Welcome Mat and Spiked Gate: Two Stories of Immigrants in the United States

Abstract

The story Sayu Bhojwani tells is one that many South Asian immigrants to America have encountered: that of the unrolled welcome mat and the erection of the spiked gate. While she had proudly just completed her transition from international student to American citizen early in 2001, the terrorist attacks later that year changed the political and social environment in which she was forced to operate. As a consequence of the anti-immigrant backlash and xenophobia she and other South Asian immigrants in New York faced, for two years she served in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration as the city’s first Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs. Continuing her commitment to guaranteeing and protecting the promised liberty and justice for all within American borders, Bhojwani makes a passionate plea for course correction.