Author Archives: Hidden Dreamer

It was supposed to be a 2 week trip. He would visit family he had not seen in over 12 years, get his visa stamped and then come home. I can’t forget the day he got on the flight, March 11th. I called him when he was near the airport and said “Don’t go, IContinue reading ““Trying to survive this system made me strong. But I live life with constant worry. I always have to think of consequences.””

Pending: My visa, my immigration status, my life. The word “pending” has followed me through all my years of high school and it’s something I think about now, even as I’m getting ready to graduate college. I remember every year my family would have to pay hundreds of dollars that we didn’t have to renewContinue reading ““I am not asking for much, just for a chance to live a normal life.””

I was 11 years old. My classmates and I were rehearsing folk dances in the school auditorium when my parents checked me out of school and took me on a 24-hour flight around the world. The buckets and pails that I used every morning turned into hot showers and white subway tiles. The air wasContinue reading ““But I know that I am more than a document or a number, and this is a fact that my parents have always known ever since they made the decision to move us here and give us a better life than before.” – Eigen Escario”

Home. It’s where my heart is. It’s with the people I hold close to me. But as an immigrant, it can’t be confined to one location. My parents immigrated to America for the second time 10 years ago. Before that, I had been back and forth spending my infant years in America, kindergarten in India,Continue reading ““I am an Indian-American kid on paper but does that mean anything? Like the hyphen, I struggle to bridge the gap between my two worlds.”- Hari Senthilkumar”