical year and then go back to Italy and then do my Ph.D."
    PAOLO DUARTE'S FIRST DAY
    "I showed up and I was like 'what the hell is this.'"
    HECTOR ITURRIBARRIA'S FIRST DAY
    "And the parks, and the freedom and security you guys have, and that feeling that you can be out late without having to go home with the fear that like, oh no it’s late, you know, people come out, you know."
    VLADIMIRA BEHROVA'S FIRST DAY
    "There is no way I’m gonna die in this country. I want to see the world before I will die."
    AARON WONG'S FIRST DAY
    "When the dishes came, we found that we had ordered three very large portions. It was a normal portion, I guess in the States."
    MIAN SALAM'S FIRST DAY
    "Destiny. That’s why I’m still here."
    FIRST DAY
    "… the differences were so overwhelming that I vomited in the car. Twice."
    TISA SHERRY'S FIRST DAY
    "It was my first time leaving the country on my own, so I was both excited and scared."
    SANJAY PATEL'S FIRST DAY
    "Those few minutes in outdoors seemed like an eternity."
    FIRST DAY
    "On my first day of school, there was a lot of culture shock from the moment I walked in."
    DHARA GOSALIA'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember being put in the ESL class even though we told them [the school administrators] that we were fluent in English since we were four years old."
    SANJAY BHAGAT'S FIRST DAY
    "Looking back, the freeway was very representative of my time in this country."
    MORAVIA DE LA O'S FIRST DAY
    "So I remember just getting really excited, telling all of my classmates that I was going to leave… and somehow not being very sad about that!"
    ASLIHAN AKKAN'S FIRST DAY
    "Then I thought maybe some people were too lazy to move."
    VANESSA N'S FIRST DAY
    "Well the first impression you have when you arrive in the United States, comes from the customs."
    AJAY BORDIA'S FIRST DAY
    "The big difference, it later turned out, was that we came with kids for the first time."
    HARI AGRAWAL'S FIRST DAY
    "I cried silently with tears blaming myself as to why did I come so far away..."
    LENNY PRIMAK'S FIRST DAY
    "I was 13 years old at the time, and I thought in America everyone has Mercedes or BMW."
    FIRST DAY
    "Her first meal in the U.S. was cheese pizza from Pizza Hut and then donuts. No one liked it."
    SHWETHA MALLYA'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember being completely stressed out looking at the cereal aisle because there were so many options…"
    GILLI DANENBERG'S FIRST DAY
    "Fitting in was hard. I remember many instances where people made fun of the way I talk or the way I pronounce things."
    ALICE ENG'S FIRST DAY
    "In Hong Kong, you don't do that. People would think you are crazy or onto something."
    SONITA ALIZADEH'S FIRST DAY
    "I am from Afghanistan. I came to USA eight months ago. I am student at Wasatch Academy."
    ROHAN VAIDYA'S FIRST DAY
    "I didn't clearly care about fashion at that time, not that I do at this time, but those orange pants definitely just stand out."
    LAURA GARCIA'S FIRST DAY
    "It's expensive here. It's difficult to find good cheese."
    CANUTE COUSINS' FIRST DAY
    "I kissed a girl. Yeah, I said, damn, I'm into America."
    EUGENE DAVID'S FIRST DAY
    "You know, times will be challenging and difficult, but you just have to believe that you can do it and you can get through it, and it’s worth it in the end."
    MARY ARISTIDE'S FIRST DAY
    "I thought, you know, it was nice and clean, and beautiful, and everything was like glamorous, but it’s not like that. That’s the impression everybody gives here."
    MACRINA SOTO'S FIRST DAY
    "I had no idea what country western was, but I found out that, for whatever reason, that English was easier for me to understand."
    RAFAEL CABA'S FIRST DAY
    "You know, when I was a little boy, I always had that feeling like I want to work for a movie theater or network television…"
    ANDREIA DA SILVA'S FIRST DAY
    "So what was very good about the United States is that I could find Brazilian neighborhoods where I could get Brazilian food, I could go to good restaurants, I could go to Brazilian fast foods too, to Brazilian church and meet a lot of Brazilian people."
    MARIA SABATINI'S FIRST DAY
    "My first day in the United States was something not to forget."
    ELLEN NEMIROFF'S FIRST DAY
    "And when he met us at the port, I ran up to him and looked at him and I thought: no, this is not my uncle!"
