Anushka Chaudhari is a third-year student majoring in neuroscience and minoring in computational biology. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1999, and she was born in Burnsville, Minnesota.
Byline: By Isabella Caswell
“My parents came here the day after they got married. The immigration process in itself is tough. There’s a lot of hoops that you have to jump through, and a lot of the time it’s just luck that you get citizenship. My parents were incredibly lucky they got it right away. I still have friends that have been living here for 20 years and still haven’t received their green card or have just become citizens.
I really enjoy the U.S. I think there’s a lot of opportunity here. Also, culture wise, a lot of things are different. Being able to identify with both is really unique. I obviously love my Indian side. I love dressing up. I love listening to Bollywood songs. At the same time, it’s also really cool to be able to relate to everybody here and go to parties and listen to Nicki Minaj. I think definitely one of the best parts about being an immigrant is that you can identify with two different cultures and still, inherently, that’s part of who you are.
I naturally become friends with other people that are like me. We just find each other somehow. There are a lot of campus organizations, like ISA or ASU, that help you find people that are similar to you. I feel like we naturally gravitate towards each other in classes because you have similar experiences, you make similar choices and you grew up in a similar area.
I think a lot of people don’t recognize that sometimes it can be tough to find your identity. I grew up in a predominantly white area. When you’re here people see you as Indian. When I go to India, everybody’s like, ‘Well, she’s from the U.S., so she’s basically white.’ People are constantly trying to find things that are different about you, so it’s kind of hard to find the right balance between those two cultures.
When I go back to India, a lot of my family is like, ‘She doesn’t speak our language the same way as I do, or she doesn’t wear the clothes correctly.’ I’m Indian, but I don’t want to completely get that taken away from me. Or I was born here, and I know the culture here, but I’m still Indian. So it’s trying to find a balance between both of those two identities, which can be a little tough. I think definitely coming to college and connecting with other people that have similar experiences really helps you identify what you prioritize. When I was in high school, I didn’t really appreciate my Indian side as much just because I was around people who were predominantly white. And while I did enjoy Bollywood music, it wasn’t to the extent as extensive as I do now. Now that I’m in college, I’m fully starting to understand what it means to be Indian and what it means to be Hindu, and how all of that plays a role in my life.”
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Interview done by Isabella Caswell