Shaun Illingworth: This begins an oral history interview with Dr. Grishma Shah. Did I pronounce that correctly?
Grishma Shah: Yes.
SI: Today's date is September 5, 2025. I'm Shaun Illingworth. I'm in New Brunswick, New Jersey. You're in Manhattan now.
GS: I am in the Bronx, but yes. [laughter]
SI: The Bronx, okay. First, thank you very much for sitting down with me. To begin, can you tell me where and when you were born?
GS: Sure. I was born in Vadodara, India--before it was Vadodara, it was known as Baroda--on February 23, 1979.
SI: What were your parents' names?
GS: My parents' names are Satish Shah, S-A-T-I-S-H Shah, same as mine, and Niranjana Shah. It's N-I-R-A-N-J-A-N-A, yes.
SI: Starting with your mother's side of the family, do you know anything about where the family was located? Were they always in the Baroda area or had they moved there from somewhere else?
GS: No. So, both of my parents are from a village called Sankheda. It's spelled S-A-N-K-H-E-D-A. They grew up in that village. I want to say it's about forty kilometers from Baroda. They were born there; they were raised there. They went to school there until, I believe, high school. Then, my dad went to the neighboring town for college and my mom went to a different [school]. She went to Baroda for college.
It was very normal, in their time, to kind of get engaged or get married to someone within the same village. So, they did not get married younger. I think my mom was probably twenty-five or twenty-six when she got married, so, after college, but it was also pretty normal to leave the village and move to the city. The closest city is Vadodara. So, they both moved to the city at some point after they got married, because my dad had a job with the bank.
SI: What did your mother study?
GS: My mom studied--gosh, I don't know if there's an English equivalent to it--I think it's called home economics.
SI: Okay.
GS: I think it's still a thing in India, I'm not sure, but it's like, literally, home economics, like sewing and cooking and all sorts of kind of home-related things.
SI: Like a domestic arts type thing.
GS: Yes.
SI: Your father was also from the same area.
GS: Yes.
SI: Their parents, do you know anything about their generation?
GS: My grandparents, yes, I do know about my grandparents. I don't know if it's totally accurate, my understanding, my grandparents were born in that village as well. Both of them knew each other as well. My grandfather from my mom's side was one of the people who actually brought electricity to that village and did the wiring and all that kind of stuff for the village.
My grandfather on my dad's side, who was on the local council (it's called a panchayat), I remember him running. I moved to the United States when I was seven, so, I must've been no more than four or five, but I remember being in his home. It was some sort of election going on. There was just a lot of noise in the home around election day, because he was running for the local election.
As a child, I just remembered [that]; that's all I know about it. I don't know what the role was, I don't know what the position was. I want to say I don't think he won, because I don't remember him being in a political position. My understanding, from my parents and having known my grandparents for at least like a good thirty years of my life, they were from the same village as both of my parents.
[Editor's Note: A brief technical issue interrupted the interview.]
SI: You were talking about your grandfather. You were in his home and there was an election going on.
GS: Yes. So, I remember being in my grandfather's home, in that village, and there was some sort of election going on. I just remember scurrying in the house, around it. I must've been no more than four or five, like I said, because I already had moved to the US when I was seven.
My recollection is that he didn't win the election, because I don't remember him being in a political position at all during my lifetime. What I was saying is, basically, both of my grandfathers and my grandmothers, my understanding is, were born in that village as well, the one that my parents were born and brought up in.
SI: Do you know how far your grandparents went with their educations?
GS: I think my grandmother on my father's side did not go past the eighth grade. My grandmother on my mother's side, I also want to say probably didn't go past the eighth grade. The reason I say that, I know my grandmother on my father's side was married by the time she was fourteen. My maternal grandmother, I don't know what age she was married, but, from everything I'm picking up (or I picked up as growing up), I don't think she also probably went very far in her education, maybe tenth grade the max.
My grandfathers, on the other hand, my understanding is that my paternal grandfather did have some level of college. I don't know what the degree was. Actually, I take that back--I actually don't know if he had any level of college. What I do know for sure is that he came of age or was college age during India's freedom movement in the 1940s.
