By: Jim Purekal
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As we approach the semiquincentennial anniversary of our country’s Declaration of Independence, I find myself thinking about the contributions and sacrifices that have been made by so many immigrant communities residing within our borders. My mother came to this country in 1974 at the age of 27 from India’s southernmost state, Kerala. She received her first pair of shoes only 11 years earlier, at the age of 16, but only because they were part of the uniform for nursing school. Despite her tendency to faint at the sight of blood, she became a registered nurse and boarded a PANAM flight bound for America, armed only with a nursing visa and $8 in her pocket. Spending $2 during the 24-hour series of plane rides, she stepped onto the jetway of JFK International Airport with $6 and apprehension. She relied deeply on her faith in God and her desire to prove to her family back home that their decision to send her away, breaking with the pre-determined role of women in her culture, had not been a mistake.
She quickly immersed herself in a community of women going through a similar experience. Others from India were given visas to supplement the dearth of nurses in the United States. They relied on religious leaders of the Catholic clergy, who helped them find adequate housing and develop a plan for transportation. However, Mom was quickly approaching the unmarriageable age of 30 and was summoned back to India in January 1976 to wed my father, after only knowing each other for a couple of weeks.
My father grew up in an 800-square-foot house in Pune, India, with two parents, a sister, and three brothers. I remember hearing the story about the night my grandfather, awakened by an eerie sense that something was wrong, found a king cobra wrapped around the leg of my 3-year-old father while he was sleeping in his crib. My grandfather was a superstitious man who believed that if he struck the cobra, its mate would visit the house and wipe out his entire family. So, he placed a saucer of milk on the side, allowed the uninvited intruder to drink, and watched it depart to terrorize someone else’s house. Despite a lack of resources, my father became a civil engineer and practiced his trade in Bombay (now Mumbai) for 10 years before meeting my mother.
In Bombay, tales of the United States had grown as people spoke of the land of unlimited opportunity, where the streets were paved with gold, where anyone could become an overnight success. After sorting out his visa paperwork, my father boarded a plane and landed in New York City on July 4, 1976, during the country’s bicentennial ceremony. Marveling at one of the largest fireworks displays in the country’s history and completely unaware of the reason for the ceremony, he remarked to himself, “Wow! Is this what America is like every night?”
His dream was met with a sobering dose of reality. It turns out America had no use for a civil engineer with credentials from a perceived third-world country. Despite their share of setbacks and disappointments, they were able to make a home in their new surroundings and wasted little time starting a family. My identical twin brother and I were born not long after my father’s arrival, followed by our two sisters. My parents bought a house in Yonkers, NY, about 30 minutes north of uptown Manhattan. My father worked as an accountant, and my mother took on night shifts as a neonatal nurse in a nearby hospital. There were times when she would work ten or twelve nights straight, with only a single night off before starting another round of nights. When she wasn’t working at the hospital, she helped my father fix up the house and some of the other houses they purchased in the neighborhood as prospective rental properties. My parents were industrious and committed to making the most of their adventure.
My siblings and I each took on a life of service in our own right. My brother spent most of his entire adult life working for non-profit international development organizations, likely influenced by our Jesuit high school education in the Bronx, NY. Our middle sister became a physician, fulfilling the stereotype that every Indian family must have at least one doctor in the bloodline. The youngest sister devoted her time to helping other immigrant families acclimate to their new surroundings by providing homes through land trusts. I was the only one who decided to pursue military service.
I left for Marine Officer Candidate School in January 2001, two years after graduating with my bachelor’s degree. My decision to join the Marines was validated the following September when two passenger planes attacked my home city. I knew I was where I needed to be. I entered the operational forces in 2003 as a pilot for the CH-46E, a tandem-rotor helicopter. In 2005, I deployed to Iraq for nine months. My second deployment involved flight operations aboard the USS Bataan in 2007, followed by a third deployment in 2008/2009 aboard the USS Iwo Jima.
For my fourth and final deployment, I became a staff officer assisting in the administration of flight operations aboard the USS Kearsarge. It was an eventful deployment that started in Pakistan, where I supported operations to help stranded civilians whose lives had been ravaged by a series of one-in-a-hundred-year floods. My time was divided between liaising with Pakistani and embassy officials in Islamabad and an airstrip at Pano Aquil, where a contingent of US helicopters flew food and medicine to areas that had been cut off from the rest of civilization. Despite the noticeable tension and a large level of distrust from the higher-ranking Pakistani officers in Islamabad, we forged bonds with operational officers in Pano Aquil who were dealing directly with the suffering on the ground. I will never forget how, in the day, we would work tirelessly under some of the hottest temperatures on the planet, but at night, we would eat, drink, and swap stories about our lives in our respective militaries and our fondness for the Indian actors of Bollywood. These exchanges offered a powerful reminder that, despite our differences, we are often connected by the same hopes, challenges, and shared humanity.
Later in that same deployment, I partook in a mission to rescue a downed pilot behind enemy lines as we planned bombing runs off the Kearsarge’s flight deck to attack Muammar Gaddafi’s tanks before they could penetrate the city walls of Benghazi, Libya. We were the first responders to quell some of the chaos ensuing from the Arab Spring of 2011, when civilians across North Africa began to take back their respective countries from the existing oppressive autocratic regimes to create a system that no longer ignored their pleas for basic human services, and to prove to the world that their lives mattered too.
All this led to the highest profile and most personally rewarding assignment of my career. I was accepted to fly for HMX-1, the prestigious helicopter squadron with a single no-fail mission: to support presidential helicopter operations anywhere in the world, this time for our country’s 44th president, Barack Obama. I could easily write a book about my time in the squadron, but this story concludes with how it began – with a woman, 41 years after landing in this country carrying $6 in her pocket standing on the south lawn of the White House watching her son co-pilot the aircraft carrying the leader of the free world; and a man who grew up in poverty among deadly snakes coming to this country 50 years ago shaking hands with the President inside the oval office as he posed for a picture alongside his son.
For the past four centuries, immigrants in this country have experienced backlash, with the benefits of good immigration policy pushed behind political posturing. Today, this perspective feels especially prominent as we continue to ignore how much of our past has been positively impacted by the foreign-born. This is why I am sharing my family’s story with you: how they came to America, the challenges they faced, and what they ultimately achieved — an experience that echoes the journeys of countless immigrants across generations.
I love this country. I love it not only for what it has given my family and me, but for what it means for those looking for the opportunity to actualize their potential and to provide a better life for their children. These are men and women struggling to break from the bonds of a pre-determined life, from those trying to convince them they could never be more than servants or street sweepers, that their lives don’t have enough value to matter. This country shines as a beacon for so many around the world who only want the chance to realize their dreams. My ask is that we don’t forget what makes this country great and that we continue to give a voice to those who were convinced they “don’t matter”, because they do. And, together, we can accomplish so much more than on our own.
