In a community where the only way the majority of students come close to knowing the reality of immigration is through a stream of headlines on the screen, it’s easy to be indifferent rather than empathetic. But to understand the immigrants walking the halls of SM East, here’s a collection of immigrant stories that aren’t always visible. They’re that student who brought daal, a lentil soup, to lunch, and their peers asked, “What’s that smell?” They’re that student whose peer asked them if their home country was “dirty.” And they’re those students in our community from Iraq, Kenya and India who went through cultural adjustments and worries of having to leave — but also have hope for their future in the U.S.
After eight years of trying to stay in the U.S. junior Abdullah Alboowayef’s family has a good chance of becoming citizens after their visas were approved and are ready to start a new life
When junior Abdullah Alboowayef’s dad Mohammed left his family in the U.S. to go back to Iraq two years ago, Mohammed knew he wasn’t coming back.
The Alboowayefs had been living in the U.S. for six years after immigrating from Iraq in 2018 and entered the lottery for visas to gain permanent U.S. citizenship three times without winning.
But when Abdullah’s grandfather who lives in Iraq got sick, Mohammed had to make a decision.
Go back to Iraq — where one of his brothers was murdered in a car bombing and another brother survived being shot in the back five times — and risk not being allowed to come back to the U.S., or stay with his family in the U.S. but sacrifice not being with his dad during a critical time.
After four months of discussion with his family and a canceled $1,000 plane ticket because he couldn’t bear to leave, Mohammed bought another ticket and left for the airport after his kids, then-freshman Abdullah, 9-year-old Jena and 4-year-old Adam went to school.
While the Alboowayef children knew their dad was leaving, they didn’t know when.
Mohammed doesn’t like to see his kids crying.
“They broke my heart,” Mohammed said. “I say to [my wife], hurt their feelings, I can handle that, but they cannot handle this.”
By the second semester of his freshman year, after his dad had already left, Abdullah filled out his course card with random classes and electives. He and his family didn’t think Mohammed could secure another visa to the U.S., so they’d be going back to Iraq anyways. What was the point?
After five months passed, Abdullah’s mom, Zahra, had sold all their furniture, cars and belongings to prepare for the move. They didn’t have a dinner table to eat on and slept on mattresses on the floor.
Abdullah said he had to become the “man of the house.” So he’d pick up the groceries for Zahra and comfort her when she seemed stressed, telling her, “With every hardship comes ease,” a verse from the Quran.
“Because it's my mom, and I can't make her see me like I'm weak or whatever,” Abdullah said. “I had to stand up for me and my whole family.”
Then they got the call at 6:05 a.m. on June 27 — Abdullah’s birthday.
“I’m coming back.”
Mohammed had gotten another student visa approved to study in the U.S. He booked a flight back to the U.S. to see his family again for the first time in six months.
Now, the Alboowayefs have two chances to stay. They have a pending asylum application — which families can apply to if they face danger in their country — and an EB-2 National Interest Waiver, which requires one family member to have a professional degree, so staying would be in the interest of the nation.
Since Mohammed has a PhD in law, their attorney says they have a good chance of eventually gaining citizenship through the EB-2. Once their approval has been processed, they can apply for green cards and eventually become U.S. citizens — a process that could take one to three or more years.
On the day of Mohammed’s flight, Jena, Abdullah’s sister, constantly asked her mom, “When do we pick up dad? Maybe we’re late?”
“Oh my gosh, the plane hasn't even [landed] yet,” Zahra said.
But Zahra was still constantly checking his last known location on Life360 and WhatsApp.
After a 15-hour-long flight from Jordan to Chicago, Mohammed approached the immigration officer, worried he’d be turned away at the border despite having a visa.
Then he heard the words: “You’re good to go.”
“I was so super happy,” Mohammed said. “I feel born as a new person.”
The moment he could connect to the airport’s wifi, Mohammed called his wife.
