“You feel guilty because you can’t afford time for your studies:”
The Story of Anu
The Story of Anu
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Demographics: Indian Female, Data Science Program, Graduate Student
Tags: Cultural Adjustment, Food Insecurity, Graduate School
ElevenLabs_My_name_is_Anu,_I'm_an....mp3
My name is Anu, I'm an international student from India. I came here on a student visa. This is my first time visiting the United States of America. I came one year ago and I'm a grad student doing my master’s in data science.
I have a good family in India. They are a well-settled family in India. I kind of come from a rich family. When my father started everything, he was a poor person, but now, after his efforts, hard work, investment, and knowledge, he has made a lot of money just to make his kids comfortable and just to lead his kids' lives luxuriously, but I came here just to be independent. My independent mind said, 'I'm ready to take challenges,' but this thing is tough, and this phase is tough on me, really. When I was in India, I used to be a morning person. I would wake up at 7:00 and go to bed at 8:00. When I was back in India, I didn't have any part-time jobs. My father and my mother took care of everything. And moreover, Indian studies don't have assignments or anything. All we need to do is go to class, listen to the classes carefully, and take notes. And so, mostly, I used to get a lot of time in India, but when I came here, the study system and the cultural differences were entirely different, so getting used to one professor and getting used to another subject took a lot of time. Moreover, I did my bachelor’s in electronics and communications. So now I'm doing work in data science. Although I have an interest, I need to build up more things about data science and gain more experience.
Indian food is actually from scratch. You need to make everything from scratch. So it takes hours and hours to cook. I don't feel like there are more Indian restaurants over here. Like, only one Indian restaurant. And it's expensive to buy food over here. So, I cook for myself, and the on-campus dining is mostly Mexican and American food, not Indian food. What I do is wake up and I cook, I read, I study and cook, you know? The cycle goes.From the perspective of an international student, there are a lot of questions to complete, you know? My mom and my dad have graduated. They are working as teachers. They are first-generation students who have completed their degree. But when I was trying to come to my master's, I didn't even admit it to any of my relatives or even to my grandmother. I just said, after my visa was confirmed, to my grandmother, "Okay, I'm leaving for America." She was really afraid because a traditional Indian girl is supposed to be married at the age of 22 to 23. But my father supported me, and my mom was also really afraid. Even when every process is going on, only my father, my sister, and my mom know everything. I did my IELTS exam three times to get a good bat, and I got admitted to Opportunity. I was over the moon because I got admitted to Opportunity. It's a really good public university which I want to get into. I could come to any university, but I wanted to get into a really good university. So I took my IELTS exam three times. After coming here, everything went upside down, you know? The weather conditions are bad. I came here and the first bills came, and I didn’t have any on-campus job.
Typically, international students don't have fun. I'll go out for just a couple of months. I'll go with my friends to the shore. I don't have a car so mostly I was not involved in any fun things. On top of it, I'm a couch potato. I love to be in my own space. Sometimes, I’ll go to Opportunity events. Most of the assignments, as grad students, it’s stressful so I don’t get much time to do fun things. I have my roommates who are different people, but the same as my place. So it's a fun thing to chat with them. That is the only fun thing, and it takes a lot of time building rapport with them, listening to them, or just chilling with friends, that's the only thing. But I really don't go outside because I don't have my own car. So I feel that there are homeless people in America, but there aren’t people in America who don’t have a car. A car is very vital over here to survive. Like, you wanna buy your groceries, you wanna go to college. It's really hard to walk from my place. I feel like I was not used to this climate, this weather, you know? When I came here, I started noticing that whenever I was exposed to cold, I'd get rashes all over. So mostly I will not be going out and as I don't have a car. I went to a driving school in India, but I haven't taken a driving test over here.
Wen I first came here, it was spring, so at that time, the weather was quite nice, around February and March. One year ago, I got access to some Indian food in the Opportunity Pantry and stuff. You know, there used to be potatoes, onions, and tomatoes. Literally, my first semester, I didn't have a part-time job, and I didn't even ask my father to send money. I just got, like, $1,000 to $2,000 from India and some money my father wire-transferred from India. I just survived on that and from the Opportunity Pantry. Most of the things I used to get from the Opportunity Pantry was food like canned tomatoes, beans, mixed veggies, all the canned food, and everything. But over time, after a semester, I started realizing that I was gaining weight. I gained around 10 kilograms. My sleep cycle was also not good. So because of that, my health was a little affected. So canned food is definitely a big no for any Indian person because we are not used to it. All we want are fresh things.
