This paper presents an interview-based profile of a twenty-nine-year-old male immigrant of Pakistani origin living in New York. Raised in the United Arab Emirates, the subject moved to the United States at eighteen to pursue engineering studies. The paper examines his cultural background, motivations for immigration, and experiences with assimilation and acculturation in New York City. Topics covered include religious identity, employment and educational opportunities, social integration, and pressures to conform. The paper concludes by comparing the subject's experience with broader South Asian immigration trends and the historical patterns of the New Immigration era in the United States.
The paper demonstrates effective use of the qualitative interview as a primary source. Rather than simply transcribing responses, the writer organizes the subject's account thematically — separating motivations, childhood background, the logistics of migration, and post-arrival adjustment — which allows the reader to follow a coherent analytical arc without losing the subject's voice.
The paper opens with a biographical profile, moves through the subject's cultural background and childhood, then examines his motivations for migration. A dedicated section covers the logistics of his move, followed by a detailed treatment of assimilation challenges. The paper closes by situating the subject's experience within the broader history of South Asian and New Immigration patterns in the United States — shifting from the individual to the structural level.
The immigrant interviewed for this paper is referred to here by the pseudonym Tariq. He is a twenty-nine-year-old male immigrant of Pakistani origin who lives in New York. Both his parents are from Pakistan but settled in the United Arab Emirates after their marriage. Tariq spent all of his childhood in the United Arab Emirates, where he was born, and has visited Pakistan only twice in his life.
Tariq moved to New York from the United Arab Emirates at the age of eighteen to pursue higher studies in engineering at a well-known university. He lived with one of his uncles who had been living in the United States for several years and is a citizen. Tariq is currently pursuing his doctoral degree and works as a researcher and teaching assistant to one of the professors. He spends most of his time at the university or in the lab where he conducts his research. He has not yet applied for U.S. citizenship but plans to do so as he approaches marriage.
Tariq has Pakistani origins but does not identify culturally with Pakistan. He identifies with the religion of Islam and speaks Urdu fluently, but does not identify with the values of local Pakistani culture. He is not fond of cricket or Pakistani music, preferring football and western pop music instead. He attributes this to his western and liberal upbringing in the cosmopolitan society of the United Arab Emirates. Tariq is far more culturally familiar with the UAE, where he spent the first eighteen years of his life, and often refers to it as his home country rather than Pakistan.
Tariq recalls that as a child he often heard his parents speak about life in the home country. His parents come from a relatively prosperous family in the city of Lahore, which stands in contrast to the general poverty found in Pakistan's rural areas. They are second cousins whose marriage had been arranged when they were children. Tariq says he enjoyed listening to stories about his uncles, aunts, and grandparents, and feels genuine affection toward them, even though he never identified with them personally. Being an only child, he describes himself as very attached to his parents during his upbringing.
When asked about his childhood education and aspirations, Tariq explains that he attended a reputable private school in Abu Dhabi. He was interested in science and mathematics from an early age and consistently ranked among the top students in his class. He had a natural inclination toward scientific discovery and experimentation — he would often dismantle his battery-operated toys to study the circuitry inside. His social circle consisted largely of the children of his parents' Pakistani friends, though at school he also interacted with students from India, Bangladesh, other Arab countries, and occasionally western countries. He says his interest in the United States was first sparked by American involvement in the Gulf War of 1991, when a large number of Americans became a visible presence in UAE cities. He was also fascinated by American technological achievements and space exploration, particularly the Apollo moon landing of 1969. It became his dream to pursue engineering studies in the United States after completing school.
Regarding broader societal conditions, Tariq describes life in the UAE as comfortable and cosmopolitan, though with relatively limited social mingling between immigrants and local citizens. School education is affordable for much of the middle class, but university education is expensive, which leads many immigrant families to send their children to universities in their home countries — or, when finances allow, to institutions in the UK or United States.
About Pakistan, Tariq says he knows relatively little. His parents did not push him to adapt to Pakistani cultural norms, recognizing it would be difficult given his upbringing. He notes that family life tends to take priority over career and scholarly pursuits in Pakistani society, which was another reason he felt no pull to move there. He also observed that while urban Pakistan differed greatly from rural Pakistan in terms of poverty levels, even urban areas lacked the modern amenities and western cultural influence he had grown up with in the UAE. This, he says, made the prospect of moving to the United States feel natural rather than daunting.
Tariq says he did not see good employment prospects for himself in Pakistan, which he viewed as technologically underdeveloped compared to the United States. He also perceived corruption to be pervasive in Pakistan and felt he could not adapt to an environment where bribery was commonplace and rule of law was inconsistently observed.
Regarding employment in the UAE, he notes that most opportunities are concentrated in banking, tourism, and construction — none of which aligned with his interest in research. He was also acutely aware of the precarious nature of immigrant employment in the UAE, where workers can be terminated without notice and have their visas canceled immediately. He wanted greater job security and more stable employment conditions.
When asked why he chose the United States over Pakistan or the UAE for his university education, Tariq explains that settling in the United States had been a childhood dream. He did not believe the research-oriented career he envisioned would be attainable in Pakistan, where he felt academic and scholarly pursuits were undervalued and university research facilities were basic. He also did not identify with local Pakistani culture and wanted to pursue his ambitions within a cosmopolitan and progressive society.
Tariq adds that university education in the UAE is expensive and not as advanced as in the United States. A further practical consideration was his father's employment situation: his father was living in the UAE on a work visa tied to his job at a local bank. As his father approached retirement age and the bank was planning to downsize, the family risked having to relocate to Pakistan if his father lost his position while Tariq was still in school. Since Tariq was already determined to ultimately settle in the United States, the family decided it was best for him to move there after completing his A-Levels through the Cambridge International Examinations program.
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