Pratishtha Khanna

Maryland

Pratishtha Khanna

1. How old were you when you came to the United States? Tell me a little about when you first realized that you were undocumented and what that meant for you.

I was ten and a half years old when I first came to the U.S. When I missed my fam­i­ly in India, my father would tell me that once we got ‘approved’, we could go vis­it them. But he nev­er explained the details—that we couldn’t go because we didn’t have papers to return to the U.S. I knew we weren’t U.S. cit­i­zens, but I did not ful­ly under­stand our sta­tus or its lim­i­ta­tions. I didn’t under­stand the mean­ing of the word ‘undoc­u­ment­ed’, and didn’t real­ize that it meant we didn’t have immi­gra­tion status.

My father ini­tial­ly came to the U.S. by him­self, enter­ing on a tourist visa while search­ing for work. Once he found an employ­er who began the process of apply­ing for my father’s visa, my moth­er, broth­er, and I came to the U.S. to join him. After we arrived, my father’s employ­er told him that there had been a delay on his appli­ca­tion due to a tech­ni­cal­i­ty. My father’s tourist visa expired while he was wait­ing for his employ­ment visa: he ‘over­stayed’ eight days. As a result, he was inel­i­gi­ble for a work visa and his employ­er could not com­plete the peti­tion. My father was very dis­ap­point­ed, but we decid­ed to stay because we had already shift­ed our whole lives to be in the U.S. My par­ents were sure that they could straight­en every­thing out. Ulti­mate­ly, those eight days stood between my fam­i­ly hav­ing immi­gra­tion papers in the U.S. and liv­ing a life of per­pet­u­al uncer­tain­ty as undoc­u­ment­ed individuals.

It was­n’t until my fresh­man year of high school that I real­ized the true mean­ing of being undoc­u­ment­ed. Like most teens, I was eager to apply for a driver’s per­mit, so I asked my par­ents for my pass­port, birth cer­tifi­cate and oth­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments. My par­ents explained that I was inel­i­gi­ble for a dri­ver’s per­mit or license because we did not have the nec­es­sary iden­ti­fi­ca­tion or immi­gra­tion sta­tus. I was crushed with dis­ap­point­ment and felt help­less. That’s when I start­ed to won­der what oth­er rites of pas­sage I would have to forego because of my immi­gra­tion sta­tus and the greater impact not hav­ing papers might have on my future.

2. What have been the biggest barriers for you in achieving your dreams because of your undocumented status? How has DACA changed that?

One of the biggest bar­ri­ers I have faced because of my undoc­u­ment­ed sta­tus was the col­lege appli­ca­tion process. Even the sim­plest pieces were chal­lenges for me. For exam­ple, most stu­dents apply using the com­mon appli­ca­tion, which is a gener­ic appli­ca­tion you fill out once so that you can use it to apply to mul­ti­ple schools. Since I did­n’t have a Social Secu­ri­ty num­ber, I had to leave that space blank on the appli­ca­tion, which pre­vent­ed it from being processed. My only option was to com­plete paper appli­ca­tions for each school and sub­mit an adden­dum explain­ing that I was undoc­u­ment­ed. Not only was my appli­ca­tion process more tedious than oth­ers, but I also had to explain my per­son­al sit­u­a­tion as an undoc­u­ment­ed per­son to every school.

The lim­i­ta­tions I faced by not hav­ing a Social Secu­ri­ty num­ber did not end there. I real­ly want­ed to attend Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land, Bal­ti­more Coun­ty (UMBC), but felt like there was no point since I didn’t have a Social Secu­ri­ty num­ber. Around this time, my moth­er learned of Howard Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege (HCC) and set up a meet­ing for me with an aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sor there. The advi­sor at HCC told me that while my grades were good, my undoc­u­ment­ed sta­tus and finan­cial sit­u­a­tion might work against me and ‘push me to the back of the pile’ at schools like UMBC. In order to improve my chances of being accept­ed to UMBC, he sug­gest­ed that I com­plete an Associate’s degree from com­mu­ni­ty col­lege, which would illus­trate that I could han­dle col­lege-lev­el class­es and thrive in a uni­ver­si­ty set­ting. For­tu­nate­ly, after com­plet­ing my degree at HCC I was accept­ed by UMBC.

