Interview with Mahir Azam
Introduction
My knowledge about immigration and how impactful it is on America was very little. After a semester and concluding this project it helped me grasp a better understanding. Once I heard about this assignment I knew I had to interview Mahir Azam, who I had met while we we’re volunteering at a local food bank. He is a first generation immigrant from Dhaka, Bangladesh and was a bit skeptical at first but came around to reflect on his journey to the United States. Neither side of my family are first or even second generation immigrants, so it was amazing to listen and learn about immigrating to the United States firsthand. Throughout the interview I learned about Mahirs’ family, culture, and his life story. After hearing his story, it helped me get a better understanding of how immigrating from a foreign country was and the hardships he and his family had to tackle.
Summary
Mahir was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh and has one little brother and one little sister. He stated that Dhaka is one of the wealthiest cities in Bangladesh and that his journey to the United States was not as difficult as some of the people he knew. Mahir and his family visited Florida a couple times before physically moving here because he had social ties there. He stated that they “finally” moved to Virginia on December 19, 2019, which was right before the COVID-19 crises. He actually thrived during this time, and took this time to learn the English language and try to adapt to American culture. When I asked why they moved to Virginia because he had family in Florida, he stated because their schools and environment were terrible. Mahir went to school in Bangladesh and completed his freshman year in high school before moving here. He finished the rest of his high school career in Virginia and graduated with a 3.7 GPA, which is astonishing for not knowing the English language. Knowing the English language is one of the hardest languages to learn, I was blown back by this.
Migration
Coming to America was easier for Mahir and his family than most immigrants. He talked about how he was from the more wealthy part of Bangladesh and he had family members already in the United States. Having social ties while trying to migrate into another country are so important, which Mahir knew and was very grateful for. He said the process of moving here from Bangladesh is different for everybody and having these family members already present here were so resourceful and made the move easier. Although his relatives didn’t pay for anything they helped him and his family get a place to stay, get insurance, sign up for credit cards, and assisted in finding them jobs. They stayed in a hotel for about a week or so until they found an Apartment. He did not like staying in the hotel which as anyone would feel and describes it as irritating and upsetting. Not being able to go to your own place and calling something your home has to be devastating. After finding the apartment and moving in he said he felt relieved and grateful. Mahir said back home in Bangladesh they have people to move furniture for you, clean houses, and assist you with home needs but in America they had to do all of this on their own. He said it was hard to do and adapt to but it was another challenge he got through. His family wanted him and his siblings to receive a good education and go into a career that will be useful. These were the main factors that affected them to leave Bangladesh Mahir stated that there was no specific reason they left Bangladesh, other than to go to a better school system and the money opportunities are way better here.
Integration
As for integration, America was the first for everything for Mahir. He got his first job, car, and credit card here. He stated that had to basically “start fresh,” “start over,” but it wasn’t terribly hard because he comes from a well established family. While on the journey for him and his parents to find a job, they actually did not face any racism or unfair treatment. Mahirs’ first job was a cook at Chick-fil-a, which is kind of ironic because they are very christian like. He said that being muslim did not affect him getting a job at all, in fact they told him they were happy to give him the opportunity. Although the cultural differences were hard to adapt to though, Mahir stated. He did not have school on Fridays because they would go to Mosques and pray five times a day. Coming to America, he had to adapt to going to school on Fridays and not being able to attend the service regularly like they did back home. It was weird at first, but you kind of just got used to it because school on Friday is a United States norm. Mahir stressed the main reason for coming to America was so he and his siblings could get the good education America was known for. The school he went to had a program to help him learn English and he also joined sports teams that helped as well. When he first met with his counselor, she was surprised at how bad his grades were because in Bangladesh grades don’t really matter. He said they just have to pass O level and A level exams which are similar to the SATs and ACTs that we have in America. These exams are the only things that universities look at so he did not have to keep his grades up. He significantly increased his grades in about six months and made his counselor proud. Mahir graduated high school with a 3.7 GPA and is currently going to community college and plans to transfer into a university next academic year. He took advantage of COVID and instead of sitting at home and doing nothing he joined the football and wrestling team. This was a great resource for him to make relationships with his classmates and help him improve his english. He said before this was different making friends here and was in “culture shock.” But after time he got comfortable and created some great friendships. Mahir was thankful for this opportunity and still is friends with the people he met on the first day of football practice.
Membership
When asking Mahir if he felt more of the “Bangladesh culture” or the “American culture,” it took him a minute to answer. He said both, “I like to say I feel American because I have been here for a couple of years now, but something about me is always going to feel more foreign and sort of belong to Bangladesh.” He was born and spent 16 years of his life there so without a doubt he feels that way. I did not ask him about his ties to his home country but he did state that he still is in contact with some friends he has back home. And that some have the dream of coming to America for better education and economic opportunities as well. Mahir expressed to me that getting dual citizenship was extremely difficult and expensive. His parents both have dual citizenship but he and his siblings do not. Mahir eventually wants to get dual citizenship because there are many perks that he could take advantage of. As for taking trips back to Bangladesh, Mahir hasn’t been. He expressed that it is time consuming and difficult especially when he’s working, going to school, and his parents are working full time. He described it as a hassle but hopes he will get the chance to go back and tell all of his friends and some family members back there what America is all about.
