A Diaspora in Focus: South Asia

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Kamrun Nahar recalls sitting quietly and observing everyone in ESL classes, an English class for people whose native language is not English. It was 2000, and the 15-year-old had just moved from Bangladesh to Connecticut to be reunited with her father, Mohammed Islam, who had left for the United States before she turned 1 in search of a better life for his family. After having sent his family the money he earned while working at a restaurant for 15 years, he could finally afford to bring his wife and three children to the United States.

While students from Puerto Rico, Cuba or other countries had classmates who could help them understand their teachers, Nahar was the first and only student who spoke Bengali at Branford High School.

“I had no choice. I had to make myself learn it faster,” Nahar said.

Bilingual classes are offered in Connecticut only when 20 or more English learners share a common primary language. Nahar believes not having anyone to translate for her actually helped her learn a new language more easily. For the first couple of months, she didn’t speak any English and just observed the teacher and students. 

“And slowly, little by little, I was able to speak on my own. It just happened,” she said. “As a kid, if you try anything, I think you can accomplish whatever you want to do.”  

The girl who did not speak any English grew up to be a finance manager and have two daughters of her own.

“If I stayed back home, maybe I'll be married to someone and raising some kids [as a housewife]. I don't have my own choices to make,” Nahar said. “But right now, I get to live the way I want to.”

Although Bangladesh and Nepal are leading countries in South Asia for closing the gender gap, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Report, South Asia ranks the lowest among the eight regions across the world in the report. Bangladesh ranked 141st out of 146 countries for the gender gap in economic participation and opportunity.  

In May last year, Nahar and her husband Borhan Uddin, of Southington, brought their two daughters, Eiryana, then 11, and Aviyana, then 9, to an event in Manchester to celebrate the Bengali New Year, called Pohela Boishakh. The day is observed on the first day of the Bengali calendar, which usually falls on April 14 or 15.

She and her daughters were dressed in Bengali traditional dress, called Shalwar Kameez, in cherry-blossom pink. They had a fun family time along with other Bengali people. But Nahar isn’t fixated on staying connected to Bengali culture, especially for her daughters who were born in the United States. Her family didn’t join the Bengali New Year event this year, and they don’t teach Bengali to their daughters.

“I'm looking forward. I'm not looking back,” Nahar said. “For me to grow, I need to experience more things here, because I'm choosing this as my home.”

For her family, their religion takes up the integral part of their past, current and future. The family prays five times a day and always goes to mosque to observe religious holidays. Just like Nahar learned Arabic while growing up in Bangladesh — where over 90% of the 169 million population in 2022 was Muslim, according to the Population and Housing Census — her daughters also started learning Arabic as young as 5 and 6.

“The goal is to read the Quran fluently without making any mistake,” Nahar said. “It’s not just reading. They also need to know [by reading the Quran] how to do the prayers properly. Prayers don’t just happen.”

-Yehyun Kim

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Aiti Rai’s ancestors arrived in Bhutan as part of a wave of Nepalese immigration that began in the 19th century. Known as “Lhotshampas,” the Nepalese arrivals settled in southern Bhutan to work as farmers. 

“They told us about how beautiful Bhutan was,” said Rai, recalling a conversation with her parents, who explained to her how they were able to farm all the food they needed. “Everything was from their land — rice, all the vegetables, meat, everything.”

In 1989, after several years of mounting oppression toward the Nepali-speaking minority, the Bhutanese government instituted a “one nation, one people” policy that promoted the culture of the country’s Drukpa majority. The policy’s measures included the requirement of a national dress code, forced removal of Nepalese descendants from their homes and suspension of vital services in the region where they were concentrated.

By 1992, tens of thousands of the Nepali-speaking Bhutanese had either fled or been deported, forced to sign waivers renouncing their citizenship before leaving the country. 

“My parents gave up everything — citizenship, land and everything — when they came to Nepal,” she said. “[The government] said [it was] voluntary leave, but that’s not true. They were indirectly forcing people to leave. They were asking for all the documents they had, leaving my parents without a choice, without citizenship, without a passport.”

Rai’s parents eventually ended up in a refugee camp in Nepal, where she, along with three of her seven siblings, was born.

