Risk and Irony.

            I am a second-generation Indian immigrant, also known as an ABCD - American Born Confused Desi, whose parents left India arrived in the United States in 1968. My parents were among a very small group of educated Indians who had risked everything to take the adventure of a lifetime. My parents and many from their generation were doctors, scientists, and engineers. They first questioned, and then abandoned the orthodox religious world of their parents and peers, and who struggled against all odds to get a STEM oriented education. 

I am sure you must have heard various versions of their valiant stories –how they somehow managed to get an education in India in some very challenging circumstances. My father, for example, had a very orthodox father who did not feel compelled to spend as much time and money on his 12 children’s education as he did on religious articles, activities, and books. Studying for his exams under a streetlight and banking on the help of distant relatives and the voice of his well-earned grades, my father somehow managed to get his PhD and to secure post-doctoral positions in the UK and eventually in the United States. He arrived in the UK with only a few pounds in his pocket but with aspirations and compelling drive. 

His adventure to America was similarly challenging and precarious. Arriving in JFK Airport in NY, now with a 14-month-old infant in tow, their connection flight to Washington DC was, at first delayed, then cancelled, and then rerouted via LaGuardia airport. Finally landing in DC in the wee hours of the morning, more than 24 hours after they first left London, my parents were ready to begin their new life in America. 

 The most important thread that runs through this and many other immigrant stories I have heard is the willingness to take risks. I believe that they made radical changes in their life by finding and taking these decisions in the small number of opportunities that were available to them. They took risks and, for the large part, they succeeded. They now have big, beautiful families (with grandchildren), beautiful homes, substantial retirement income, stories of travails and triumphs. 

            The greatest irony is that, despite their willingness to take risk, their children- the late 60’s and early 70’s born ABCD, (my cohort) are terribly risk averse. The vast majority of this early generation of ABCDs were born and bred to become brilliant doctors, engineers, and scientists. They excelled in their early educations and became the valedictorians of their high schools and earned admission to top public and private universities and colleges. 

It is in these higher education contexts, where risk (educational, social, creative, or otherwise) is championed that the ABCDs took the most well-trodden, predictable, and safest paths. In fact, they were (and many of the younger ABCDs still are) so risk averse that they only took classes that would not threaten their fragile GPAs (and egos). This meant, of course, that they took only science and math classes and avoided the social sciences (to a small degree) and the humanities (to a large degree). Ironically, they did not have the desire to expand their minds and lives as did their parents. 

            There is no doubt that their achievements are commendable given that they were sometimes doubly ostracized for the ethnicity and for their high grades and that they often broke the glass ceiling of white privilege in America. I do not mean or intend to disparage them in this way. Rather, it is sad that their interests in anything other than scientifically oriented majors (or in many cases, in anything that cannot help them get into medical school) has been eradicated, or that they are not willing to risk anything that could jeopardize their medical school plans. 

            This is indeed ironic since their parents risked everything to get to the States, and, in some sense, to give their children (and grandchildren) the freedom and opportunity that they sought when they were in India. Included in this, of course, is the freedom to take risks. 

            So, these first-generation immigrants who took such a great risk have children who are not willing to take any at all. Of course, some of the blame is on the first-generation parents who did not encourage this risk-taking, which, ironically, is what got them to the United States in the first place!

            I am fortunate that my parents have encouraged me to take risks. Though I first began as a combined Math and Engineering major at NYU/ Cooper Union, I transferred to Reed College to pursue a degree in Religious Studies, with a focus on Hinduism and Indian philosophy, eventually to get a PhD on the same subject from the University of Chicago. At first my parents were agonized by this re-orientation but then realized that they too had taken tremendous risks, and that I should be able to as well, and they encouraged and supported me in every way that they could. Though my children are not yet college-age, I too have emboldened then to excel at, and to embrace, any subject, and not just science and math related ones.

            So, for those of you who are new first-generation immigrants, who are taking a risk by coming to the United States, remember this if and when you have children of your own who are American citizens. While you may want them to follow the STEM path, permit them to risk, if only a little, in their adolescents, teenage years, and, perhaps most importantly, when they are matriculating in colleges and universities. If you do not, then you risk the irony of preventing risk.