Your Dada's American Dream

It is time I told you boys the story of how we came to America.

Your Dada was the first of our Indian family to arrive here, by way of Ottawa and Chicago. But similar to the histories of many immigrants, his story doesn't begin in North America, it begins on the shores of a distant land, halfway across the world.

Bombay is a city on the sea. I have never been there, but I have heard of its vista many times. Your Dada loved the sea, although I'm not sure whether he's always loved the water or if he began to love it because he moved to Bombay. Which is not where our family is from, by the way - we are not Mumbaikars, ancestrally - but it is where the tale of our family coming to America begins.

Your Dada was at university for engineering there. He was in a hallway, probably on his way to some class, and a forgotten piece of paper was strewn across the floor ahead of him. This paper, at least from the way he told me the story, made quite an impression on him. As it turns out, the paper was a list, of colleges and universities in the United States and Canada that offered scholarships for foreign students.

And the idea to leave India in search of a better life, was probably a seed in his head before this moment. But this forgotten piece of paper is what caused that seed to take root, strongly, in his mind.

Your Anil Dada was a longtime friend of my Papa. They went to school and college together. And Anil Dada once told me that Papa's nickname among his school friends was Ghoda. It's the hindi word for horse. And that's what your Dada was, a work horse. Once that paper came across his path, and that idea of a scholarship rooted in his mind, it was only a matter of time before he got here.

And despite your Dada facing extraordinarily difficult circumstances, here we are.

If you could ask him yourself about why he came here, as I have tried to, he'd tell you that he came here "for a better life." I've thought many years about what he meant. It's a haunting thing to wonder - about what drives your father - because it is after all, an inevitable part of what drives his sons.

When he said a better life, I think he meant prosperity. And part of that means wealth. But prosperity - in the way I think your Dada meant it, and the way I mean it here in this letter - is not only wealth. It is much more than that.

Prosperity is thriving. It is reaching the height of our potential as human beings. Prosperity is creating surplus, and then having the honor of spreading it humbly and generously to others. Prosperity is what’s beyond the essentials needed to have our physical bodies survive - it is the jewels of knowledge, culture, art, virtue, and the audacity to dream of a better life. For ourselves, yes, but more importantly for ourselves and others.

In America, prosperity is intervening to end a world war. It is vaccines and splicing the gene. It is going to the moon and brokering peace on earth. It is bringing children out of hunger and into love. It is the freedom to think beyond our daily bread and our tired and our poor. It is seeking to understand the mysteries of our universe.

American prosperity, I believe, is so much bigger than riches and spoils. American prosperity is the idea of creating the surplus we need so that we can then set our sights higher: on challenging the injustices of the present and enriching the future we may never ourselves benefit from, but others might. This unique notion of American prosperity - a prosperity that is for ourselves and others is what I think your Dada thought of when he contemplated a better life. A dream he ventured across the ocean and into an unknown land to be part of.

Because in America we are not just handed a brush and asked to paint something, we as a people, are driven to create the canvas on which others, namely our children, can paint. In America, we are called not just to be the consumers of prosperity, but to also be its producers.

Prosperity for ourselves and others.

I tell you all this because yesterday was an interesting day.

Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris became the President and Vice President-elect of the United States, our country.

This is what your Dadi said to me in a text message last night:

Me: Did you watch Biden’s speech?
Dadi: Yes. Biden & Harris both speech was outstanding. I am happy. First time in my life I enjoyed president results.
Me: It’s crazy how much of a difference it feels because our VP is half Indian. It feels like we belong here now.
Dadi: Yes beta. You, Bo & Myles will touch the sky in this country. I see that. Papa’s dream will come true.

This week, 74 Million Americans asked someone who looks like you, and who looks like me, and who looks like mommy to serve the nation. 74 Million.

But why I tell you both this is not because I want to emphasize that some barrier has been broken and a glass ceiling has been shattered, though it has. I want to tell you what that ceiling shattering means.

It would be easy for us to feel today that this ceiling shattering is an opportunity for us individually to grow and thrive and become more prosperous, because an invisible barrier is now gone. That the broken ceiling is for us.

That is not the lesson of today.

The lesson of the day is that there is no more doubt that we belong here, and that does provide us more opportunity. But there are no more excuses to be made out of not belonging, either. We can no longer claim to feel that we don't belong and let it be a reason we don't contribute.

The lesson of today - with the shattered glass of broken ceilings - is that we have an invitation and obligation to live out the broad, ever expanding notion of American prosperity - a dream your Dada risked everything for - not just for ourselves, but for ourselves and others.