Because of the complicated relationship between Bhutan and Nepal, Rai has always felt conflicted about her own identity. 

“I often don’t really know which country I should associate myself with,” she explained. “If I call myself Nepalese, I don't think people would accept that … if I call myself Bhutanese — I’ve never been to Bhutan. And I don't think people from Bhutan would like that.”

In 2011, when Rai was 16, her family immigrated to the south end of Hartford. She studied at Manchester Community College and then Wesleyan University, earning a degree in international politics. Now she works as a case manager at IRIS, helping refugees settle in the U.S. In some ways, she said, life in America has been harder than she thought it would be. But she found something in Connecticut she’d never quite had before.

“I just feel like I belong in Hartford,” she said. “I feel very comfortable saying I’m from Hartford.” 

—Katy Golvala

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Parvez Bandi vividly remembers a moment in his life from more than a decade ago, a memory he now cherishes. He was in his 30s, playing batsman in a Connecticut cricket league, when he struck the ball and made runs, scoring for his team. At the thrilling moment, Bandi overheard his father say, “Wow, he is a really attacking batsman. I never played like that.” 

The mere fact that his father was watching the game had already made his day. He did not expect the praise from the former professional cricketer, who was hired by a railway company in India to play for the company cricket team.

“I was over the moon,” Bandi said. “A moment when your mentor, your coach, your everything tells you, ‘Wow, you're doing very good. You’re a notch up than me.'"

Growing up in India, where cricket is both widely played and watched, Bandi practiced the game with his brother, guided by his father. His father was a stringent cricket coach — so strict he trained him to be a left-handed batsman even though he was right-handed.

After Bandi and his family moved to Connecticut when he was 9, in search of a better future, Bandi switched to soccer, basketball and baseball, and even became a diehard basketball fan. But something about cricket continued to draw Bandi back. As an adult, he not only practices cricket for two hours on weekdays and plays in the Connecticut cricket league on weekends, but he also acted as a catalyst last year to build a cricket field — named after him — in his neighborhood in East Hartford.

“My peace of mind comes when I'm on the field. I let go of everything in life, whatever happened a few hours ago,” Bandi said. “That is like a meditation for me, playing cricket.”

The serenity happens off the field as well. The moments of sharing home-cooked food over laughter bring back the memory of his home country. There, people would naturally gather after work or school; no plans or coordination were necessary. Within half an hour, over 10 people would be joking and talking — a perfect way to relax at the end of the day. With a hope that younger generations can also feel that sense of community, Bandi dreams of opening his own cricket academy in Connecticut. 

“If you don't teach the younger generation, or if you don't get them involved, this will die out,” Bandi said. “I want it to go as far as it can go.”

-Yehyun Kim

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In 2015, Chandani Khatri Chhetri applied for a U.S. visa on a whim. 

Chhetri worked as a bank teller in Nepal and decided to try her luck applying to the Diversity Visa Program, a lottery that grants 50,000 green cards a year to people from countries with traditionally low rates of immigration to the U.S. Typically, more than 14 million people apply. 

Six months later, she got the call that she’d been selected. 

“So many people over here, they apply seven, eight times,” explained Chhetri. “That was my luck. That I [got] it in the first try.”

Chhetri moved to Newington, where a cousin of hers lived. She dreamed of making enough money to support her parents and travel the world. She also wanted to start her own business.

Today, Chhetri has achieved many of those goals. She works full-time in quality assurance at Saputo, a milk factory in Newington, and runs a business connecting people in the U.S. with clothing vendors in Nepal. Every month, she sends money back home to her mother and father. 

As the women’s coordinator of the Nepal Association of Connecticut, she’s also become a leader in Connecticut’s thriving Nepalese community. In 2022, the mayor of West Hartford declared the last Sunday in April “Nepal Day” as a way to recognize the contributions of the town’s Nepalese population. Chhetri said a New Year’s celebration the group threw in New Britain drew more than 700 people from around the state.

There are aspects of home that Chhetri misses, like the way people easily strike up conversations with strangers sitting next to them on a park bench or in a café. Everyone refers to each other as “brother” and “sister.”

“In Nepal, when you go outside, there are so many people standing, sitting, drinking tea, talking with each other,” explained Chhetri. “Over here, everybody [is] quiet. Everybody is busy in their own life.”

