ABSTRACT
In 1994, when her sister migrated to the US as a single woman, Ramya had several such conversations with friends, neighbors and acquaintances in India. The revelation that a middle-class woman in her early twenties chose to migrate in order to pursue her professional ambition would often be met with curiosity, suspicion, awe or some element of doubt. Through the late 1990s and into the new millennium, as both of the authors of this book and many of their contemporaries made their way to universities and jobs in the US, a hint of rebellion and a sense of being aberrations from the norm remained. What surprised us further was that the reactions we encountered in the US were usually no less incredulous. “Are you married? Do you have any family here? Did you really come here by yourself?” were questions that were often asked of us in our initial post-migration encounters.
