Zaid Ali
Fall 2022
“[We] had a peaceful and beautiful life there. I lived with my parents and worked as a doctor. I had a lot of fun. We had a simple life living in a small, rural town. Everyone knew everyone and everyone respected each other.”
Walking inside Sam’s Club, Farheen was overwhelmed by the size of the store. Never in her life had she seen so much being sold in one place. It was completely different from Hyderabad, where there were only small shops and businesses run by familiar faces.
Farheen was born and raised in Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. The small, rural setting of Hyderabad created a tight-knit community she cherished with her family.
“[We] had a peaceful and beautiful life there. I lived with my parents and worked as a doctor. I had a lot of fun. We had a simple life living in a small, rural town. Everyone knew everyone and everyone respected each other,” she said. “The weather was beautiful. It was hot, really hot in the morning but it was breezy at night, which made my mood very good. And that’s it, it was a nice peaceful life, very simple living.”
Farheen decided to move to the United States after marrying at the age of 28. Her husband had been living in the US since he finished high school at 18. Since his work was located in the US, Farheen moved there with him.
Farheen and her husband moved to Houston, where Farheen had to adjust to the different lifestyle migrating to America entailed. The work-life balance was one major difference Farheen learned to adapt to.
“We moved into a condo house when I came to the US and we had neighbors, but we didn’t talk to them that much. In Pakistan, neighbors are more close. People stay in one place for so many years and know each other really well. In the US, it was not like that,” she said. “Everyone is busy in their work and in their lives so there were not as many interactions. So It was challenging for me… In the beginning, it was very different. People here keep to themselves more often, they don’t interfere in other people’s lives. What I liked about [the condo] was that it was a cleaner and nicer area but what I disliked was the loneliness I would often feel there.”
The loneliness Fahreen faced was especially difficult because she was the only one from her family in Houston. She had an aunt and uncle in the US, but they lived in San Francisco and could not visit them frequently.
“My husband’s family was here but my immediate family was not in Houston. I had an Aunt in San Francisco and I would talk with her… My aunt supported me – I used to call her. But that was the only family I had in the US,” she said. “It was more of a moral support they gave because they were in San Francisco. There was not that much they could do.”
In Pakistan, being the youngest in the family meant living in a very protected environment, but since she was in the US without her immediate family, she had to learn to be independent.
“I was raised in a very protected and in a very pampered way, so that was a problem when adjusting to this country, where most of the time you are independent and you need to do things by yourself,” she said. “There were a lot of things I needed to do that I was not used to doing back home, like cleaning or washing dishes, doing laundry, cooking, and working long hours.”
Although moving to the US made Farheen more independent, it also affected her relationship and connection with her family.
“Yes, I’m still in touch [with my family]. I always talk to them, but with visiting, the distance is so much that even if I want to go, I often cannot. You miss lots of things. I missed my niece’s wedding. I missed my sister’s death. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there when she was sick,” she said. “I had some other family members that I wasn’t able to meet when they were sick. So those are the things which really hurt and bother me – that I’m not there during their good times and bad times.”
Farheen had to make other sacrifices because of her decision to move to the United States, including her career as an ophthalmologist in Pakistan.
“Luckily the field that I am in always has a shortage of people so it was easy for me to find my place and keep a profession here. But I had to sacrifice some things,” she said. “I was an ophthalmologist back home, but when I came here, ophthalmology is very competitive and as a foreign grad, you have to have one or two years of research before they will accept you or consider you. So I had to change my field.”
“Now I feel like since I have a family here, my kids are here, I would say that this is my place, but my roots are definitely in my country. But I would rather be with my family in the US – my kids, my husband – rather than be away.”
Even though she had to make many sacrifices to settle in the United States and would someday like to go back to Pakistan, Farheen feels at home in the US because of the family she has here now – her kids and husband – and the education her kids have been able to receive.
“Now I feel like since I have a family here, my kids are here, I would say that this is my place, but my roots are definitely in my country. But I would rather be with my family in the US – my kids, my husband – rather than be away,” she said. “ The best benefit I got from coming here is the level of education my kids are getting and the schools that they are going to. I am blessed for that. Alhamdulillah.”