DEPARTED FROM
Port of Spain, Trinidad And Tobago
ARRIVED IN
Norwich, Connecticut
YEAR
1974
AGE
28
TRANSCRIPT
What do you remember from your first few days?
Well, I wouldn't say it's a culture shock, because I kind of knew quite a bit about the United States with my readings. And also, since I was already kind of introduced to the Western culture in the West Indies for three years, there was no culture shock. I spoke good English. But still, some things were new. I didn't experience any race-based discrimination. But there were some questions as to how well qualified a physician from India is. So, there was some subtle questioning of my qualifications from India. And some of the early experiences, we arrived, my wife and I arrived in Norwich, Connecticut in October of 1974. In November for Thanksgiving, the hospital gave us a turkey, they actually gave a cooked turkey that was our first experience with turkey. So we tasted it and didn't taste very good. We cut it up and tried to curry it, didn't taste good. So we dumped the whole big turkey in the trash. Unfortunate, but that was the first turkey experience. And another new experience was a first snowfall, it was so beautiful in Connecticut. And snowfall actually was Thanksgiving night of 1970.
There were some presumptions about America and Americans as to they're very generous. I didn't need any generosity as a doctor. I was fine. But the kind of generosity which the American propaganda promoted, where all people were equal, where the prosperous people were helping the poor ones, there was no poverty, that I saw was not the case. People here are no different from people in India, when it really came to the basics, people who are as selfish here as they were in India, so there was a little bit of disappointment as to the good-naturedness of Americans which I was anticipating.
