Personal Narrative: My Move To NYC

I needed an idea on how to approach a person in NY that I have never met or had contact with before. I thought an email might be helpful but the many times I started one, I just stared at a blank screen. I was really lost on how to begin my approach. I knew what I wanted to say, I was a little afraid of sounding like a stalker.

I was 16 years old when i moved to Cleveland. I had moved from California, a place that everyone thinks of as a area of movie making, opportunities, rich people with fancy lamborghinis and ferraris, well it's nothing like that where i come from. Compton california, the place that you can see 14 year old gang members with guns, get shot just for wearing the wrong color, or just walking down the street like my mom. I never really meet my dad he got locked up when i was 3 on an assault charge so i had to move in with my grandparents in Cleveland.

Growing up in a small town near the border of Arizona, I had always displayed an interest in seeing the world–the different cities and sceneries. But at the same time, I felt at home in Arizona. I breathed for the desert air, the grinched-colored cacti, and the occasional roadrunners. Imagine my surprise when I found out, shortly after my parents split, I was moving to New York City.

Many people move around to different states throughout their life, and I have had the opportunity to live in what feels like two different worlds. I have spent most of my life in Bradenton, Florida, but at the age of ten I moved to the small town of Cleveland in the north east Georgia mountains. The two towns are completely different in my opinion and only someone who has lived there would completely understand what I mean when I say two different worlds. The weather, the people, and the different opportunities are just a few of the differences between the two towns.

I hope your Tuesday afternoon is going terrific. I am Miten Bhadania and I would like to formally introduce myself as your colleague working in the Tech department as Developer.

Being from a town where there are no skyscrapers and a growing community, I had never experienced the real feeling of being in an actual crowded city. This city is like none I’ve ever been in, I had been in Miami, Atlanta, and Charlotte but those cities were nothing like the city I was about to visit. In October of 2016 my older brother ran into a medical problem causing us to have to visit a doctor that was located hundreds of miles away. From then on we had to travel to Teaneck, NJ, but minutes away from that town was the largest city in the United States which was New York City. I had seen movies, television shows, and news about New York, but I really did not believe there could be a place so full of life, so I was finally getting the chance

It was June of 2013 and I was in my room cooling, watching “Good Luck Charlie”. My mom came into my room saying that she was ready to move out of New York. Obviously I did not want to move out of the city I was born in. My mom never liked living in New York, so she always thought about moving. So the plan was to move in August. Time went by and I was thinking about what North Carolina would be like. I really wasn’t thinking about the friends I was leaving in Brooklyn, that never crossed my mind.

What laid in my hand was my literal golden ticket to the world. This small, flimsy card could take me anywhere I wished to go to in New York City but I didn’t enjoy this privilege all my life. I grew up in a neighborhood where my family and I didn’t need to travel far for a doctor’s checkup or a grocery run. My whole world consisted of a few streets in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, my parents could neither drive nor afford many rides on our MetroCard. I had seen places like the Empire State Building and Central Park merely in pictures so the inner adventurer in me yearned to see what was outside Brooklyn.

hen I was 5 years old I moved from a small house in the West Side of Chicago and moved to a 19-storey building near the North Side of Chicago. When you look at most of the people living there, you don’t feel intimidated or uncomfortable because there are all kinds of people living there of many races and ages. There are good and bad times, but my personality has been affected by both.

I grew up in Brooklyn, specifically a neighborhood located north-central of the borough. Living anywhere else but the city and genuinely enjoying your experience is viewed as very rare, from a New Yorker’s standpoint. This place of joy and ridiculously high rent has bright lights, cliche tourist attractions and notorious public transportation. And yet, this was my home, somewhere I believed I would be destined to spend eternity in. To my surprise, in late June of 2013, I was forced to relocate to suburban New Jersey, which came as one of the biggest shocks of my life so far. Devastated, and absolutely heartbroken by this change of atmosphere, my life felt like it was falling apart. Unbeknownst to me, it would turn out to be one of the greatest

Although I have very few experiences of New York, what captivates me the most to the Empire State is the memory of my parents challenges in the city. As young newly wedded immigrants without a degree, it was tough settling in the big apple. Nonetheless, my parents worked hard to achieve the American dream. However, their American dream ended in the U.S. after they received their education. They decided to work overseas, and it was a decision that affected my life greatly. I grew up in many urban areas like New York with plenty of diversity to offer, but living as a foreigner enhanced the experience.

My family’s narrative begins in the South. Beginning with my 92 year old grandmother’s narrative beginning in a small town in Louisiana, ultimately relocating to Houston, Texas as an adolescent, eventually making her way to New York City during the era of the Great Migration, and my father’s narrative of being a Black kid, raised in Spanish Harlem. In this paper, I will discuss their migratory experiences that ultimately led me to arrive to the Big Apple.

Before I move to the states I had no idea of diversity here. Like many foreigners I knew nothing about north and south as too cultural concepts. The picture of an American in my mind was a white or black person. There was no place for other ethnicities. To be honest the picture of whites was dominant. As all I knew about here was through media and Hollywood movies which normally have white heroes. The only Americans I had met before were American soldiers in the border of Iran-Iraq when I was traveling to Iraq for a visit and the US embassy officers in Turkmenistan who did not waste my time in the visa approval process. They all were nice and first realistic

“Times of transition are strenuous, but I love them. They are an opportunity to purge, rethink priorities, and be intentional about new habits. We can make our new normal any way we want”. -Kristin Armstrong. When I heard this quote it reminds me of a specific time in my life when I moved to another country. There are a couple of events that helped me become who I am now.

If I could live anywhere in the world and money wasn’t an issue I imagine myself to move to New York City, nowhere specifically I just know that I would live in NYC in what seems the world’s smallest apartment with massive windows that let lots of sunlight through.