But she also appreciates some of the differences she’s found, particularly when it comes to inter-caste relationships. In Nepal, Chhetri explained, people marry and socialize exclusively with others of their own caste. In Connecticut, those boundaries don’t exist. Chhetri said it’s shifted her perspective on the system.

“My mind changed over here,” she said. “Here, everybody's [the] same.”

—Katy Golvala

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Kamran Kami came to the U.S. more than 30 years ago with one goal: To make money. 

He dedicates nearly all his waking hours to making a living. He even struggles to name anything that brings him joy outside of work. The last time he took a vacation, he went back home to Pakistan. That was in 1993. 

“I came here, never checked anything else and just focused on my goal and what I need to do,” he said. “That’s it. That’s all I did all my life.”

He’s held all types of jobs — he worked in a casino for over a decade and spent some time selling cars. Today, he owns a convenience store in Norwich. 

On one October morning, Kami worked the register at the market, making easy conversation with everyone who walked in the door, most of whom knew his name. 

“Long day?” he asked one of his regulars.

In moments between customers, Kami watches YouTube videos of Lahore, his hometown, dreaming about the day he will return to Pakistan for good. He said he looks forward to living a peaceful, quiet life. He also wants to go back to school to earn his law degree, a goal he’s had since he left home at 21.

Even after all these years, Kami doesn’t feel quite at home in the U.S., where he said the culture is so different from the one he grew up in. He also experiences regular racism, which intensified after 9/11. 

“Some things here are never going to be changed. People are racist. They look at you different no matter what — how much money you have, what you do,” he said.

Once, when he worked at the casino, a man approached him, asking him how to pronounce his name. Kami told him and the man replied, “Kamran, where is your bomb today?”

When people aren’t outright racist, Kami still feels like the racial discourse in the U.S. revolves mostly around whiteness and Blackness, erasing everyone who doesn’t fall neatly into either group.

“You’re in a sandwich,” he said. “You’re in the middle. You’re nobody.”

—Katy Golvala

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During a family reunion a few years ago, Arunan Arulampalam listened as his older relatives shared stories of fleeing from Sri Lanka in the wake of the country’s civil war. 

Arulampalam, whose family is Tamil, heard about a person hiding out in an attic for a week before sneaking onto a boat to get out of the country. Several people talked about finding shelter with Sinhalese friends who agreed to protect them as they figured out their escape.

In July 1983 — referred to as Black July — long-brewing tensions between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority came to a head. 

Tamil separatists killed 13 soldiers in the northern part of the country and, in retaliation, Sinhalese mobs killed somewhere between 400 and 3,000 Tamils over the course of seven days. This sparked a civil war that would last nearly three decades and lead to the exile of roughly half a million Tamils from the country.

The war disrupted Arulampalam’s parents' wedding plans. His mother and father, Suhanthi and Naresh, had originally planned to marry in Sri Lanka that summer.

But as the violence escalated, Suhanthi made plans to escape to England, where Naresh had been living for several years. She packed a small suitcase with a single sari and left under the guise of visiting her uncle. 

The couple got married just a week later, surrounded by the residents of the small town in northern England where they wed.

“It made the local papers. ‘Bride flees wartorn Sri Lanka to get married in Cannock, England,” explained Arulampalam with a laugh. “My grandparents still have the paper.”

They eventually moved from England to Zimbabwe, where Arulampalam was born, and then to the United States, where they settled in California. Arulampalam eventually made his way to Atlanta for college, and then to Connecticut for law school in 2014.

“Over the last 2,000 years, 3,000 years, my ancestors lived in one place the entire time and were rooted in this one culture and history that developed for millennia,” said Arulampalam. “There’s so much of that that will never be replicated, that will die when my grandparents die, my parents die, that I will never fully understand.”

Now, he is thinking about how to preserve and pass on his family’s culture to his five children, three of whom are adopted. They call him "appa," the Tamil word for "father," and each of them has a Tamil name. 

“I thought one small way which I can pass it on is giving my kids names rooted in that culture, that tradition.”

—Katy Golvala

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Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported that Connecticut was the first state to pass a law requiring public schools to teach Asian American and Pacific Islander history. Connecticut is among several states to pass this measure.