Anirudh’s heart was filled with pride as he watched the automatic garage door close silently. He turned to look at his two-storied house that stood regally in the gated community in an affluent part of Houston. A shadow of pain swept across his face as he remembered the day when he had left his country, his loved ones, and his roots, to embrace an opportunity to live the American dream. The prospect of living a life of dignity, freedom, and affluence was a hope that inspired millions from all over the world to uproot themselves and try and find new beginnings in the New World. Thousands were willing to leave their culture and hometown to live in a country even though there was a possibility of them being discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens. Anirudh too, although apprehensive at first due to the challenges faced by most immigrants, had been eager to move.

It had been a cold December morning in 1971 on the day Anirudh landed in Houston. Even as he got off the plane, he was afraid that it was all a dream. He couldn’t believe his luck. After years of restrictions, America had finally opened her doors to immigrants. The reformed immigration laws had made it possible for people from all over the world to turn to a country that promised freedom and equality. Anirudh was determined to build a future for himself and his family in the ‘land of the free. Undeterred by the stories of anti-Asian sentiments of the Americans, Anirudh had taken the step and was ready to embrace a new culture in a new world.

Like the many immigrants that had come to America in the early 20th century, the Asians too had faced their share of discrimination. Asian Americans, as they were referred to, were people from all over Asia, predominantly China and India. Much alike in their culture, the various Asian nationalities struggled to adapt to western customs and norms. Content to stay within their communities, the Asian-Americans bore the brunt of many Americans who stereotyped them and treated them as outsiders.

However, towards the latter half of the century, the intolerance towards the Asian immigrants became less intense and in most parts of the country, Asian immigrants were able to lead a life of dignity albeit with a desperation to fit in. It was in this atmosphere that Anirudh planted his roots in America.

With his degree in engineering, Anirudh soon found a job. Though he knew that his white colleagues made more money than him, Anirudh did not falter to put in his best at work. His hard work and dedication paid off and within a year, he was promoted and used his raise to save up for a house.

As he drove away from his house toward the airport, Anirudh was both nervous and excited to go back home after almost five years. It had been hard to stay in touch with his family, the long-distance phone calls were expensive and many a time the telephone lines in India would be down. The thought of seeing Ritu made him smile and he hurriedly parked his Ford van at the airport and sprinted toward the departure lounge. Ritu was his sister, his best friend, his confidante. Two years ago, when she got married, Anirudh was unable to go to India due to his work. But he had promised her he would come as soon as he found a way.

“How can I enjoy the most important day of my life without my brother?” her words still rang in his ears.

Back in Mumbai, Ritu woke up with a start, afraid that she was late. Hurriedly, she tried to get up from her lumpy mattress on the floor, but she winced as the sharp stabbing pain in her ribs reminded her of the previous night. Her eyes, filled with unshed tears searched the tiny room for the cause of her pain. A painful sigh escaped her lungs as she realized that her husband had not come back home after beating her up for serving him cold food. Her once beautiful face was now filled with burnt marks from cigarette burns. Her body bore the scars of her husband’s regular beatings and was bent with the burden of an unhappy marriage. She lifted her calloused hands in silent prayer, hoping for freedom from the shackles of a miserable life.

Ritu began her daily ritual of scrubbing the muddy floor of the corrugated tin hutment. Soon after her marriage, her husband had lost his job due to his incompetency. His addiction to gambling had cost them their home and brought them to live in sub-human conditions. Unable to accept his failure, Ritu’s husband drowned his angst in cheap liquor and brutal abuse of his wife. Physically battered and emotionally scarred, Ritu lived only to provide for her twins who were just ten months old. “As long as I live, I will not let anyone harm you”, she would whisper to them while feeding them watered-down cow’s milk.

Anirudh’s heart bounced with excitement to the rhythm of the landing plane. As the wheels touched the runway, the air inside the aircraft was filled with the heavy smell of the city of Mumbai. Was it putrid? Or spicy? Or just the smell of life filled with dreams and disappointments? Anirudh could never tell, but it always made him feel at home. “I can’t wait to see the look on her face”, Anirudh thought as he felt himself being tugged and pushed in the long winding immigration line. Ritu had no idea that Anirudh was coming to India.

Anirudh could not help but notice the look of envy on the immigration officer’s face as he stamped the American passport. “So, you are an American now?” the officer said wistfully. “Lucky you! Not all of us get that opportunity.”

