City of Residence:
Rochester, MN
Occupation:
Physician of General Internal Medicine, Women‘s Health
Excerpt:
“I think the kids understand how much it took for us to come from where we were, you know, back in Kashmir, and where we are now. I think they respect us for that, and realize that it was not a simple task, it was not just, you know— it’s a journey; it’s a lot of planning, it’s a lot of hard work before, to be able to make the grades to be able to apply, and a lot of hard work since we’ve come here; it’s not been an easy journey, I have to say, it’s only now that we’re getting very— we’re getting comfortable. I’m not sure how much, being that they are born and brought up here, I’m not sure how much of an impact it’s making on them, so they understand; we talk about it a lot, only in the sense that we want them to have some basic values. You know, that life isn’t easy, it’s hard work; every morning when they say “No, I don’t want to go to school at 7AM in the snow.”, you have to bring out those stories of how you did what you did, how you traveled through snow, and how you went to your tuitions and school and kept pushing for good grades.
I think, for the family, for the children, I think it is good to know that there are others from the same background and in the same situation where parents immigrated, and now they are all in the same boat, where we’re all American, we are from— you know, we’re not born American, but our kids are; and to try to— try to ease their, any conflicts in them, I think it’s good to have the community grow and expand, the way it is.”
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