    LEONARDO PANICCIA'S FIRST DAY
    "They used to talk to me and so I used to catch it and write it down. I used to write it down how it sounds, that word. So that's the way I learned how to speak English."
    ALEJANDRO MURGUíA'S FIRST DAY
    "My dad always encouraged us to not work like he did. He was a laborer. So he encouraged us to be educated. But obviously he didn’t know how to go about the process."
    SUMIT LOHIA'S FIRST DAY
    "The first day it started snowing, I think we were dancing in a parking lot. "
    TARIQ AKMAL'S FIRST DAY
    "…what I was smelling was the deodorizer that was used in the floors and the concourses… I thought that this is what America smells like."
    SEETHA POOVAIAH'S FIRST DAY
    "We went to the Empire State Building, that was the tallest building at that time. It was very interesting to see the whole of New York City."
    POULAMI DAS' FIRST DAY
    "The first time I made some homemade food it was very simple and plain food, but both of us gorged up on it like anything."
    AMIT KUMAR SINGH'S FIRST DAY
    "The first impression of USA was actually very nice. So… that gave us a confidence and we were very happy about that."
    RAPHAEL NZIRUBUSA'S FIRST DAY
    "He said, 'Raphael there’s a war going on in Burundi, they just killed the president and things are likely to be bad.'"
    CHARLIE CHEN'S FIRST DAY
    "A meal at Denny's felt like going to a Michelin star restaurant."
    TANZID SAKIB'S FIRST DAY
    "I was 10 years old when I arrived in fourth grade. I was chubby. I didn't know much English."
    LAKSHMI JAYARAMAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I started my journey to come to America in Calcutta on July 29th, 1960, by boat."
    RAUL ALVARADO'S FIRST DAY
    "I was like ‘Wait what, are you my brother?’"
    SOCKALINGAM SAM KANAPPAN'S FIRST DAY
    "So, it was a big week that January ’69. I was part of that. ’69. And then the moon landing came. We were just watching in a 19-inch black and white TV. That’s all we had."
    MANU PATEL'S FIRST DAY
    "The cream was free but I have to pay for a whole glass of milk. It felt like a bullet hit me because each penny was like gold to me."
    GULAB SHAH'S FIRST DAY
    "I never really felt homesick, like some other people might feel, because America became my home."
    VIJAYA SUBRAMANIAM'S FIRST DAY
    "The first day seeing America it was a thrill. Everything is new and so exciting."
    RAMJI SRINIVASAN'S FIRST DAY
    "The first American I was formally introduced and his name was Professor Herbert C. Brown and two years back he won the Nobel Prize."
    ARMIN KAKAS' FIRST DAY
    "Seven years later I migrated to the US by myself, promising never to experience the geopolitical and economic hardships that my parents had to live through."
    THOMAS MATHEW'S FIRST DAY
    "After that day, everything else seemed easy."
    SANCHITA DHAR'S FIRST DAY
    "In the next day, I visited LSU campus and had a lunch at McDonald's. It was amazing how I much I enjoyed eating there."
    NAAZISH YARKHAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I wasn't scared or nervous about leaving India. It was expected that girls would move away from their parents' home to wherever their spouses lived."
    THU-THUY TRUONG'S FIRST DAY
    "At the time, I didn’t see any value, being a child, of holding onto this culture of ours that I saw as the past…"
    JOSHUA NGUYEN'S FIRST DAY
    "And I’m thinking, 'Hey, wow, look at that, fireworks for us. They really want us here.'"
    IZABELLA SURENYANTS' FIRST DAY
    "I grew up in in Moscow. It’s almost 15 million people now. We are Armenian but none of us were living in Armenia ever."
    DUSAN SRETENOVIC'S FIRST DAY
    "I mean, I had, you know, money and my passport and laundry, enough, you know, underwear."
    TASO LAGOS' FIRST DAY
    "My dad got down on his hands and knees and kissed the doormat, the door mat to the door, the apartment door and then we went inside."
    LUCAS NASSWETTER'S FIRST DAY
    "So I spent my first day in the country shooting bullets in the forest, and I was still pretty tipsy."
    LUCY HO'S FIRST DAY
    "I went to four different airports, four different airplanes, and didn’t know where I’m going."