“Hey, I am here,” he said. “I’m legally here.”
Now, Mohammed could prepare for the bar exam and practice law in the U.S. Abdullah could pursue his associate’s degree at Johnson County Community College before graduating high school. And for the first time in a long time, they cried happy tears.
Mohammed told them, “We will start a new journey.”
Junior Amani Wambura’s perspective from growing up in Kenya pushed her to seize new opportunities after moving to the U.S.
Then-10-year-old Amani Wambura and her mom, Sheila Davis, arrived at the airport in Kansas with two 50-pound suitcases stuffed with their clothes, money and birth certificates. They’d sold their house in Kenya and given away the rest of their belongings for a new life in the U.S.
One where Amani didn’t have to see kids near them go to bed hungry. One where she didn’t have to drive past the largest slum in Africa — amid the tin-scrap shelters and sewage-smell — to visit her aunt. One where education is a basic need.
In Kenya, the government will kick a child out of school if they don’t have enough money to pay.
“In f***ing America, when your child doesn't go to school, the state will come and find out the reason why the kid is not going,” Sheila said.
After coming from a country where she wasn’t offered scholarships, AP or IB classes or CAA classes, now-junior Amani makes sure she uses her new opportunities to the fullest.
While no one in Kenya can even think about getting a job at 15-years-old, Amani applied to Pro X last summer, a program aimed at connecting high school students to internships. She got to work at a tech company, Next Pitch, and received a stipend. Amani made $1,250 — a salary no one with a Master’s degree in Kenya can earn.
“[The U.S.] is a country where you can get anything you want,” Sheila, who’s been to over 25 countries, said. “It's just amazing. Everyone wants to come here from all over the world. Anybody who tells you anything else is a lie.”
Amani plans to apply for the Pro X program again this summer and wants to do biotechnology research to help expose herself to the job environment before committing to a career in the same field.
If she had the opportunity and the money in the future, Amani says she’d want to develop resources on an international level through biotechnology research that aren’t available in Africa. But right now, she’s focusing on building her career.
“I'm very grateful I have the unbiased view of seeing [economically disadvantaged] people not differently,” Amani said. “Because I'm not judgmental at all, and I'm very grateful I got to experience different views of wealth, and I'm grateful that has made me the person I am today.”
In moving to the U.S., senior Shubra Durgavathi’s family sacrificed part of their culture to assimilate
Senior Shubra Durgavathi’s parents didn’t want her to wear lenghas, her South Indian cultural clothing, outside. Growing up, her parents didn’t take her to any religious or cultural festivals in hopes she’d surround herself with “white friends,” according to Shubra. Her parents encouraged her to only speak English at home since birth so that she’d learn English without an accent — now she speaks Kannada in fragments.
Shubra’s mom, Bharathi, said they “customized” everything to the American way.
“We did not want our kid to be bullied, looking strange or different,” Bharathi said. “So I think in that way we are [successful in fitting into society,] however, our skin doesn't look the same. So there will always be, ‘We look different,’ however much we try.”
While Shubra calls herself “completely whitewashed” — she was born and raised here — that didn’t change how she looked. That didn’t stop people from grouping her and all Indians together. So while she felt slightly out of place among her white friends, she couldn’t quite connect to her relatives back in India either.
Her classmates once asked her, “How do you not know Ed Sheeran? Oh, she’s Indian, she doesn’t do that at her house.”
“I feel like a lot of [first gen] immigrant kids feel [disconnected with both cultures],” Shubra said. “Because they can't fully, entirely immerse themselves in the culture that their parents had back where they were from, and at the same time, they can't fully feel like they're part of what's around them either.”
Shubra now recognizes that her parents wanted to protect her from judgmental comments and stares. But now that she’s older, she wants to learn more about her culture — she just doesn’t know where to start.