When I was first learning about the food in America, I noticed that in India everything was from scratch. Whatever, the sauces or paste, even the ginger garlic paste, we use it in every dish. We used to do it from scratch. But my friends, they used to make the paste in the home and would store it. But after coming to the United States, I feel that the time over here is running really, really fast when compared to my country.I used to get really bored in my country, but over here, I feel like I don't have much time to do things. I see more canned foods over here. Canned foods, we really don't get access to in India. The grocery stores and stuff are really, really far away. If we feel like getting anything in India, it's really close. But over here, I feel like it's very far to get groceries. So, people get everything at once and they just store it in the pantry. That never happened in India. We don't have a pantry in every kitchen. All we have is three or four shelves for food to store and we buy things fresh. I come from a small city. So we used to buy vegetables once every three to four days. Which is really fresh and really good.
When I was in my first semester, my spring semester, Opportunity used to provide a lot of tomatoes, and onions in the university pantry especially. But once we came for fall, they started to say one or two onions per person. Of course, it's good for Americans, for all the sandwiches and salads, but we literally use one onion for a single dinner, for one person. So it is not enough for the whole week. So I stopped going to the university pantry once the fall came. In my first semester, I used to go often, and I used to get things, but in the fall semester, everything changed. You needed to do it in a basket and could only get one onion and one tomato. It's not sufficient for people like me here.
The university's fresh vegetable program was a big savior for us. My senior students who came in Fall 2023, said that they didn’t have any part-time jobs during that time. Getting a part-time job as an international student very is hard at Opportunity University. They relied on the university pantry and they said that the pantry was doing a great job. The canned food was the only I didn't like. But once the Fall started, I felt that we were getting less access to fresh food
International students are allowed to do on-campus jobs, but only 20 hours a week. I met a lady. She works in the nearby High School, and she said, “I'm going to talk to your Dean about you,” because, I was really depressed at that time. Because my father can afford my bills, it's not a big deal for him. But being a 23-year-old girl, refusing all these traditions and coming to this state, if I go back to him and ask for money, I would feel bad about it.I want to be independent. I can't ask for money from my father, for everything. So, I didn't ask for money from him and I used to be really depressed because all my fellow students had a good job and stuff. I used to be alone in my room and I used to think about my part-time job. I did not get good grades in my first semester. Then, when the lady in PARC advised, I went to a professor and he helped me a lot. I got into dining.
They don't hire international students, but with the help of my professor, I got into there. I could do the job 20 hours a week. But when I came here, I realized that I was not used to working in food service. I needed to stand eight hours straight with some breaks in the middle. I started getting pain in my heel. I don't know what it is. My brother is a doctor, and when I told him, he said, “It’s a kind of thing called plantar fascitis, where the tissue between your muscle and skeleton in your heel was torn, so you're getting the pain”. So now I can't even work for 20 hours. I'm just doing 15 hours now, which is not sufficient for everything, you know? It's hard over here. It's hard over here.The cost of food is not really high, I could say. When it comes to non-vegetarians, it's similar. Like, two pounds of chicken is 100 rupees in India. That’s about $5. That's fine for non-vegetarians, especially chicken. I don't eat beef, I don't eat pork. I do not eat fish but I'm on my weight loss journey. Like, I gained more weight this summer. I'm planning to go back to my country and if people see me like this, they would definitely body shame me. So I'm trying to go on a weight loss journey. Before my weight loss journey, I used to take whatever was available for me. I used to go to the university pantry. I am not going because there is a time limit. I have my class on Friday morning around 9:45. So if I get time, I go to the university fresh vegetable program in the parking lot.
I used to eat cabbage and everything, but once I started my weight loss, I realized that I needed to get more nutrients, and I started to go to the grocery store every week. I'm going twice a week. Do you know how much it cost me last week for my groceries? It's like $250 to $300. It's really expensive because the rice over here is long-grain rice. It's good for Mexican food, but we eat Indian rice like Sona Masoori rice. 10 lbs would be, like, $23, I guess. So, rice is our staple food, and I bought red rice which is expensive. The 5 lbs is like $33 over here. But if you go in India, the 10 lb rice would come to a thousand rupees, which means about $10. It's just doubled over here. But, when it comes to vegetables, if I go shopping in my place, I used to get everything under $5. It's like 100 to 200 rupees. But here, the fresh food is really expensive. I took a watermelon, and it’s like $8 or $7, and I took a box of blueberries, it’s $5. My fruits come to around $50. Some foods like tofu and it’s $5, and for me, that's expensive. Not for Americans, but for me, it's expensive.
