Kasturi becomes citizen

NOTE: This blog originally appeared December 26, 2006

Abhishek Kasturi leaned over the railing of the front row in the student section at Spartan Stadium. The big game against Fresno State was still about half an hour away, but the SJSU electrical engineering major couldn’t just couldn’t sit down. He leaned a little further.
“Don’t stand up on that,” one of the security guards admonished, his rough face slightly hidden behind stark sunglasses.
Kasturi, 19, slunk backwards toward his seat.
“But he just became a citizen!” someone said, interjecting themselves into an argument that never got airborne in the first place.
“Oh, well congratulations,” the security guard said. “But now the real question is, now that you’re a citizen, what are you going to give back to us? What are you going to contribute to America?”

***

What was he going to contribute to America? What hadn’t Kasturi already contributed since his family moved to America from Hyderabad, in southern India? Was it enough that he was put in English-as-a-second-language classes while attending middle school in Houston, even though he had been speaking English since kindergarten?
“They put me with six or seven other kids,” Kasturi said. “And made us do really degrading assignments, which I was able to do well. I could speak the language fine. I just had a bit of an accent problem, so they stuck me there.”
Was it enough that Kasturi got all of his questions right in his citizenship test, and that even he was annoyed with how poorly the test administrator spoke English?
“She couldn’t speak that clearly,” he said. “Sometimes I couldn’t understand her.”
Kasturi described the test, that was administered by San Francisco Citizen and Immigration Services, as “a joke,” and that the test administrator had test information and material on her desk during the oral exam.
One of the questions, Kasturi recalls, was “What was the Declaration of Independence?” Kasturi responded by saying that it was a document drafted by the colonists to separate from Great Britain.
The test administrator just started at him, Kasturi said.
“I wasn’t really sure what she was looking for, so I just said ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’”
His answer passed, clinching for him the exciting ordeal of earning United States citizenship. And Kasturi had truly earned everything to that point.
“I roomed with Abhishek freshmen year and I’m happy for him that he became a citizen,” fellow electrical engineering major Heindrick So said. “It’s quite a milestone.”
Kasturi left India for America on August 15, 1997, ironically on the anniversary of India’s independence. He arrived with his father Mani, mother Sukanya, and younger brother Anudeep, after years of traveling. Sukanya became a citizen the same day her oldest son did, and Mani’s test is coming up as well. Anudeep automatically becomes a citizen thanks to his family’s accomplishments.
Kasturi’s father is a computer engineer, and his work brought him and his family all over the globe. In turn, it put his eldest son in schools that few people may visit in their lifetime: Malaysia for kindergarten, Singapore for second grade, and Canada the very next year.
The family’s first U.S. stop was a brief one in Atlanta, then infamously in Houston, before moving out to the Bay Area. Before finally finding an apartment in Fremont, the family lived in a hotel in Oakland for what Kasturi called “the longest week of my life.”
“We never went out.”

***

By the time Kasturi had lost his native accent, he was attending Washington High School in Fremont for two years before finally attending Livermore High, where he graduated with honors for academics as well as tennis. Despite staying at one school for, to Kasturi, quite a long time, hectic days were far from over.
Kasturi, his green card now three years old, was set to pick a college. University of California-Berkeley was his number one choice. However, just as his dad never became a Golden Bear, Kasturi was the victim of his own “b*ll-sh*tted essays” and never made it to Cal.
Disappointment aside, Kasturi still had his pick of colleges that included University of California schools Davis and San Diego, Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, and SJSU. He settled on SJSU in a last minute decision when housing plans at Cal Poly fell through, among other issues.
“I don’t know if it would have worked out at Cal Poly. It’s not that diverse. Plus, I can’t live without curry,” he said, laughing.
Even after this, however, Kasturi says he prefers the college system in America to that of India.
“Getting into any university (in India) is hard as is,” he said. “Imagine the equivalent of 10 million people taking an SAT test, but only about one million seats available at all colleges in the state.”
“And it’s not like the SAT, you don’t really get a score. They rank you. And you’re pretty much screwed if you rank lower than the hundred-thousands.”
Kasturi said that students in India often redo grades 11 and 12 in hopes of achieving better placement for higher education.
“Like my cousin who lives back in India, for example: she’s a sophomore (in college) and she’s 22,” he said. “I’m only 19 and I’m a junior.”
The lucky ones are the ones who make it, at least somewhere.
“If people don’t get into a college (in India), they’ve wasted three years of their life,” Kasturi said.
Wasting time is something Kasturi just doesn’t do. He’s used his time to develop quite a few favorites in the world of pop culture; many from his native culture, and many he has simply learned to love.
His favorite movies are Dil Chahta Hai and Star Wars. One is Indian, one is the first movie he saw in English as a child.
He likes A. R. Rehman and Led Zeppelin. Shaan and Black Sabbath. Alisha Chinoy and The Beatles. Ashe Bhosle and AC/DC. Lata Mangeshkar and The Doors. He’s found of Adnan Sami and The Who. Lehmber Hussainpuri and The Rolling Stones. Mehsopuria and Green Day.
He likes to play Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix songs on his guitar.
However, the eclectic Kasturi is aware that he might have strayed too far from his original Indian heritage.
“That’s one of the bad things about living in the U.S. I feel like I’m losing my culture,” he said. “My brother is totally white-washed by now and I’m pretty far away from anyone other than my immediate family.”
Kasturi, however, does not believe he could ever move back to India completely. He has changed so much.
“I feel at home whenever I go to India,” he said. “But I’m accustomed to American life so much now that if it went back I know I would not fit in with other people. I would be hazed so badly.”
Australia and England are possible future destinations for Kasturi, who said he only applied for citizenship in America to please his parents and gain access more easily to foreign countries.
“Honestly, what does being a citizen mean to me?” he said. “Nothing, ha-ha. I mean, the only thing I’m really excited about is voting and that’s about it.”
Kasturi said he will become and educated voter won’t take the process for granted like some people who “don’t vote then complain.”
“Abhishek’s a pretty smart guy. I’m glad he became a citizen,” said Marlene Elizalde, behavioral science and sociology major.
Staying in one spot for too long is not something Kasturi is used to, and he plans on moving somewhere else in the world in two, three years tops. But for now, he’s in America. And for now, the real question is: what now is American going to give back to him?