Through­out this process, I also had to wor­ry about finan­cial assis­tance. With two par­ents work­ing low-pay­ing jobs because of their immi­gra­tion sta­tus, find­ing the resources to pay for cours­es at HCC and at UMBC has been a strug­gle. Many high­er edu­ca­tion schol­ar­ship pro­grams are fed­er­al­ly fund­ed, which makes me inel­i­gi­ble because I don’t have a green card or cit­i­zen­ship. I have used every pen­ny I have earned to pay off my school debts and even then, am always behind on my pay­ments. Fig­ur­ing out how to advance my stud­ies and still make enough mon­ey to cov­er even a small por­tion of my class­es is a con­stant source of anx­i­ety. My dream is to attend med­ical school, but with all of these finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties, it will be yet anoth­er big challenge.

How­ev­er, I am so grate­ful to now have DACA sta­tus, which has giv­en me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work and devel­op a sense of self-worth. My Social Secu­ri­ty num­ber has giv­en me a new­found sense of con­fi­dence. Before DACA, no mat­ter how qual­i­fied I was, I could not earn a sub­stan­tial wage or hold down a job due to cir­cum­stances beyond my con­trol. Those lim­i­ta­tions can real­ly take a toll on one’s men­tal health. I now have a new sense of pride, know­ing that I can work and help my parents.

3. What is your happiest or most vivid childhood memory?

My hap­pi­est mem­o­ries are the ones with my extend­ed fam­i­ly back in India. I miss being in a room sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly with lots of com­mo­tion and laugh­ter. I wish that we could trav­el and vis­it them. It is dif­fi­cult being so far away and feel­ing so dis­con­nect­ed from my family.

4. Where do you see yourself in ten years? How would that change if you had status or citizenship?

In ten years, I hope to be a doc­tor prac­tic­ing anes­the­si­ol­o­gy, and mar­ried with a fam­i­ly of my own. I hope that my chil­dren will not bear the scars of hav­ing a pre­vi­ous­ly undoc­u­ment­ed par­ent. I want my chil­dren to feel safe and have the poten­tial to ful­fill their dreams with­out limitations.

5. What is one thing that no one knows about you or your most marked characteristic?

I am a very qui­et per­son, so I think many peo­ple see me as shy or reserved. How­ev­er, when there an issue that I feel pas­sion­ate about, I am very vocal, which some­times catch­es peo­ple off guard. Since I start­ed col­lege and began study­ing wom­en’s issues, I have become a bit of a fem­i­nist and want to make sure that my voice is heard. My friends often say that I am like the crisp noo­dle in a sal­ad, offer­ing a bit of spunk and fla­vor when least expected.

6. If you could ask one question of President Obama, what would it be?

I would tell him my sto­ry and ask if his was just as hard. I would ask for his advice, giv­en that he is an African Amer­i­can man, I am an undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grant, and we have both faced seri­ous civ­il rights chal­lenges. I would want to know how he over­came his chal­lenges and what advice he has for me.

7. What is your favorite quote?

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahat­ma Gandhi

8. Is there anything else you would like to share about yourself or your experience in the United States?

I want peo­ple to know that although I am an undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grant, Amer­i­ca has been home to me my whole life. It is the place where I have been raised and edu­cat­ed. I am learn­ing things and tak­ing class­es that I may nev­er have tak­en or learned about in India: fem­i­nism, sex­u­al­i­ty, gen­der roles, and iden­ti­ty. Amer­i­ca has giv­en me a new world­view. This is the only coun­try in the world where you can ask ques­tions and tell the gov­ern­ment that they are wrong with­out being afraid of the consequences.