    PäR ÅKERBLOM'S FIRST DAY
    "And also the first time we went to like these, huge malls. It was crazy for us, I mean I’d never seen anything like it before."
    K. GARCIA'S FIRST DAY
    "It's hard when you think “This is not the life I was planning when I was in school.”"
    KEVIN LEE'S FIRST DAY
    "… she just picked out random words from the dictionary and made me write them a hundred times like Bart Simpson does on the opening credits."
    KEN NSIMBI'S FIRST DAY
    "But when you come here, very few folks can tell you that Nairobi has 4.4 million people, and they have skyscrapers, and working class jobs, and private schools. We’re not just all a village out there."
    YOLANDA TELLEZ'S FIRST DAY
    "We walked throughout the night without seeing and knowing where we were stepping on, a rock or a snake. "
    JASON LEE'S FIRST DAY
    "I cared most in my life was my son. I hoped that he could grow up with great happiness."
    THOMAS RICH'S FIRST DAY
    "After that I remember walking to my new desk, put my head down and started crying. I was an alien, I guess. I didn’t fit in at all."
    MICHELLE CARRIZOSA'S FIRST DAY
    "I’m from the south of Mexico, a small city called Huajuapan, and I moved to Seattle in 2009. "
    JAKIR HUSSAIN'S FIRST DAY
    "I came to America because my father wanted me to. He applied for me to come here."
    MERRY RUAT'S FIRST DAY
    "I was like “What?! We have our own room?”"
    DJAZIA BELOCINE'S FIRST DAY
    "You know, I feel less, like I don’t belong here and I don’t belong here, but I belong between the two."
    MARIANA TROTTA'S FIRST DAY
    "At school, people would treat me like I had come from outer space, like I was stupid for not understanding and for not knowing anything."
    BASUDHARA SEN'S FIRST DAY
    "I never wanted to leave Kolkata, however my grandmother and mother always wanted me to go abroad for higher studies."
    AJITH MASCARENHAS' FIRST DAY
    "We just, like, jumped out and ran around in the snow and then started pelting each other with snowballs..."
    ABHIJIT PAUL'S FIRST DAY
    "One moment I was thrilled to see myself in the US, the next moment I was missing my family whom I left behind eight thousand miles away."
    JASHODHARA SEN SHUART'S FIRST DAY
    "I was incredibly indebted to Wikipedia to give me positive overview about Oklahoma State University."
    KENNETH ROWE'S FIRST DAY
    "I thought maybe the CIA might be mad at me. I went behind their back. But they congratulated me!"
    ALI SHAHIDY'S FIRST DAY
    "I never imagined that buying a sandwich in the US would be this challenging and cause me so much embarrassment."
    CHAITANYA WAGH'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember what I ate on my first day, it was Pringles and I liked Pringles, yeah."
    TATIANA BEREZNIKOVA'S FIRST DAY
    "I noticed that people smiled at strangers a lot. I thought it was so weird. I didn't know them and they didn't know me but they smiled at me anyway."
    ADRIANA OBIOLS' FIRST DAY
    "We spent the next few weeks getting everything ready, like going to Ikea and getting my school stuff set up."
    CHRIS YOU'S FIRST DAY
    "There were words -- Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, New York, Philadelphia cheese."
    NADIA RAMIREZ'S FIRST DAY
    "I just wanted to see my dad. We are really close and it was the first time being without him for so long. He moved in September. My mom, sister, and I joined in December. I was only a kid; I just wanted my dad."
    SHWULING SHIEH'S FIRST DAY
    "When I came, I thought I was going to go back to Taiwan. But once you get here, you start to think, 'Here isn’t so bad. There are opportunities.'"
    SHOBHA THAROOR SRINIVASAN'S FIRST DAY
    "As a student of literature and a lover of books I was familiar with New York stories and I had goosebumps when I saw the tall buildings of my favorite city."
    ANNA LI'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember just going to the riverside and walking to a giant Toys R Us…. But I didn't get any toys. I spent that month in Brooklyn just reading the Chinese fairy tale books I bought from China."
    CHENG IMM TAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I speak English. Why should I be scared?"
    MARJORIE AGOSíN'S FIRST DAY
    "Coming to the US was extremely hard and it’s something that I think about all the time."
    EVANNA HU'S FIRST DAY
    "I knew one sentence when I came to the US, which was, 'What's for breakfast?'"