Anirudh was tempted to tell him about the challenges of being an Asian American. Instead, all he said was “At least you are a first-grade citizen here. In America, I will always remain an outsider.

“An outsider with a huge house and a lifestyle of the royals”, quipped the officer, flashing a gapped tooth smile as he handed Anirudh his passport.

Anirudh picked up his suitcase off a crawling carousel, almost hitting a sari-clad woman with it as he put it on the trolley. He had forgotten the crowds, the frenzy, the panic that gripped almost every Indian traveler as soon as the squeaky carousel began to move.

The warm, humid air embraced Anirudh like a long-lost friend. He got into the yellow and black taxi and gave the driver Ritu’s address. The taxi rattled along the highway, flying over potholes. “This is the best rollercoaster ride”, thought Anirudh, smiling from ear to ear. Ritu’s house was in Bandra, a suburb off the highway, about twenty minutes from the airport. Suddenly, the twenty-hour flight seemed a breeze compared to the long stretching twenty minutes to his sister’s house. Anirudh couldn’t wait. As he stepped out of the cab and lugged his suitcase full of American gifts- chocolates, perfumes, stuffed toys, and a Sony video camera for his brother-in-law, a strange feeling began to creep in. Something was wrong, Anirudh’s intuition told him.

He walked toward a four-story building in a quiet neighborhood. The ‘watchman’ or the security guard sat lazily on a white plastic chair, staring at nothing in particular. “Excuse me bhaisahib”, Anirudh said, trying not to sound like a ‘foreign-returned ‘-a term used for Indians who have settled abroad and come back for a visit. “I am looking for Mrs. Ritu Khanna. What floor is she on?”

“And who are you mister? And more importantly why should I tell you anything about Ritu madam?”. The watchman squinted his eyes suspiciously. It was in that moment that Anirudh felt the ground slipping away from beneath him. The strange foreboding, he had felt earlier began to suffocate Anirudh. In a trembling voice, he pleaded “Bhaisahib I have not seen my sister for more than five years. Please tell me what is wrong”.

On hearing this, the watchman’s eyes softened and his face melted into a look of sadness and sympathy. “Oh, sirji! What kind of brother are you? Your sister has suffered the worst fate and you are not even aware!”

Anirudh desperately gasped for air “Please tell me what you know, I beg you.” Silently the watchman embraced the man and held Anirudh as he shook with guilt and remorse, tears flowing down his cheeks. Before he knew it, Anirudh was being led down a narrow, dingy lane that smelt like death itself, his suitcase of gifts pushed away in a safe place behind the building gate. It couldn’t be…

His sister? The apple of his eye? Living in a slum? The watchman stopped in front of what Anirudh could only describe as a decrepit structure from a low-grade horror film. Anirudh hesitantly approached the rickety door and was aghast at the sight that met his eyes.

Inside the hut, Ritu, or what looked like a skeletal apparition of his once beautiful sister was on her knees mopping the uneven stone floor. “Hey sis?!” he uttered almost in a whisper. Ritu leapt up, her aches and pains forgotten, and hugged her brother fearing if she let go then he would vanish into thin air. The two siblings didn’t need words, the silence speaking a million thoughts all at once.

Seeing Anirudh had given Ritu an inexplicable strength. She was ready to face the taunts, the taboo, even the wrath of her husband. Appalled by her condition, Anirudh insisted that she should leave India and move to America.

“The country is opening her doors to immigrants Ritu and you as my sibling will be eligible to get a green card and soon an American passport.” Ritu ruefully looked at her twins, sallow and pale from hunger. Without a word, she picked them up and handed one of them to Anirudh. She reached for the pillar and pulled out a small cloth pouch that had lain there for the past several months.

“This is all that is left of the fortune that father paid for my dowry,” she said as she held out gleaming gold bangles and a heavy-set necklace. The siblings walked out without looking back. Anirudh took Ritu to a hotel in the city, far away from the slums of the suburbs. For a week, he indulged her and treated her as the princess he knew she was. As he left to go back to Houston, he promised his sister that he would take care of everything once she came to America.

Ritu applied for a divorce at the same time as she applied for a green card. While her paperwork was being processed, Ritu lived with Anirudh’s friend who helped her with the formalities. Being a blood relative, Ritu was eligible to apply for a green card under the newly reformed immigration laws. Though it would take anywhere from three months to a year, Ritu knew it was worth the wait.

