BY TANYA ALBERT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
UNION TOWNSHIP -- Esha Bhatara nestled in the corner of the family room couch and opened an envelope that took 15 days to arrive via air mail.
She pulled out a pink card with a dog holding flowers. The message: "I miss you." It was from her friend, Jaggi, 7,600 miles away in India.
"Come soon to India," Jaggi wrote this spring.
Esha, who had been in America for only 10 months, would have liked nothing more.
Like many American girls, Esha wore jeans and a navy polo shirt. She had just wrapped up a day of math, English, science and other classes at Lakota Freshman High School. She had talked on the phone to her cousin Angie, who lives in Mason and has become like a sister. Still, Esha often wished she were doing everyday things with her friends back in India -- going to an all-girls school, seeing movies.
"At first, I wanted to come here," Esha said, looking across the living room at her mother. "But now I want to go home."
Esha found it odd to have boys in her classroom after going to an all-girls school. She had tests thrown at her every week. She was tested only a few times a year in India. And school dances were a foreign concept.
In the living room, Neelam Bhatara cocked her head, gave her daughter a loving, motherly look and smiled. She leaned forward on the chair and reminded Esha about the time they went to see an Indian movie at a theater in Sharonville.
Esha smiled at the memory. Those touches of home help her adjust. Fifteen is a tough age for anyone. But for a teen transplanted to a new culture, the normal pressures are multiplied.
"At 15 or 16, they have friends they left behind and at that age, they are more connected to a peer group," said Estela Matriano, a University of Cincinnati education professor who specializes in multicultural education. "They have more of a vision than younger children do of what schools should be."
Her mother and father have tried to make the adjustment easier. They brought their daughter to America thinking she will have a better education and more opportunities in life. But they don't like to see her suffer.
"We did worry sometimes," said her father, Vinod. "We knew it would take time to adjust. But we knew she would be OK."
Just three months ago, Esha talked about going back to India this summer to visit her maternal grandparents and her friends. Her parents understood how much their daughter missed them. But after spending her first year in America, Esha decided not to visit this summer.
She's made new friends -- both other Indian immigrants and Americans -- who have gone to movies with her on weekends. And she's discovered the mall.
Now, she has her sights on medical school, something she wouldn't have thought of doing in India because there are so few universities. "The studies are easier here than in India," Esha said after her first year of school was over.
She wouldn't have thought that in the spring when she sat in her family room reopening a letter from Jaggi.
"Do you like your new friends?" Jaggi asked in a letter on which she had drawn two people crying. "But do not forget us. OK?"
Esha hasn't forgotten old friends. But in the past year, she's made room for new ones.
"It's gotten easier," she said. "I'm happier here now."
Insight into India
Father sees dreams becoming reality
Mother finds her own independence
Son embraces all things American