    ETHEL ROHAN'S FIRST DAY
    "Such fondness in his voice, and I had never ever heard that before. Ever. My entire life."
    ABU EGHAN'S FIRST DAY
    "I would actually sit down and compose what I wanted to tell them, paragraph by paragraph, or maybe point by point, and then make a 30-minute tape and mail the tape to them."
    SUSAN CRUZ'S FIRST DAY
    "When we arrived in Los Angeles, we literally just had one piece of luggage each, my mother and I."
    SALEH DARKHALIL'S FIRST DAY
    "The idea of coming to the States was pretty amazing. I kept thinking, ‘Wow, wow, wow.’"
    KARIM SHAMSI-BASHA'S FIRST DAY
    "It was a very easy decision to make because I knew that they had one thing here that we didn’t, which was freedom. And I wanted that really, really bad."
    VLADIMIR VOINA'S FIRST DAY
    "It struck me as something absolutely surreal. Not possible even to imagine. I counted 83 beers… because it was so unnatural. We were drinking in Moscow just one brand of beer!"
    PARI NOORBAKHSH'S FIRST DAY
    "I used to be really in love with all the John Wayne movies, so I thought I'm coming to see horses. That was a little bit of a surprise. There were no cowboys. Not in New York."
    HOSSAIN ZARé KHIABANI'S FIRST DAY
    "For me, my strength was that for two years I was in the military in Iran. That helped me a lot. It made my skin thicker because, say, worst-case scenario, I can sleep on the street."
    NAYOMI MUNAWEERA'S FIRST DAY
    "So when I came to America, it was just a feast, the fact that I could go into a library. It was such an incredible feeling of liberation."
    ISHA BHATTACHARYYA'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember being so exhausted, and my daughter who was two and a half years old then, kept saying 'Hikoki, Hikoki,' which means plane in Japanese."
    PRISCILLA SESHIE'S FIRST DAY
    "Five days after my arrival, the tragedy of 9/11 occurred. Since I was still so young, I wondered if such chaos and destruction…happened frequently in the US."
    SRUTIKA S'S FIRST DAY
    "… [w]hatever image you have of a place… honestly think and have a look at what kind of society it is for all the people who live in it."
    SHIVA PRASAD REDDY'S FIRST DAY
    "Their accent was so thick I had no idea it was English."
    MY-DUYEN HUYNH'S FIRST DAY
    "Lots of people didn't have freedom, so they tried to escape. I was just a college student, I had no idea what escape looked like."
    RODRIGO LOPES' FIRST DAY
    "Because I was going to go surfing in California that was my dream, but then I realized man the water’s just to cold!"
    LYNETTE FINAU'S FIRST DAY
    "So it was a really really difficult transition to make, because when I saw my parents at the airport, I will never forget it, I didn't know who they were."
    VADIM DEKHTYAR'S FIRST DAY
    "So whatever we were leaving behind it was supposed to mean it was worth leaving Ukraine."
    KRISTINA LI'S FIRST DAY
    "As a teenager I think one of the most important things in the universe is the friends that you have and family may not seem as important at that point."
    HYUN KIM'S FIRST DAY
    "I was sad to leave Korea because my memories and friends were there. But also, I was excited to find new life."
    MOHAMED SHEIKH HASSAN'S FIRST DAY
    "You never think that people with those kinds of qualifications can be refugees. But, when the war broke down, it could reach anybody. Refugees can be anybody."
    RAHEL AFEWORKI'S FIRST DAY
    "In Sudan everybody looked like me, everybody talked like me, all the kids knew me. I think that’s what I missed the most about it."
    ROSEMARY THAIRU'S FIRST DAY
    "... American education is the best, so I had that zeal of coming here to study and to graduate."
    SEUNG (SAM) CHUNG'S FIRST DAY
    "When they are asking -- asking, you know, common questions like that. I just -- my database was just empty."
    ABDULAZIZ ALOBRA'S FIRST DAY
    "I don’t know, maybe I will arrive there, and I will find a robot which is help me in everything."
    KLAUS ETZEL'S FIRST DAY
    "Yanina and I came from Germany to the United States with a one-way ticket and all we had was a suitcase and a bicycle."
    ENDALECH FULLER'S FIRST DAY
    "When I first met my parents I was really happy and excited. I didn’t really know how to say anything to them, so I just hugged them at the orphanage."
