Our Journey from Pakistan
Coming to America
Pakistani immigrants come to the U.S. for better opportunities for their families. They want their children to have the best education and the best opportunities for jobs. For most of us, it took many years for our families to come here. For example, our fathers came first and then sent for us as visas became available, one or two at a time. The plane trip from Pakistan costs a lot of money, so families have to save a long time to bring everyone over. After the September 11 attacks, it became a lot more difficult to immigrate from Pakistan. Law-abiding people who have names similar to those on the government’s no-fly list have to wait to get their names cleared, even though they didn’t do anything wrong. Some people even have to wait three or four years to get approval for a visa just because they have a name that sounds like someone else’s.
What We Left Behind
We left our extended family members behind. We also left our friends. We can e-mail then, but over time we found that we’ve kind of grown apart. We left our big comfortable houses and moved into small crowded apartments. We left some aspects of our culture behind. For example, we don’t wear Pakistani clothes outside anymore; instead, we wait until we get home to put them on. It’s also harder to pray five times a day because we don’t hear the call to prayer coming over the speaker.
What We Found Here
We found new friends who come from all over the world. Sometimes they are very curious about our culture. They ask why we wear our scarf, hijab. We try to explain but we’re not sure that they really understand. We also found a society where there are a lot fewer restrictions. For example, boys and girls here go to school together, hang out together, and have friendships with each other. This is really not encouraged in Pakistan.
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