So, I don't know if college was involved, but I do know that he spent some time in jail because he was a freedom fighter. I remember him telling us stories about being in jail for a couple of months because the British had locked him up and that it was part of the cause. So, I want to say maybe he didn't go to college because he was a freedom fighter.
My grandfather on my maternal side kind of had this very strong electrical engineering brain. He wired everything in the village and all that kind of [stuff]. That's what I remember. I also remember he was the first person in that village to have a car. He had a red convertible, which makes me think he was probably college educated and had some kind of either inheritance or education that allowed him to have that car.
SI: Either before you came to the US or later on, on visits, did you get to know that village a bit?
GS: Yes. First of all, as a child, before we moved to the United States, I used to go to that village a lot. That's where my paternal grandfather's home was. So, I remember staying there overnight, I remember spending summers there, all that kind of stuff.
I also remember the remnants of my maternal grandparents' home. It was walking distance from--it was a village, so, everything was walking distance--but I remember my maternal grandparents' home as well. It was not a home that I ever saw lived in, because I think they had moved to the city long before I was born, but I do remember going back frequently to the village.
I remember living in my paternal grandparents' home. Actually, when I was an undergraduate at Rutgers in New Brunswick, I did the study abroad with Rutgers to India. I did it for a year. I remember, it was tradition in our family that, during Diwali time, everyone from Baroda goes back to their home village and celebrates there.
So, I remember being in Delhi, because that's where the exchange program is for Rutgers. College shuts down for Diwali. So, I remember going back to Baroda and staying with my aunt. Then, my aunt was like, "No, we don't actually stay in Baroda. We go back to Sankheda," the village, to celebrate Diwali.
That's one of my strongest memories of what the village looked like when I went back. There's a river in the village and there's a beach and there's sand. Every night, everyone goes. After dinner, everyone walks to that beach and hangs out at the river and all that kind of stuff.
I remember doing that as a child, very young child, four or five. Then, I remember going back in college and everything flooding back, like the memories had flooded back of being in that village. So, yes, I've been to my parents' home.
SI: Do any other impressions of the village stand out?
GS: It was a completely walking village, very few vehicles. I mean, there might've been some bicycles here and there. You could basically walk from one point all the way to the other end. I remember, as a child, thinking that walk was really long, like as a four or five-year-old or when I was younger, before I moved to the United States.
I remember thinking that walk was really long, but, then, when I went back in college, I walked from home to where the temple is, which was a daily walk--people did it from there to the riverbed, basically, which is a daily walk everyone did--and it was very short. [laughter] It was probably like ten minutes. I thought, "Why did I think, as a child, this walk was so long?" but, I mean, I guess it's just a child's perspective.
I have gone back after that as well. So, after I had my own kids, when my kids were maybe eight or nine years old, I've taken them back there and we've spent time there. We walked to the temple; we walked to the riverbed. We've done all of those things I did as a child.
So, a lot of people from that village have already moved to the city. It's a completely different demographic than what my parents consider their community. So, that community has more or less left that village, is in the city, or many of them have moved to the United States. Yes, I have pretty good impressions of that village.
SI: Yes. What kind of religious services or activity did you do at the temple?
GS: So, as a child, it was the daily routine to go to the temple every evening. I think, actually, my grandmothers went in the morning and the evening. They would go for the morning, what we called darshan, which is the morning time where you go pray, and also the evening.
I don't remember going that much in the morning. I think it's a very early morning. It's like six AM or something, but I remember going every evening and sitting in the prayer hall, doing the religious songs and things like that with the instruments, all that kind of stuff.
I remember, as a child, it felt like a really big temple, a really big what we call mandir, but, again, when I went back as an adult, it was like, "Oh, it seemed so big." It was probably maybe about two thousand square feet or something, but I think, in my head, I used to think it was like ten thousand square feet, I don't know.
SI: I want to ask about your life in Baroda. What was your neighborhood like when you were growing up there?
GS: So, my neighborhood was very urban. I would say it felt very urban at the time, and it still is very urban. It was a single-family home, two stories. We used to rent out the bottom story of the home and we used to live on the top story of the house.