    ROSHAN SHARMA'S FIRST DAY
    "On the August 25, 1949 morning, as the American coastline appeared on the horizon, I and hundreds of others went up on the deck to survey the first glimpse of America."
    SUREKHA VASHI'S FIRST DAY
    "It was quite a long time before we reached him, and my sister was saying, 'Let’s go back. We’re not staying here!'"
    DINA FRIEDMAN'S FIRST DAY
    "But this was something else. This was AMERICA - colorful, sugary and instantly gratifying."
    TA KWE SAY'S FIRST DAY
    "In Burma, we had to be very careful not to let people know who we were. We had to hide our identity."
    DESIRE S'S FIRST DAY
    "It was just so sad because I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t know what to do... I still was just traumatized by what happened."
    JULIA ZINCHENKO'S FIRST DAY
    "The whole process of getting from Moscow to Seattle took me more than 24 hours and it was very tiring. "
    FIRST DAY
    "Ooo dinner I can remember it was a corn bread, chili, I don’t know why I remember..."
    SERGEY NEKRASOV'S FIRST DAY
    "My expectations were actually that America is pretty small compared to say, Russia. So everything would be smaller size and like not so many open spaces."
    MILICA MILOVANOVIC'S FIRST DAY
    "They told me it’s across the ocean, you can’t visit during the weekends."
    MARIA COBALLES' FIRST DAY
    "And the smell of the plum is really memorable for me. When I smell that, I remember my first day here in America."
    SIYUAN LIU'S FIRST DAY
    "I had a lot of friends who came here, we came together. We took the same flight."
    SHEIDA S'S FIRST DAY
    "The idea was you come here, you stay here for four years, or five years, whatever, and then go back, you know, to your country, and to live there, serve, whatever."
    JACQUELINE LEE'S FIRST DAY
    "One customer service assistant asked me, am I okay, do I need some help, that moment I feel like I am cared from someone."
    JANE MCGRANE'S FIRST DAY
    "Oh, the TV! At that point we had three channels in Scotland. And you came here and there were so many different channels, it was huge."
    CALINA DAIAN'S FIRST DAY
    "Everything was just so odd, all the teachers and the principals, ‘welcome to the new school, we are so happy you are here,’ and I was like why do you care so much, you are all so weird."
    ULISES VAZQUEZ-MARTINEZ'S FIRST DAY
    "My name is Ulises Vazquez-Martinez and my first day in America was a little strange."
    HIROKI KAWAMOTO'S FIRST DAY
    "I went to some convenience store and I bought sandwich and salad and ate that for my dinner. It was… not so good."
    KRISHNAMOORTHY SUBRAMANIAN'S FIRST DAY
    "After some sleep there was the morning sun and the beginning of my rest of the long journey of life here in the USA."
    TIANYI SHENG'S FIRST DAY
    "Both my roommate and I were very confused. Hang out? What does that mean?"
    DIVYA HEMMIGE'S FIRST DAY
    "The way they embraced us with love is truly a memorable experience which gave me the kind of strength which was much needed at that time frame."
    SWATANTRA PIDARA'S FIRST DAY
    "On the night of 27th August 1968 my father's friend dropped me at Bombay airport and I took the Air India flight to London via Beirut, Frankfurt, Paris and I had to change the plane for the next part of the journey to the USA."
    SHAISTA SHAMSHAD'S FIRST DAY
    "It's amazing and confusing to think of what doors were opened and how many were closed that day we arrived."
    SUMANA RANGACHAR'S FIRST DAY
    "It was a cold February day, and the first time in my short two and a half years of life that I felt that cold."
    MADHURA KADABA'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember that I wore a tie-and-dye cotton Kurti with jeans pants. I also remember groggily overhearing a couple looking at me and using the word "Gypsy" several times."
    SARMISTHA BHATTACHARJYA'S FIRST DAY
    "My first impression was that it looked like a fairy tale... I felt a sense of freedom, though there was both fear and joy in the back of my mind."
    AJOY BHATTACHARJYA'S FIRST DAY
    "When the plane flew above Labrador the skipper again came and pleasantly advised me to survive on fish if the plane crashed on the snow covered ground."
    ABHA SHUKLA'S FIRST DAY
    "But what I can tell you is my parents actually moved back to India when I was 10 because my dad said "I was just here to study. I'm moving back. Degrees will help my country." He was very patriotic, so we all moved back."