Conclusion
After interviewing Mahir and learning about his journey to America, I learned more about the immigration process and complications that immigrants have to experience daily. This project was an amazing opportunity to gain knowledge about immigrants and how one has to adapt to American culture. I was able to reflect on some of the themes and concepts we learned throughout the semester and put it in real action during my interview with Mahir. The last thing he said to me, after we turned the recorder off was, “I’m going to make my presence known and do something that will inspire and help my family.” Which I thought was amazing and showed how grateful he was for the opportunity of moving to America.
Matthew Smith: All right, my name is Matthew Smith, and I will be conducting this interview today. Um, all right, so can we just start off by stating what your name is and where you’re from?
Mahir Azam: My name is Mahir Azam. I’m from Bangladesh.
Matthew Smith: Okay, um how old are you? And when did you migrate here?
Mahir Azam: I’m 20.
Matthew Smith: And when did you migrate here?
Mahir Azam: So I moved here, I’ll tell the specific date, I moved here on December 19th of 2019.
Matthew Smith: 2019? Okay, and how would you describe the process?
Mahir Azam: So I would say the process, um, So, it differs from people. Like, I had family living here. I had family living in Florida, so we moved. They came over to Virginia for like two weeks to help us, like, find a place. So, when we moved here, we were in a hotel for like a week. Then, after the second week, we found an apartment.
We went, like, bought, like, furniture and stuff like that. And, yeah, so, like, the stressful part was, like, Um, so back there, um, you have people, you pay people to, like, do your work, like, cleaning cleaning your houses, like, moving furniture and everything, but back here you have to do everything by yourself, so. I would say it was a little bit harder, but I got through it. So, That’s good.
Matthew Smith: That’s good. Um, that kind of leads, like, into my next question. Would you say it was like hard on you and your family moving here from Bangladesh or not really?
Mahir Azam: Because um before we moved here. We did visit America a lot a lot a lot of times The hardest part was just like us like getting used to like the school culture the job culture here Like me like me.
Um, they taught us English English there, but I wasn’t I’m not used to saying it on a daily basis, so I have to get used to that, like, speaking English with, like, my people from other schools, my teachers, and same with my parents when they’re working a job, so. Okay.
Matthew Smith: Um, was it, would you say it was hard to adapt to the American culture?
Mahir Azam: For me, it wasn’t. I’ll say, I’ll say that because COVID helped me a lot. Um, during COVID, okay, I’ll say this. Um, I think after I moved here, I did school for four months, which was a little bit hard at first because I didn’t really know anyone. But COVID happened. Um, so all the school was online. And the, the, the one thing that helped me adapting to the culture was just like joining clubs.
Like me personally, I joined the football team during COVID, I joined the wrestling team. That helped me like kind of like better my English, but also like make friends, which helped me adapt to the culture here.
Matthew Smith: Okay. Could you elaborate or tell me more about like first going to school and like first meeting people and first like making friends? Like how was that? Like, how did that make you feel coming into, you know, America and not really knowing anybody and having to like, make new friendships
Mahir Azam: Okay, so I’ll, I’ll give you an example of like my first counselor meeting. This is my first day I set in my set foot in my high school. So back in Bangladesh. Um, it de, it really depends on high schools, but how, what my school did, it doesn’t really matter what grades you get because. We had like, um, you know how we have SATs and ACTs here?
Matthew Smith: Yes.
Mahir Azam: So we had like, these exams called O Levels and A Levels. And those are the only grades universities back there look at. So high school, like, grades doesn’t really matter.
So when my, when I got there, got here, my counselor was surprised. She was like, your high school grades are really bad. And I explained that to her. So, yeah, like, I guess like In like six months my grades were really good, but I guess like that was that’s something different like, you know I have some grades the GPA actually like matters here and when it comes to Friend, it’s a little bit different It’s a little bit like culture shock, but once you get used to it for me, it did take some time But once I got used to it, I started getting comfortable with people and it started getting better.
Matthew Smith: Would you say? You know first going to school And like meeting friends, would you say that like helped you better your English?
Mahir Azam: Yes, definitely. Like as I said, like before COVID happened, my English was also like getting better, but like Um, the fact that I, like, I didn’t, like, sit alone at my house and go with it.
I actually, like, joined, like, football or wrestling, and I was talking with people at that point, so. Um, and also online classes helped a lot, so.
