How I Became an American

As with many other immigrants who choose to become Americans, my path to US citizenship was a long and difficult one. I was born in Chennai, India, and was raised in India, Indonesia, and Singapore. My parents believed deeply in the importance of an education-specifically, an American education, which they thought would enable me to achieve anything. So, when I was 16, my mother and father took their last meager savings and sent me to America by myself for college.