For four months, Ritu shunted between the family court and the US embassy. The family court, a symbol of her determination, and the embassy, a symbol of her freedom. Getting a divorce proved to be more difficult than she had imagined. It was almost thirty years since her country had gained independence and declared itself a democracy. But was India really free? Was she not chained to her rigid caste systems and her hypocritical patriarchal social norms? The judge tried his best to convince Ritu that without a husband she would find it difficult to lead a respectable life, that squabbles happen between a husband and wife.

“Think of your children’s future and try to compromise,” he goaded her in an avuncular tone.

Ritu held up her hand and pointed at the burn marks on her face. “Is this what you call living a respectable life? Will my children respect me for allowing a monster to ruin me?” The judge bowed his head in shame and signed the papers.

The day she got her envelope, sealed and stamped, to be opened only by an immigration officer on her arrival in America, Ritu packed her belongings in a small suitcase, tucked her pouch of jewelry at the bottom of her handbag, and drove to the airport in a taxi. This was the first time she was doing anything on her own. A shiver ran down her spine but she tried to control her tension and focus on what lay ahead.

On landing, Ritu bravely walked up to the immigration line, her twins obliviously asleep in the stroller. A tall, intimidating, white American man called out “Next” from behind a window. Ritu stepped beyond the menacing yellow line, tugging the stroller sideways. Her hands shook only slightly as she handed the yellow booklet envelope to the officer. After what seemed like an eternity, he looked out from the pile of papers and asked “What brings you to America?”

“The promise of a free life,” she said without hesitating.

The stern face of the officer broke into a smile and he said, “Welcome to America.” Ritu’s eyes filled with tears of joy as she collected her passport and moved towards the exit. Seeing Anirudh waiting anxiously made her feel even more at ease. Within days she settled in at Anirudh’s house and made it home.

Though her brother provided for everything, Ritu knew that she had to do what she had come here to do- live a life of independence and dignity. She started to get restless and claustrophobic from staying at home all day. One day she summoned up her courage and put the twins in the stroller and stepped out for a walk. That was the day she got a glimpse of the ugliness of discrimination that comes with the beauty of freedom. She walked toward the park that lay lavishly amid the red brick houses of the gated community. Her twins, now almost two years old, wiggled to get out and pointed at the swings. Ritu smiled and picked them up. She placed Rahul, the older one on the swing and secured the safety belt. As she was about to put Rohan on the other swing, a white woman came up and tersely said to her, “Excuse me, maids are not allowed to use the park.”

Ritu was too ashamed to protest. She quietly unbuckled Rahul, gathered both her boys, and hurried back to the house. Was this the free world? Was this equality? When she related her experience to Anirudh, his eyes turned dark with anger and pain. “Don’t get upset about it. You will soon get used to it.” He went on to explain that most Asian Americans face the wrath of Americans who looked at them as outsiders, trying to infringe their rights and opportunities. “We are somehow seen as either not worthy or threatening. But there are many Americans who are open-minded.”

Anirudh advised Ritu to focus on the opportunities and believe in herself. Discouraged but determined, Ritu set out to find a job. She realized that people were reluctant to employ a sari-clad Indian woman with a heavy English accent. Bravely, she put on a pair of slacks and a formal blouse and went for her next interview. As luck would have it the local stationery store was looking for a salesperson and was willing to take her on.

However, Ritu realized that she was being paid exceptionally lower than the whites. Unable to endure this discrimination, she decided to search for a new job. Once again Anirudh came to her rescue and set up an interview at Macy’s, a departmental store that was to Ritu a town by itself. She was appointed as a sales representative in the fragrances and perfume department and was also given the minimum wage.

Though she was happy with her new job, Ritu struggled to adapt to the different, new environment. For instance, even though she was well versed in English, she was unable to comprehend the unusual pronunciation and accent of the Americans. She found herself asking, “I beg your pardon” to almost all her customers. Many of her customers would also exclaim “Your English is pretty good” at which she would awkwardly shrug. Her love for bindis, saris, and salvaar kameez’s had to be curtailed because they were looked at with rude curiosity and sometimes even disdain by the whites. She had also learnt to not react with obvious shock at the revealing clothes that some women wore or the blunt way in which they spoke to the men around them. The American festivals were also strange for her as she was not accustomed to doing things like dressing up and giving treats to children on Halloween.

At the grocery store, Ritu stared at the display of candy, overwhelmed by the vast array of brands that seemed to be waiting to jump out at her.  “So, you’re new here right?” a soft voice startled Ritu back to the task at hand. She turned to see a slender, Chinese lady smiling at her.