So my food bill came too, $300 last week, and I went shopping two days ago. I just bought strawberries, blueberries, and some tofu. It cost me $25 or something like that. I didn't buy much. Especially when it comes to green leafy vegetables, we don't eat lettuce. We don't eat all the greens available at the grocery store. The only thing we eat is spinach. Spinach is the only green leafy vegetable available here. Cilantro and curry leaves, we use it in every item, which is good for your skin, your eyes, and your head. But here, it's like, $1 is equivalent to a hundred rupees. So, your Indian mind says, "Oh, it's a hundred rupees, don't buy it. Save it." That's what it does. But I sometimes buy cilantro. It's like, you know, almost, if you buy in India, it's five rupees. But over here, it's 83 rupees. So, it’s so much money. For chicken, I don't feel it, but for all veggies and fruits, I feel a lot of the difference
I consulted a dietitian for my weight loss. She's from India, and she gave me a list. So, I didn’t have beetroots or tofu. "Okay, I can go to a nearby convenience store, and I can buy it." That's what I thought. But when I went to the nearby convenience store near my place, it didn't have beetroots, and people were crowded. It was really crowded and the convenience store didn’t have beetroots and onions.
Beetroot is a kind of basic thing over here and I expected that to be at the convenience store. So what I did was I went to ShopRite. I walked to ShopRite. It took me one to one and a half hours. I bought my beetroots, tofu, as I said, blueberries, and strawberries, and I came back. So it takes a lot of time over here. And in the evening I thought of studying for my exam, which is next week, but I really don't have much energy to study. At the same time, I feel like I'm really, really hungry but I'm on my diet. I can't order food from restaurants, even any Indian restaurants, because it has a lot of calories. After walking and coming over there, I had no energy. I didn't have the energy to change into my pajamas. So, I was like, just sitting. Because of hunger, I got a fever. If I'm not on my diet, it would be okay because I can order anything, or I can have anything. But not if you're really conscious about having good food. The temperature of my body increased, I thought "Okay, that's fine. Let's order something." So, I broke my diet that day and I ordered fast food and had some chicken over rice and I felt bad.I'm trying to eat good food and I'm trying to be healthy, but it didn’t work out with me and I consumed it and I felt really bad. But on other days I just stop it. I control my cravings and stuff. I gather all my energy to cook food, but I really can't cook food all the time.
But not if you're really conscious about having good food. The temperature of my body increased, I thought "Okay, that's fine. Let's order something." So, I broke my diet that day and I ordered fast food and had some chicken over rice and I felt bad.I'm trying to eat good food and I'm trying to be healthy, but it didn’t work out with me and I consumed it and I felt really bad. But on other days I just stop it. I control my cravings and stuff. I gather all my energy to cook food, but I really can't cook food all the time.My roommate used to help me, but my roommate has work to do, and some classes she wants to go to. I asked her to cut veggies, but she said, "I'm sorry, I want to leave now." So, I'm helpless at that moment. I remember my mom because she was there whenever I felt hungry, it never happened to me there. In my country, it never happened. I'm in a stage where I’m feeling hungry, and not able to cook. So, it really impacts if you're a student, if you want to take your exam. What if I have an exam or an assignment to be submitted on that day? So, it's tough over here.Food insecurity has impacted my school. Sometimes I feel like going to the university pantry, but I can't go there because I have my assignment.
You know, there is no tutoring service for graduates. You need to do everything on your own. So, I need to submit my assignments late at night. Sometimes I don't cook food, sometimes, I order my own food. I don't feel like ordering, but you know sometimes I don't feel like cooking. A couple of days ago, I went to the grocery store. I didn't eat my breakfast because I submitted my assignment late. I woke up late in the morning, and realized, "Okay, I need to do my tofu curry just to get my protein and stuff."
So I mostly shop at the local grocery store to buy beans and plantains. They have okra. And recently they had added many Indian items over there. So for some vegetables, I go to the grocery store. For my groceries for my dry storage, I go to a further city, but they too have a minimal collection. But another city has a very big Indian bazaar kind of thing. It's like an Indian supermarket. So I go to the other city. They have vegetables, but we don't get access to all kinds of Indian vegetables over here. So we have a place in a different city which has all types of Indian vegetables. So I go to the first city once every three weeks and the local store once a week, and occasionally go to a further city, as it's too far to go more regularly.Storing food can also be difficult. When I'm in my country, what we used to do is go to a wholesale supermarket once a month. We would buy lentils and some groceries which were used regularly. It's kind of dry storage. We buy it once a month, and we'd store it in our cupboards. We buy in less quantity. We don't buy pounds and pounds and then we keep it in storage. The vegetables we buy every four days, once.
