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Title details for America Calling by Rajika Bhandari - Available

America Calling

A Foreign Student in a Country of Possibility

by Rajika Bhandari
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Growing up in middle-class India, Rajika Bhandari has seen generations of her family look westward, where an American education means status and success. But she resists the lure of America because those who left never return—they all become flies trapped in honey in a land of opportunity. As a young woman, however, she finds herself heading to a US university to study, following her heart and a relationship.
When that relationship ends and she fails in her attempt to move back to India as a foreign-educated woman, she returns to the US and finds herself in a job where the personal is political and professional: she is immersed in the lives of international students who come to America from over 200 countries, the universities that attract them, and the tangled web of immigration that a student must navigate.
An unflinching and insightful narrative that explores the global appeal of a Made in America education that is a bridge to America's successful past and to its future, America Calling is both a deeply personal story of Bhandari's search for her place and voice, and an incisive analysis of America's relationship with the rest of the world through the most powerful tool of diplomacy: education. At a time of growing nationalism, a turning inward, and fear of the "other," America Calling is ultimately a call to action to keep America's borders—and minds—open.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 14, 2021

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781647421847

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781647421847
      • File size: 3788 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      June 15, 2021
      In this memoir, a woman proves such a keen observer of the trials and triumphs of being an international student that she turns her experiences into a career. The daughter of prosperous Indian parents and armed with a college degree, Bhandari decided to leave Delhi in 1992 to pursue graduate studies in the United States for a key reason: to join her fiance, Vikram, a student at North Carolina State University. Readers learn all about life in the Indian student ghetto--culture shock, scrimping and saving, and practical matters (in Indian higher education, computers were a dispensable curiosity; at NCSU, they were, of course, a necessity). Six years later, she had a psychology Ph.D., but her relationship with Vikram was fraying. Nonetheless, she followed him to Silicon Valley. Job prospects were dim, but what was worse--one of the book's major themes--were the obstacles that the American government put in the way of foreign job hunters, the H-1B visa, for example. After she landed a position, she was not allowed to work until the visa came through, which took months. She separated from Vikram and fled an unstable roommate (among other misadventures), but ultimately things improved. Homesick, she returned to India and eventually realized that prospects there were bleak: "In India I was too American, and in America I was too Indian"--a common plight for someone caught between two cultures. Finally, she began a fruitful career as the director of research and evaluation for the Institute for International Education in New York City. Bhandari is a very talented writer, knowing that in a sea of data there is no better life raft than the telling anecdote. On the other hand, she is a fierce numbers cruncher who makes real the damage that 9/11 caused in terms of international education programs. The author recounts that the other hit these programs suffered came from the xenophobic Donald Trump administration. This is a valuable study of an extremely important area of "soft diplomacy," dispelling all sorts of easy and false assumptions. Bhandari's informative memoir is for readers who want to understand how interconnected the world really is. An Indian woman's wonderfully written, illuminating account of her graduate student experiences in America. (Thorough bibliography)

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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