AMHERST — Having returned to India several times since emigrating with her family when she was just 3, Deepika Singh, a University of Massachusetts junior, said she has no regrets that her formative years were spent in eastern Massachusetts.
“I’m glad I grew up here rather than India,” said Singh, who is pursuing a degree in political science and Middle Eastern studies. She described herself as fully assimilated into American culture, even though she maintains a love for spicy Indian food and has yet to find any in the United States that can match her mother’s.
Abby Quintanilla, a biology major who is doing pre-medical studies at UMass, was born in the United States. She traveled to Guatemala for the first time when she was 6, and immediately noticed how different her mother’s country is, with chickens roaming in backyards and homes not quite as modern.
“Bathrooms are outside, which is probably something you’re not used to,” Quintanilla said.
Singh and Quintanilla were among 11 UMass students who are either immigrants or from immigrant families who came to the Amherst Regional Middle School last week to be interviewed by eighth-graders working on what is called the Immigration Stories Project. Other countries represented were Pakistan, Egypt, Lebanon and Colombia.
The middle-schoolers will then interview immigrants from their own families and present their writings along with photos in an exhibit at the school with the Family Diversity Projects Inc., which has a new photo-text exhibit called “Building Bridges: Stories of Immigrants and Refugees.”
The opening event of the exhibit will be May 15 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. It will include some framed portraits of eighth-graders and their stories intertwined with the professional presentation of the Family Diversity Projects.
The project was funded by a $10,000 Amherst Education Foundation grant, which was written by middle school co-assistant principal Alicia Lopez.
Social studies teacher Claire Cocco said while the focus is on understanding the expansion period of immigration in the 19th century and the sociopolitical contexts of the long history of immigration to the United States, she and other social studies teachers, as well as art and English language learners instructors, wanted to give middle schoolers insights from a contemporary immigrant experience through the visitors from UMass.
“We’re also making connections to current events and conversations about immigration, and the bigger question about what it means to be an American,” Cocco said.
Principal Patty Bode said the work on immigration fits with the school’s social consciousness curriculum.
The middle schoolers prepared a series of questions about culture, whether the immigrants had come to the United States for economic opportunities and if they experienced any persecution or discrimination.
Both Quintanilla and Singh said they have appreciated living in the United States, even though they came from different circumstances.
Quintanilla said her mother faced difficulties as an immigrant, moving from apartment to apartment and picking up English while raising a family.
“She spoke a little bit, whatever they taught in school,” Quintanilla said.
Her mother worked at a supermarket bakery while attending community college and getting a medical assistant license.
Singh was in a different situation with her family, where her father had a well-paying job and was transferred to Massachusetts, eventually settling in Sharon.
But she didn’t speak English and took English as a second language classes.
“I remember everyone else got to go to recess and I had to go to ESL,” Singh said.
Singh said she had not experienced any jarring incidents of racism.
She recalled being at the beach and giving a hand to an older woman, who complimented Singh on her tan. When Singh explained that her skin was naturally dark because she was originally from India, the woman responded by saying she appreciated that Singh would travel from so far just to give her assistance.
Singh said one difficulty she has when going back to India is not being treated as an equal because of her gender.
Yet the food is unparalleled. “I’ve never had Indian food here as good as it is in India,” she said.
Because she is still seeking citizenship, Singh said she hasn’t been able to vote in presidential elections and has had to fill out additional forms when traveling, such as when she took a spring break trip to the United Kingdom.
The interviews were enlightening for the eighth-graders.
“It was interesting learning about immigration process and how it’s different for people and learning about a new country,” said Geir Hartl, 14, of Leverett. He said he intends to interview his grandmother, who emigrated from Sweden, for his project.
“It was cool to learn about India from a source that’s not the internet,” said Nicole Lambert, 14, of Amherst.
Lambert added that she was surprised that the immigrants have a favorable impression of America. “I didn’t know that people thought of the U.S as the land of opportunity,” she said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