“We regret that she does not know anything about what's going on [in India], because we tried to fit in,” Bharathi said. “However, we are happy that she is being welcomed in this society, because this is where she has to live. She's able to have friends and be treated like an American.”
Senior Ishaan Home was immersed in his cultural roots from a young age
With his phone propped up in front of him, then-12-year-old Ishaan Home sat at the dinner table and held up his biryani to the camera to show off the Indian rice and meat dish his parents had cooked.
His grandpa on the other side of WhatsApp began to speak to Ishaan in Bengali about how he used to hide Naxalbari Movement protesters from the state government in West Bengal in the 1960s.
Ishaan’s grandpa told these stories every night before he passed since Ishaan and his parents moved to the U.S. in 2008, catching those few hours of overlapping daytime between their 12-hour time difference.
Ishaan’s relatives either couldn’t speak any English or knew a little, but not enough to communicate fully. Yet, Ishaan knew how to speak Bengali — his parents made sure he wouldn’t forget. He wouldn’t have been able to hear those stories from his grandpa otherwise.
He and his dad, Pratik, developed a game. You can speak English outside of the house, but while you’re at home, you may only speak in Bengali. Accidentally say an English word? Deduct a point.
“You know what happens when kids migrate here?” Ishaan’s mom Trisha said. “They forget their language. They cannot talk in any other language other than English. And what happens is, you lose your connection to your roots.”
While Ishaan was so fully immersed in his culture, at times he feels alienated from the students in his community who can’t relate to his identity between being Bengali at home and American at school.
“I think a lot of the Bengali people I know personally have chosen to not learn Bengali and they're a lot more American than I am,” Ishaan said. “But at the same time, I'm probably a lot more Bengali than my white friends. So I think [feeling alienated] is like that dichotomy of being too American but also too Bengali at the same time.”
Senior Shubra Durgavathi and senior Ishaan Home grow to accept their Indian culture together after growing up in different cultural environments
When Shubra first met Ishaan in fourth grade Enhanced Learning class, she was excited. I'm not the only Indian kid here anymore.
But then people started asking if they were siblings in the lunch line. Even though they’re from different areas in India, speak different languages and have different religious beliefs.
They realized people began to group them together. They were expected to be smart, to achieve at a higher level, to be held at a higher standard, because of society’s perception of Asians. Shubra was worried she’d be considered the “dumber Indian kid.”
“We would purposely avoid each other,” Shubra said. “We didn't want to be associated with each other, because we wanted to be our own people outside of both being brown.”
Then in middle school, when she realized they shared interests, like orchestra class together she just stopped caring. She would take pictures of him eating lunch and send them to his number she got from a friend.
“I think it was pretty neat that she took the time to try and become friends with me that way,” Ishaan said. “So I thought that was pretty special, and I definitely appreciated it.”
Now, they’re best friends.
In eighth grade Shubra and Ishaan started celebrating Holi, a Hindu festival, every year during spring break. They’d go to a festival celebration at a temple, bringing along their friends, and every year they’d throw powdered color and pour water on each other. Then, dyed in reds and yellows and pinks they’d go to the nearby park and chase each other around.
Now, they’ve grown closer because of their shared experiences as some of the only Indian students in the SM East community — not farther apart.
“[Your] background and your culture is always a lot different than a lot of your white friends,” Ishaan said. “So once you find somebody that also relates to that, it becomes a little bit easier. I guess you feel more there's somebody else who's gone through the same thing that you have, so it makes you feel less isolated.”
It’s wonderful to see immigrant families celebrated for the rich cultures and contributions they bring to school communities, especially as traditions and identities blend over time.
Stories like these remind us how shared experiences deepen connection and mutual respect across diverse backgrounds.
Immigrant communities thrive not just through adaptation but through preserving culture while making new homes.
At Xiphias Immigration, we often see how these cultural strengths help individuals and families navigate the challenges of settling in a new country.
Recognizing and valuing cultural diversity is an important part of building inclusive, supportive communities.