    ZAKIRH PARPIA'S FIRST DAY
    "And he says, "and you left Bombay to see the world and you came to Pullman?!" He says, "you know, the world is Bombay not Pullman.""
    PREMLATA VAISHNAVA'S FIRST DAY
    "I was extremely shocked to think that there could be a house without sugar?"
    NIRUPAMA RAO'S FIRST DAY
    "I had studied and learned so much about the United States while growing up and during my student years I studied American Literature."
    BASDEO MANGAL'S FIRST DAY
    "When I arrived in America here I said to myself that I'm finished with this type of worshiping."
    DINESH SHAH'S FIRST DAY
    "No one told me that I should have converted some rupees in dollars at Mumbai Airport. I had no idea that rupees had no value outside India!"
    VINOD MEHTA'S FIRST DAY
    "Suddenly, I found myself all alone. There was nothing around the ship except the sea."
    LATIKA MANGRULKAR'S FIRST DAY
    "Two continents away from home, across many seas, as the plane circled New York I began to feel apprehensive, suddenly fear overcame me."
    TAHRAT NAUSHABA SHAHID'S FIRST DAY
    "I kind of understood the term ‘thundering silence’ for the first time. ‘Cause, where I grew up, I used to hear rickshaws ting-tinging outside and prostitutes fighting and things, you know? And now, nothing. Just quiet!"
    BINDIGANAVALE RAMAPRASAD'S FIRST DAY
    "I never regretted immigrating to the United States and given a chance I will do it all over again."
    RASHNA BATLIWALA SINGH'S FIRST DAY
    "The sun was beginning to set, and the deepening shadows outside compounded my unease. I did not know where to go or what to do."
    RAJ PILLAI'S FIRST DAY
    "What I remember most is how I was overdressed. We were all in our wool suits and it was a hot day."
    MOLLA ANAM'S FIRST DAY
    "When I arrived, Bangladesh had just achieved independence. And most of the countries of the world, they did not even recognize Bangladesh."
    MIR BASIR'S FIRST DAY
    "In between, I also worked in an ice cream store, and that was very different. I didn’t know what a sundae was."
    DIPANKAR SENGUPTA'S FIRST DAY
    "The panorama was serene, almost spiritual calming my stresses from the last few days of facing the unknown."
    KAILASH JOSHI'S FIRST DAY
    "We had not much money, we had only eight bucks in our pocket, we didn't have a scholarship, but we never thought about "hey, what happens if things don't work out?""
    NAHID KHATAW'S FIRST DAY
    "And we're so blessed... we're so blessed to be here."
    ALI KHATAW'S FIRST DAY
    "And then you come over and then suddenly it's a different environment and you don't have a single friend. I mean zero. Zilch."
    RACHEL CHACKO'S FIRST DAY
    "They gave me some instructions. If anyone rings the doorbell do not open it."
    BOBBY CHACKO'S FIRST DAY
    "On the other hand seeing my mom again was very emotional, since my mom and brother had left us in India 6 months before."
    PAVI JAISANKAR'S FIRST DAY
    "There was a Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand so I was used to that, but I had never seen a bagel before and so I was really curious."
    RAMCHANDRA DESAI'S FIRST DAY
    "When he came out, he gave me a little booklet, 'Welcome to the United States.' I still remember that, this old fellow. It was a wonderful feeling."
    PANKAJ MALLICK'S FIRST DAY
    "So I stayed at the hotel all night without eating anything, completely tired and hungry, because of the fact that I didn't know where I was and they had told me not to go out at night."
    DASHINI JEYATHURAI'S FIRST DAY
    "I remember the air smelling really different. And I know it sounds weird to say that, but American air smelled different."
    TARIQ ABBAS' FIRST DAY
    "I had no concept of what Dallas was. I only knew of New York. I only wanted to go to New York. "
    SUNANDA MALLICK'S FIRST DAY
    "I never walked on an escalator before so I was scared to walk into it, but it was very much fun."
    MADAN VASISHTA'S FIRST DAY
    "They asked me things like "Do you ride an elephant to go to school?" "Do you live with monkeys?" Those kinds of questions."
    AMRITJIT SINGH'S FIRST DAY
    "And also Hawaii, culturally and socially, felt so much closer to India so I didn't even notice the difference."
    MEHRIN MASUD-ELIAS' FIRST DAY
    "What if I forgot to pack the essentials / all those years ago?"