“Is it that obvious” replied Ritu, chuckling nervously. “So how long have you lived here? Do you miss home?”

“I moved here about two years ago. Yes of course I miss home. Even after staying here for two years I’m still not used to the strange festivals, especially Halloween” the lady responded.

“I totally agree” exclaimed Ritu, relieved to speak to someone who echoed her thoughts. “Do you ever feel like an outsider?” she asked.

Hurt sped across her face as she mumbled “Yes. Most Americans glance at me with unpleasant looks if I barge forward for the bus like we do in China or if I wear white for a funeral.”

“I’m sorry” responded Ritu sympathetically. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t feel like I belong here either…”

Like many other Asian women, Ritu had learnt to adapt and silently accept the fact that she will always be an oddity, an outsider with a funny accent and strange customs. Though many would consider her acquiescence as docility or fear, only those who understood the Asian culture would see the grace behind her non-confrontational attitude. It was this grace and her relentless hope and fortitude that drove Ritu to pursue her dream of independence.

Ritu would start her day in the kitchen and every morning prepare a nutritious Indian lunch for Anirudh. The fervent appraisal of her brother’s colleagues encouraged her to prepare double the portions. “Why don’t you start catering to some of the offices in the area?” suggested Anirudh.

“You really think my food is that good? Would people really pay for it?” Ritu was surprised as well as pleased. It started with a few of Anirudh’s colleagues and before she knew it the word began to spread. The one thing that the Americans had accepted about the Asians was their food. It was an unconditional and absolute acceptance- curries, naans, fried rice, chop suey- had become household names even in the most rigid white families.

As her catering business began to pick up, Ritu decided to quit her job at Macy’s and put all her energy to prepare scrumptious tiffins. She learnt how to drive and offered delivery on large orders. As demand for her food grew, Ritu saw her dream turning into a reality. She applied for a license and learnt about the rules and regulations that she had to adhere to. Unlike India, America had very stringent laws about hygiene and health. Ritu made sure her food met the necessary FDA requirements and began her cooking endeavor.

After being in the country for just a couple of years, Ritu, who had been naturalized as an American citizen had become the epitome of a successful immigrant story. Her catering business, Ritu’s Kitchen offered delectable lunches and she had a variety of customers who swore by her food. Over time, her business boomed and Ritu’s Kitchen became a popular name in Houston.

Ritu knew that she had made it when a local supermarket approached her with a proposal. “We would like to see some of your popular dishes on our shelves, Ms. Khanna. Would you be interested?” Ritu was overjoyed. The battered Indian housewife, the awkward Asian woman, had proved her worth. She had become a successful entrepreneur and had earned respect in a society that was so different and varied from the one she had grown up in.

As she brushed her index finger across the burn scar on her cheek, Ritu was filled with a feeling of triumph and pride. Looking back at her struggle, she decided to employ as many new immigrants as possible and give them a low-priced accommodation for a month in order to give them a chance to get acquainted to the western world. The jibes and mocking remarks of discrimination no longer bothered her and she was able to brush it off as ignorance and narrow-mindedness.

Her ability to put her children in a private school was what she cherished the most. Rahul and Rohan, who had come to America as toddlers, had integrated into the culture without any difficulty. They loved soccer and didn’t learn anything about cricket. They complained about chapatti’s and demanded peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They considered themselves Americans and were often embarrassed if someone called them Indian. Their Indian identities had dissolved into a world of Halloween parties, sleepovers, and summer camps.

After five years, as Ritu saw her children merrily hanging decorations on the seven-foot Douglas fir that adorned their large living room, she was suddenly filled with a deep nostalgic feeling. Her eyes welled up with tears as she recalled the days where she used to light diyas and create rangolis, just as enthusiastic as her children. From the far corner of the room, Anirudh caught her eye, and silently the siblings yearned for a childhood that seemed to suddenly hang in the air like a ghost.

Her children squabbled in an American accent and called Anirudh by his first name. This left Ritu stupefied. She couldn’t believe they were her children. They had adapted to American customs and traditions effortlessly. Was that a good thing? Ritu was not sure. Should she force them to hold on to their roots or accept the fact that they switched from their homeland to their host land?

Ritu tried to deal with this dilemma and reminded herself of the perpetual alienation and uncertainty that haunted her. Circumstances had forced her to abandon her roots in India but she still did not feel a part of the American culture. She was plagued by the question that she was too afraid to voice- Would she ever be accepted as an equal to other Americans or will she always be viewed as just another successful ethnic immigrant…