Personal Narrative: Growing Up In The United States

Growing up in the United States from a very young age made me stray away from my Indian heritage, so in 2008, my parents saw the need to send my siblings and me to India in order to replenish the Indian culture in us. Initially, I had no idea as to how long we were going to live in India for, but by the third year, all I wanted was to come back to New York. Everything in India was just so different, convoluted and fruitless; just because I was American, I was treated differently–both negatively and positively. Peo

I didn’t like India because of how corrupt it was. Rich families could pay colleges to get their children into medical school, which I thought to be unfair to the hardworking middle class who didn't have a chance against the money of the rich. In India, the rich are very rich, and the poor are very poor. To the outsiders, my family and I seemed like the perfect family; we had American citizenship, money, status, and a house all to ourselves-- but only we know what it took to get all this. My dad gave up his life and inheritance in India to come to

India is indeed a beautiful country with smart people, gorgeous land and buildings, great food, and traditions and cultures that are worth preserving. It’s just the traditional beliefs of some people that I despised. Still, after a year of being back, I believed that I wasted five years of my life in India and that I hadn’t learned anything. Now, I realize that I learned more from India than I originally thought. No one could tell me what I could or couldn't do, and I am the creator of my future. I also learned not to take things for granted. So many people in India, including my own cousins, are trying very hard to get a visa to come to the U.S. I'm so blessed that my dad already brought me