    MAMATA MISRA'S FIRST DAY
    "I understood the language, the words, but not the topics or the context, not enough to join in the conversation, or even ask a question."
    SAKTI KUNZ'S FIRST DAY
    "Newly wed, I arrived in all my finery. Silk saree, new sandals, some of my jewellery on, some tucked away carefully with my green card in my purse."
    SUDIN BHATTACHARYA'S FIRST DAY
    "He was probably driving at 50 miles per hour, but that felt very fast. Cars in Calcutta don't usually get to drive that fast."
    SADRUDDIN NOORANI'S FIRST DAY
    "We were anchored outside the port, about maybe three miles away from the port. The captain told us that we don’t know how long we would be there."
    SAGHIR QUERESHI'S FIRST DAY
    "I arrived at Urbana Champaign, Illinois. It seemed so wide open, and wide roads, and a lot of cars, and it was scary."
    FIRST DAY
    "I came here because I got married, and he lived here. I switched continents for this guy, and I came to New Jersey."
    FIRST DAY
    "And there’s nothing on there, no greenery, no nothing, just fields! Everywhere."
    SRINIVASAN NAMAKKAL'S FIRST DAY
    "My first impression [of Minnesota] was you didn’t really need a refrigerator; you could put your milk and stuff outside the window! Which was fine!"
    PREMA RAGHAVAN'S FIRST DAY
    "My daughter in law and all were waiting with garland and all for my first time."
    RANI GOEL'S FIRST DAY
    "I feel very good that this is the country that I can live every second of my life."
    K.G. GOEL'S FIRST DAY
    "Everything that I saw I compared to India. It was something, a different world altogether."
    ANDY JOSHI'S FIRST DAY
    "My first eight years of life were in England, and the real culture shock actually was moving back to India at age eight."
    KASTURI PATEL'S FIRST DAY
    "So, this is the land of opportunity and I’m pretty much red, blue, white right now."
    LOVLEEN GILL'S FIRST DAY
    "There are all kinds of people. Nobody’s bad in general, but it’s just where your hearts meet."
    SHANTA KOTECHA'S FIRST DAY
    "My husband came home from work and said, 'What’s going on?' And I said, 'I don’t know, this is America!'"
    ASHWIN GHATALIA'S FIRST DAY
    "It was so late that I was above draft, so I thank the government of India and its bureaucracy forever."
    C.M. NAIM'S FIRST DAY
    "It was a date in mid-September, 1957, when the Pan Am round-the-world flight I had caught in Calcutta reached San Francisco."
    SARWARE SITA TIWANA'S FIRST DAY
    "It was in Illinois that I became a US citizen, some thirty years after I first stepped foot into the US."
    JAMSHED GHADIALI'S FIRST DAY
    "In retrospect, sounds funny, but was scary that day."
    RASHI BAHERIA'S FIRST DAY
    "I was so excited to see beautiful hill and valleys and whatnot. Well, we were driving and I saw nothing but buildings and buildings."
    FIRST DAY
    "In my first semester, I finished the money given to me for the year. I was not extravagant. So I worked in a Chinese restaurant two nights a week to make pocket money for extras such as personal items and clothing/shoes."
    SHAMIM SHAHI'S FIRST DAY
    "So, in these circumstances, we decided to remain in this country: We became immigrants not by choice but by destiny!"
    SATISH WALIA'S FIRST DAY
    "I can’t explain how I felt when I picked up my son, it was the best experience of my life, holding my son in my own hands."
    SUNIL PURI'S FIRST DAY
    "There happened to be one other Pakistani student who was the closest in culture at that time to me and we made a bond that I'll never forget, even though we came from countries where traditionally they were rivals."
    FAROOQ KATHWARI'S FIRST DAY
    "Shortly after I turned 21, I left my home in war-torn Kashmir and headed for America where I planned to start a new life..."
    CYNTHIA ANITA GILL'S FIRST DAY
    "In the fresh optimism of our arrival, it seemed like the landscape was reaching out to welcome us to America, full of opportunities to follow our dreams."
    NAZAR HAYAT TIWANA'S FIRST DAY
    "Landing in New York was something totally different – the huge skyscrapers, the ‘hustle and bustle,’ the speed of life was like a totally different world opening up to us when compared to London or pre-partition India."
