Not surprisingly, the contentious issue of immigration has already found its way into the stump speeches for presidential campaigns. A few weeks ago, Republican candidate Donald Trump made headlines with his remarks on immigration that seemed to hit a national nerve and spark quite a controversy. As usual though, one perspective I have yet to hear in the ongoing immigration debate is my own. My family’s own immigration story, which I know applies to a plethora of others, is conspicuously absent from the immigration equation.
Both my parents are originally from India and have presided in the States for many years as registered, legal immigrants. My sister and I were born here. I never really discussed much about my Indian heritage with my friends or community, though I was well aware that many assumed my parents left India to forge a better life for themselves. Assumptions only furthered by images and notions of what India was like from media such as “Slumdog Millionaire” no doubt; that my family must have been “slumming” it in India. I’ve had to deal with this wrong assumption for many years now. While yes, my dad came over for higher education, he did so because he wanted to carve his own path and become successful in his own right. He did not want to stay in India and ride the coattails of family connections or the glitz our family name held there. My dad ended up being saddled with student loans, and once they were paid off, was already settled in the States and had started his career, which is why he didn’t return.
An important point in our family’s narrative, however, is that my dad came to the U.S. because he wanted to carve his own path and find success through his own right and work, not just from family connections. These are values and concepts he and my mom have instilled in both me and my sister. On my dad’s side we’re businessmen and textile factory owners. My grandfather on my mom’s side was the Secretary of the Fertilizer Corporation of India, as well as a member of the National Industrial Management Pool of India (positions which allowed my mom to visit India’s equivalent of the White House, the Rashtrapati Bhavan, while my grandfather conducted business). My grandmother on my mom’s side was a master’s-level journalist and author. She was an editor at the National Book Trust of India. I list these because I have had conversations with other MSU students who have told me that my grandmother must not have had running water or a flushable toilet since she lived in India. Not only does my family over there have the miracles of modern technology, they also had careers.
My mom conveyed to me the time she applied for a Visitor Visa after graduating high school in India. In normal situations, the Indian government would be hesitant to grant a Visitor Visa to a person her age and at her position in life for fear that the individual would settle in the United States and not return to India. My mom was visiting two uncles who resided in the States (one of whom was a nuclear physicist). Her father was well known at the consulate, and they granted my mother a Visitor Visa very quickly, humorously saying she would be back quickly given the lifestyle and family she was leaving.
As a whole, our country almost exclusively applies the term “immigrant” to the narratives of individuals who immigrate due to dire circumstances or religious plight to build a better live for themselves. While I absolutely do not believe there is anything wrong or negative about those motivations, this is not always the case. Thus was the case with my parents. My dad came to further his education, going on to pursue a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and an master’s degree in business administration.
My parents work very hard, and after many years only recently received their citizenship (a delay due to both raising and carting around my sister and I from various lessons to extracurricular endeavors for the past twenty-plus years). My parents did not come here looking for handouts. They came with degrees, ect. I know this particular narrative is not only that of my family. Many others in my parents’ generation, especially from India, came to the U.S. for similar reasons, mainly higher education. People assume just because I have brown skin that my parents must have fled to the U.S. and made sacrifices, thus anything I accomplish should make them brim with pride. While yes, my parents are proud of me, my family has a robust and rich heritage back in India.
Vikram Mandelia is a mechanical engineering senior and a guest columnist for The State News.