So if it is finished, we have local convenience stores which are walkable even in tough climates, you know? Even when it's flooded we used to walk to a nearby convenience store. That is how near, but over here, everything is far away. If you want to buy Indian groceries here, you must go to another city. It's $20 for a cab. It's too far. So we need to go to the store a lot. Sometimes, the food gets spoiled because of that over-storage.Cooking takes a lot of time. My family’s Sunday ritual is making some rice pancakes and chicken curry. My dad used to go to the butcher shop and he'd bring chicken, which would take, like, one hour for him because he'd be chit-chatting with his friends. My mom used to grind the fresh ginger garlic paste for the chicken curry. It takes 20 to 30 minutes to cook because it should boil well. When I wanted to buy chicken in India it used to be on special days like Sunday, or only once a week because you need to go to the butcher shop, and you need to get it, and it takes time over there. But over here, it's like, it will be in my freezer always, so whenever I feel like it I'll just make it. My ginger garlic paste would be ready, my chicken would be ready. It's effortless to cook. Of course, it takes time, the same time, just 10 to 20 minutes difference. The knives are really good and all the cooking stuff over here is really good. I often use my microwave, which I never do in India. My kitchen in India doesn't have a microwave. So whenever there is leftover rice or bread, we don't eat the next day.
When I came here, I used to say "Oh, I don't eat, eat the leftover food. I never do that." But when I came here, I didn't have any options. I used it to reheat my leftover food, and that's how it works here. The use of a microwave and these modern knife sets and freezing things and prepping for your cook makes your cooking really interesting. But I didn't do that in my country. In my country, I felt like, "Oh, I need to cook." It takes time to cook, but over here I feel I can cook effortlessly. Buying groceries and storing stuff, it takes a lot of time due to transportation.For transportation here, I use some public services, but international students over here really don't have a wide knowledge about the transportation over here. I use state transit though, but in the place where I came from we used to use motorcycles a lot, so it was easy to get around over there. We used to have a lot of public transportation when compared to the United States of America. State transit, if you need to go to another city, it takes like two to three hours, but if you book a Lyft or something like that, it takes you just 20 minutes. Which is like a big time gap. If I take public transport or private transport in my country, it doesn't matter a lot. It might take from 20 to 30 minutes, but here it's like hours. So nobody wants to spend that much time going to a place on public transport.
The cost, it's okay. Sometimes the cost is also the same. When you book a Lyft, it would be like $10, $15. But if you go to state transit it charges me around like $3. So $5 for coming and $5 for going. Even the drivers who are handling the state transit, they really don't know what the cost is. It depends on if... Some drivers will say to you $2 and others will say $3.50. It changes according to the driver. That's what I feel. In India, it's not like that. It's fixed. If it is 40 rupees, it's 40 rupees. No matter who the driver is, or who the conductor is, here I see a lot of differences.As it is, in my country, even while learning, if something happens to my car, I can pay for it. But over here, a car is like $20,000, which is equivalent to my fees, so it's a lot for me. It's okay for American citizens, but I come from a place where there is a more money margin, you know? $1 is equal to 83 rupees and my father and my mother earn a lot in India. But if it is compared to American dollars, it's just a regular one. My mom and dad do $2,000.It's more in India. They have a service of like 40 to 45 years in the education department and they do $1,000. When I came here, I worked as a food service worker in gourmet dining. I earn $800. So if something happens to my car or, say, while I'm driving, it would cost me an arm and a leg. It's really expensive. So whenever I think about taking the driving test or if I want to buy a car, if something happens to the car, it would cost me a lot. So no, no need to buy a car. That's what I think because I make $800 and I spend it on my food and my bills. It's a lot.
Just, the car is the main thing over here. My father said, like, "Okay, buy a car, I'll send you money." But I was afraid of paying my bills because here, insurance costs a lot. I don't know how to take my driving test and nobody is ready to give their car to teach me how to drive, so it's tough. The car and everything, it's hard. As a student, you have this thing on one side and you have academics on one side. You feel guilty because you can’t afford time for your studies. You get motivated to study, but once you reach there, you really can't study with all these things.
Father loves me a lot. He can't even sleep if I don't give him a call, even at midnight, he just calls me. And I go like, "Dad, why are you not sleeping?" He says, "Oh, you didn't call me. I wanna see your face." That's what he says. Then just imagine what if I tell all these things to my father. He's not even gonna sleep if I have these issues. He still doesn't even sleep. Even my mom says "Go get married and go wherever you want with your husband because you don't need to work hard for this." So he's not gonna sleep if I say all these things to him. They'll ask me to come back, but I just want to be an independent girl which is why I came here. Even all my cousins who are 10 to 20 years older than me, all do their jobs in the IT department. They earn a good amount of money, but they're afraid to come to the States because, you know, they need to build their entire empire from scratch.
So they already have a good family and good things, good buildings, a good home, and everything. So, it is not really necessary to come here. But, I just wanted to come here because I needed a change. I need to help my family or my relatives or my friends who want to come here. There is nobody over here. All my fellow Indian friends who came here have their relatives in the United States of America. I don't have even one friend or one relative over here. It's hard over here. But it's good.
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