My name is Mahesh Subramony.



DEPARTED FROM
New Delhi, India

ARRIVED IN
Mt. Pleasant, Michigan

YEAR
1994

AGE
23

Growing up in a small industrial town hundreds of miles from the nearest American consulate, I would quite literally smell America in the (often rain soaked) issues of National Geographic magazine. Many years later, after years of struggle, I arrived at my University campus in Mt. Pleasant, MI, and encountered a different smell - the crisply delicious aroma of a Fall night in the Midwest. That first night in the US, I slipped off my shoes, walked on the grass, gazed at the clear starlit sky, and felt that I had 'arrived'. In this, my story is no different than that of millions of hopeful immigrants who have made a similar journey. Arrival is not just a cognitive realization of practical ambitions, it is a visceral and sensory experience - The body feels it, and the mind treasures it. What if we could build a museum of these commonplace extraordinary experiences? The first breath of fresh air, eyes adjusting to the vast open spaces, the sound of a freight train passing by an unmanned crossing . . . Who would then dare to challenge the legitimacy of our quest and its fulfillment? We are propelled forward by a native impulse, betraying itself only in these sensory artifacts.


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