    SAMIRA RAHMATULLAH'S FIRST DAY
    "It was a pleasant experience, not at all traumatic or surprising."
    FIRST DAY
    "It all looked alien; I had left my family and friends back in India."
    DHIRAJ MUCHHAL'S FIRST DAY
    "… turns out Dallas is a concrete city, and not green."
    NAYOMI DISSANYAKE'S FIRST DAY
    "The apartment is small, but the refrigerator is very big."
    SUJIT DATTA'S FIRST DAY
    "… I saw thousands of cars in the parking lot all covered by snow. I thought, wow, all the cars must be dead by now."
    FERDOUS AL-FARUQUE'S FIRST DAY
    "Unfortunately, the shuttle bus company said that all those items were gone, they couldn’t find it, so it was a pretty miserable experience there to start off with."
    RAVI KRISHNAMURTHY'S FIRST DAY
    "Pizza was the life saver. Order a pizza and six of us share.. one slice each!"
    SHAJI CHACKO'S FIRST DAY
    "Later on, I came to realize that in America there are four distinct seasons: spring, summer, fall, and winter."
    KARTHIK SETHURAMAN'S FIRST DAY
    "Some students even learned to sign just to communicate with me! What an incredible feeling!"
    RAJ DESAI'S FIRST DAY
    "What will my wife and two kids think about this move? And how will they adjust whilst I'm going to be busy at work?"
    SMITA KOTHARI'S FIRST DAY
    "And when we exited the airport, I looked all around and saw rows upon rows of cars! I couldn't figure out where were all the people - there wasn't a soul in sight!"
    THOMAS ABRAHAM'S FIRST DAY
    "We could see a lot of Moonies (followers of Sun Myung Moon) and Hare Krishnas trying to recruit followers for their movement."
    FIRST DAY
    "I had was thinking about the future that what can I do? And I was very happy because I knew that I will find new friends with different ideas and I will see new places."
    MAGANBHAI PATEL'S FIRST DAY
    "I saw in our car a new thing, a GPS. The GPS was announcing where and when to turn right or left and how far away our home was. It wasn't necessary to ask any person."
    DAMINI MEHTA'S FIRST DAY
    "I was so anxious to come to this country the answer was a no brainer for me. Of course I would like to settle in America. "
    DILSHAD M. SHAHID'S FIRST DAY
    "It was not a very happy day for me, because I had wanted to remain in the UK and attend Guy’s Hospital Medical School, which was a place I had wanted to go to ever since I was ten – I wanted to be a doctor like my dad."
    ARDESHIR DALAL'S FIRST DAY
    "You know, you come from India… I had come with two suitcases. One had clothes and shoes and things like that, and one had books."
    SHYAMA HALDAR'S FIRST DAY
    "But in the US, I lost that. The first year I came, I did not know many people. I was thinking to go back, because I love my culture."
    SUMAN PODDAR'S FIRST DAY
    "I consider this my country now, and this is my home."
    UTPAL DUTTA'S FIRST DAY
    "He told me this is the best food and I would keep eating it."
    BERNARD DESPOT'S FIRST DAY
    "When I first came to this country one of my first memories was of the street vendors, selling souvlaki and the gyros."
    ROSE MOHESS' FIRST DAY
    "The apartment was disgusting but we had no choice but to stay there until we found somewhere else comfortable."
    HARI BHANDARI'S FIRST DAY
    "My entire childhood was spent in one of the seven UN camps for Bhutanese refugees. We came here because we are Bhutanese Nepalis and the Nepali government didn’t give us citizenship, so we came to the U.S.A. to work, get an education and have citizenship for the first time in our lives."
    ROSHNI DESPOT'S FIRST DAY
    "But then we got used to American dishes. My kids love American food."
    DEEPAK SINGH'S FIRST DAY
    "It reminded me of a scene from some Hollywood movie where a newcomer in New York is gaping at advertisements covering the whole length of a building."
    JAEL SILLIMAN'S FIRST DAY
    "My transition from student to immigrant opened my eyes to another America."
    SHEFALI RAZDAN DUGGAL'S FIRST DAY
    "And at that point that was his goal... he wanted to get to Cincinnati, Ohio!"
    BRIJ SINGH'S FIRST DAY
    "As soon as I got out of the airport, there was bad smell in the air - hard to breathe - never had experience in India."
    The First Days Project is presented by