Matthew Smith: Um, you don’t have to answer this next one if you don’t, if you would not like to, but what, did you face any, like, difficulties or, like, say, like, racism when you first got here from anybody?
Mahir Azam: Me personally, no. Okay. I didn’t face anything.
Matthew Smith: Okay. Do you know if your parents ever did, like, you know, like trying to find a job, they’ve been turned down because of where they’re from, that you know of or No,
Mahir Azam: No, not that I know of.
Matthew Smith: Um, when first coming to America, how did, how would you say the different, like cultural differences like affect you?
Mahir Azam: So, okay, I’ll, like, I can answer this question, so. First of all, back there, it’s very different because Bangladesh is also known as like a highly Muslim religious country. So, and America is like open to every, every culture. And so I’ll, like, since, like, Bangladesh, like, I used to go, I, I had to, like, you know how, like, um, Christians go to churches on Sunday?
Matthew Smith: Yeah.
Mahir Azam: We go to mosques on Friday. Okay. But, like, obviously we can’t, we can’t go because we had, like, school on Friday. Yeah. And that, like, we had, like, prayer, prayers, like, every five times a day, which is, like, a, like, generous amount. Mm hmm. And we didn’t really have that here. So I would say culturally it’s a little bit different, but you get used to it.
Matthew Smith: Okay. Now what would you say the biggest difference is between back home in Bangladesh and in America?
Mahir Azam: Well, it really depends on your situation because, um, back home, um, it really depends on the person because, like, where I come from, like, I come from a really, like, well established family back there, and now it’s just, when we moved here, so, um, we started, we basically started over. So, it really depends on, like, what type of, like, situation you were in.
Matthew Smith: You just mentioned that, like, whenever you came here, like, you had to, like, start over. Like, could you kind of elaborate more on that.
Mahir Azam: They start over like so as I said, I have family down in Florida But we didn’t have anyone in Virginia Got you So and we chose for me and my mom chose Virginia specifically because we we visited Florida so many times we wanted something different Yeah, but like as as we don’t know here.
We don’t know anyone here. We had to like Like, my dad, when he was like, looking for houses, he had to like, make sure how to like, get loans from the bank. Or when he was buying cars, he didn’t understand how insurances work. So, like, you know, he had to get, he had to understand that. Like, and also like, the English barrier also faces in here. Like, basically, insurances, like, um, bank, like, credit cards, debit cards, and all that stuff.
Matthew Smith: Would you say all that stuff that you just mentioned is that like, easier to, to say, come across back home, like, easier for you to like, like access, I guess you could say?
Mahir Azam: It may have been easier for my parents because they grew up there, but I grew up, I’ll say, okay, I grew up back there for 16 years, but after like, I, I got my first job here.
Okay. I, I got my first credit card, debit card here, I got my first car here, so I’m more used to Getting those stuff here and back there, but my parents can tell a different story about than that, so they can tell you about.
Matthew Smith: Is your experience so far here in America what you thought it would be before coming here?
Mahir Azam: Yeah, yeah, I would say, and it’s, I would say yes and better, because I would say, like, as I said, like, um, I didn’t really know where my life was going to, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do as a major in college, and my grades were not looking good, and coming to America, it really helped a lot, like, of course, I’m, like, It really helped a lot in that case because, um, One of the reasons, main reasons we moved here is for education, better education, so that really helped a lot.
Matthew Smith: Sorry, I forgot to ask this earlier, but do you have, do you have any other siblings?
Mahir Azam: I have, um, one little brother who’s a freshman in high school and one little sister.
Matthew Smith: Okay. Um, the only, the last question I can think of is, um what would you say your biggest, like, takeaway is? From coming here and like, like how would you describe like coming here and starting like you said like starting over basically like starting like how would you describe that to like you say people that grow up here and like you know live here like how would you describe like how how that transaction was like.
Mahir Azam: Like are you saying like what advice I could give to people who are living here?
Matthew Smith: Yeah, like what advice you could give and like basically just describe like How it was for you compared to people that like grew up here in America and don’t have to you know go through the struggles that you had to
Mahir Azam: For me I would say definitely like, um Getting out of your comfort zone because like okay, I started playing football, which is not really a sport We play back there Okay And the fact that like I was playing football surprised my parents surprised, surprised my friends back there because it’s such a late. Um, It’s a, it’s a full contact sport. Yeah. So, I’ll say like, then definitely like, I was scared for my first practice, like. For sure. Yeah, and definitely try, go out of your comfort zone. Try new things, like, don’t be afraid to talk to people. But also, like, um, like, look at every different situations, because, yeah, like, as you said, like, people who grew up here, it’s way more different than people who grew up there. But that, that, that doesn’t mean they can’t both be friends. They can still, like, work together or can come together at one point in their life.
Matthew Smith: Cool um, alright well thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Mahir Azam: Thank you.
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