Could you tell me a little bit about your first days in the United States?
I arrived in the United States in August 1981. I grew up in a little town called Darjeeling in northern India and it was my first big overseas trip. I landed in JFK and went to Connecticut, which is where I was going to be staying for a bit. It was very hot over here—August was a very hot month. And I remember I couldn't believe all the lights everywhere. I had never seen lights on the highways because we had so little electricity back home. But everything was so bright even though we arrived late at night.
We got to the hotel and the next morning, the oddest thing happened. (For reference, my mom and I came here and the reason I came here was to go to university. She accompanied me on this first trip.) We got up in the morning and she said, “Let's go to breakfast.” And my mom's been here many times before and traveled around the world—I hadn’t. The first thing I noticed was I was being served by non-Asian people, which was very unusual [laughs]. I found being served by white people a little awkward, I guess. Because I grew up in India and spent time in Nepal, I saw people from the West as tourists and as guests. Anyway, I got over it.
The next couple of days, while I was in Connecticut, we went to New York City for the first time. It was really nice. When I came here, there were only a handful of people from the Himalayas who lived in the States. And there was a Tibetan restaurant, and there were maybe a dozen Tibetans at the most who lived in the States, and this was in 1981. Most of these people worked—like the Nepalese, for example—either at the embassies or the consulate, but very few people were here studying. The numbers were really, really low. I mean, you could count everybody on one hand basically. After coming over here, having spent about a year or so here, you start to feel a little homesick but there was nobody for me to speak Nepali to or Sherpa or Tibetan to. So I would actually look at the mirror and talk to myself just to keep my language skills together. I didn't want to develop an American accent [laughs] at the time. So keeping the language was really hard for me. I'd spent 12 years in boarding school in India so spending time away from home wasn't a big deal for me. To get to university was a very easy transition, while most of my classmates were Americans that never left home—for me, I just arrived here with two suitcases. That was the beginning of my journey over here.
After I graduated from university, I wanted to stay in this country and ended up getting a job and ended up staying here. As far as my first impressions go, I couldn't believe how clean everything was, [laughs] how there was running hot water and cold water. I had never tried much seafood in the past—some river fish at the most—and I’ll never forget eating lobster for the first time over here and biting right into the shells [laughs] not knowing how to eat this thing. So, it’s not so much my first days that I'm recalling as much as the first year and a half of being in this country. I found everybody that I met really welcoming and kind and I felt I felt right at home.
Are there any memories that particularly stand out to you from either your first days, first week, or your first year in general?
The food, obviously. People eating cold food for lunch, like a sandwich, never occurred to me [laughs]. You know, I was used to hot meals back home. So that was kind of interesting. The fact that I was being served by non-Asian people I found really weird for the first time [laughs]. And I had never eaten Western food before as such. I have a vivid memory of getting off the plane and getting into the car that our friends had sent to pick us up. Driving on the freeways—You know how the freeways are all lit in this country? They have those reflectors, right? I had never seen anything like that and I was wondering, How on earth is this driver getting around all these balls [laughs]? How does nobody run over them? They’re just reflectors, but you know, when you're a kid, you come from Darjeeling, and the roads are bad to begin with and you see them lit up at night, you’re really jet lagged, and you have no idea what they were. I was wondering, "How do they keep these lights lit up all night without breaking them?" [laughs]. Those were just immediate thoughts.
The famous travel writer Pico Iyer (I like reading his books) often says the most impressionable time when you travel anywhere is the first 45 minutes or the first hour. In that time, getting in that car, arriving at this hotel, and turning on a television—I’d never really seen television before; I’d only seen it once in my school, and they asked me to stay like 10 feet away while watching TV [laughs]—those were all kind of weird for me. Those were just my first 24-hour impressions. Then I immediately went to see the folks who invited me to America and when I visited the office, I couldn't believe how clean everything was and there was AC everywhere. People were incredibly polite, incredibly kind and made me feel at home immediately. For me, that was important because my mom had come to drop me off and didn't spend more than a week. Then I was off living with a family. It was sort of brought into a family of friends. I really didn't know them, but my mom did. So I ended up spending the first six months learning about American culture, learning about American history, learning about American sports—everything a college-bound student would want to learn for studying to go to university.
Do you remember noticing any cultural differences or cultural similarities?
I noticed how casual everything was in this country when I first came—addressing people by their first name was, for me, unheard of, especially anybody who was older than you. So coming to America was very much as I'd imagined watching John Wayne movies. Everything was “land of the free” I guess and everybody was really casual, everybody was very easygoing—it was extremely informal over here. I think what shocked me most was six months later going to the university and my fellow students were addressing professors by their first names and sitting in class with their with their feet up. It was just like, "Oh my god, that’s just something you’d never do back home." So the cultural differences were that I went to a British boarding school in India—12 years in fact—and I came here expecting to implement some of what I'd learned over there, so my entry into America was made much easier because it was a lot more easygoing than I’d anticipated. So, the big difference was how informal everything is over here. I wouldn’t say there’s a lack of respect. But, growing up in Asia, anybody that's older than you, anybody your senior, you normally address with some respect, and the way you behave around them is also much different. That's not the case over here and I found that quite shocking. The other thing was that the sense of humor was very different in America than not only back home in India but I’d gone to a British boarding school, so the sense of humor was very different.
What was the transition to college in the U.S. like at first?
It was very easy for me. I fit right into college over here. I had absolutely no issues. Like I said, I arrived with two suitcases. My roommates had brought the whole house with them, including a refrigerator. Computers were just coming out at the time. And people needed to call home every day. We were taught to be very independent at a very young age, so I found that the American students who were staying with the International House needed more help than us foreign students when I first came. The system of education is also very different in America. We're so used to essays and longhand answers to questions rather than choosing ABCD, so that was very different for us. And the college atmosphere was incredibly casual. But there were quite a few foreign students at my university and just recently, I was asked to give the commencement address at the university so it was interesting for me to go back after 30-something years and see the university and see where I had stayed when I first arrived at the university. It brought back many memories of my first days and my time at school. The place really hasn't changed much, but when I reflect on going back after so many years, I appreciate how much it taught me. One of the great things about the university experience in this country was it allowed me to believe, it allowed me to think big, it allowed me to feel free, it allowed me to dream what I wanted to be (although reality was very different). But that sense of “You can accomplish whatever you want” really built up my confidence coming into the workplace. And that's something that I don't think I would have gotten back in India.
Those were all the questions I wanted to ask you. But is there anything else you'd like to share about your first days or first week in the U.S.?
I came here in 1981 so it was a really long time ago. I just remember coming here on Pan Am Airways and looking down over the Atlantic. I’d never crossed the ocean before. All my impressions at the time, from the time I got off the plane, were that it was beautiful, it was very warm. It was a hot summer day, and I remember getting into the car, going to the hotel, having breakfast, and then meeting my family friends over here. I was very fortunate that my experience has been very, very positive over here. It continues to feel the same. Going to university I arrived with suitcases, but I left with a lot more. Coming here to America for the first time, I didn't know what to expect. But the friends I've made, the family I have now, and what school has taught me have really guided me throughout my life. I'm really grateful for immigrating over here and being able to vote over here. It's an odd place to be in—one foot in this world and then one foot in the Himalayas. I go back twice a year. I try to straddle both worlds and I see how much has changed over time.
* The contributor of this story has asked that their name be withheld.
