It was December 4, 1998—a Friday. I remember it felt crisp, cold, and entirely new.
I arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport ready to start a new life, stepping off the plane in my Caterpillar boots and a leather jacket. I landed in America with a heart full of hope, wishing for something better, even if I wasn’t entirely sure what that future actually looked like. All I knew for certain, deep in the back of my mind, was that I had left Pakistan behind for good.
Looking back now, 27 years later, I sometimes wonder what it was all about. The “net result” of moving here has been a mix of good and bad. Naturally, I try to concentrate on the good, but the difficult parts I didn’t see coming have left their mark too.
I still remember that morning vividly. After clearing immigration and getting the Green Card papers sorted, I walked out into an empty airport. I had flown in on Saudi Arabian Airlines; we had stopped in New York for a bit before the final leg to D.C.
Walking through the parking lot, everything caught my eye. I remember seeing a Mitsubishi Eclipse and thinking, *“Wow, what a car.”* A friend of my father’s picked us up and took us to Bladensburg. I didn’t waste any time. Just two days later, I found a job in Washington D.C. working at a Subway sandwich shop on Benning Road. It didn’t take long to realize that Benning Road was notorious—a rough area that taught me some hard lessons quickly.
That was my “Welcome to America.”