I remember, there was--and I've been there as an adult many times--a small, little pathway that leads to the house. It can probably squeeze in one car. That's how wide it was. It had a terrace where you go and just to kind of hang out on the terrace. There were neighborhood kids, so, you would just sort of go down outside and play with the neighborhood kids.
I remember the tenants downstairs used to have a little boy. Whenever I got home from school, I'd just go play with the little boy downstairs, that kind of thing. So, I remember it being relatively modern.
SI: You also have a sister--is that right?
GS: I do. I have an older sister. She's maybe twenty-two months older than me.
SI: What was your schooling like?
GS: I went to school there until second grade. I started third grade here. So, I was in a private school. I remember being in kindergarten. It was a green uniform, like a jumpsuit kind of mint green uniform. The school was called Zenith School. A bus used to pick us up and drop us off at the school. I did kindergarten and first grade there. Then, we moved to the United States for a few months, all four of us.
We were having sort of a difficult time settling, I believe. My dad still had a very secure job back home at the state bank. So, my dad took my sister, Mansi, and me back to India while my mom stayed here, because how we came here was, we immigrated through my mother's dad, basically--like, my maternal grandfather came here in the '70s.
Then, I think my mom had already aged out of the process in which you could come, because she was over eighteen (or I don't know what the rules are). Then, he'd applied for his daughter to come join him in the United States. So, that's how we had gotten here. So, my mom had a lot of [family]--she had all her own brothers and sisters--already here. She was very steadfast on making sure she stays here and builds a life here.
So, I think, as a child, I don't know how my parents came to this conclusion, but I believe the conclusion was that she would stay back while my dad went and worked for another year in India, because he had this very secure state bank job and because it'd be really hard to figure out what to do with my sister and I, that we'd go back with my dad. So, we went back. I did second grade in India.
So, it's like first grade, I finished and I came here. Then, we had a few months here. Then, I restarted second grade. I think I left in the middle of first grade. Then, second grade, I did in India, all of it, for the full year. Then, we came back. When we went back, we stayed in the same house that I was used to, but my dad's sisters and mom were already there.
So, the real people who were taking care of us or doing the childcare was my maternal grandmother and my aunts, while my dad went to work every day and all that kind of stuff. Then, when we finished second grade, we came back. My mom, while she was here, had worked two jobs. She had worked at a factory for one shift, and then, she used to work at a grocery store for the second shift.
SI: Why did they feel, particularly your mother, so strongly about coming to the US?
GS: This is a question I should probably ask her, but I think for her, her parents were here and her siblings were here. Two, I think my mother also saw--my mother is very firm; she has two daughters--she's a very firm advocate and supporter of us as girls and women. I could see this my whole life. I'm thinking she for sure knew that our future was better here than in India.
I don't think just as women or girls--I think she just thought, as a kid, as children, the future was brighter in the United States. So, she was very adamant, because she had that motherly vision that, no, we should long-term settle here, where my dad kind of was like, yes, he had a nice, cushy job. I wouldn't say cushy, but enough to kind of support one generation. My mom had no idea what would happen to us, kind of.
SI: Your mother didn't work in India. She only started working when she came to the US.
GS: She did not. I think the first time she actually worked was when she moved to the United States, yes.
SI: What was that initial experience like for you? You were seven years old then, you said, coming here in the middle of first grade. What was that like?
GS: So, we landed and we were immediately moved or shifted to my uncle's motel. It was in New Jersey on Route 1. It was called Sleepy Hollow Motel. I remember being very cold, because the first time we came here--I remember, very distinctly, we left on my birthday--it was February 23, 1986.
I remember very firmly because I remember that we were scheduled to go to America on my birthday. My parents had kind of made it this big, exciting thing, like, "Oh, for your birthday, we're going to move to America." Because it always had this very, very positive spin in my family--like, it was a big deal to get your visa and a big deal to go--I thought that was like, "Oh, my God, I'm so cool. I'm going to get to go to America." So, very distinctly, I remember it was my birthday the day we left.
I remember feeling very cold when we landed because it was February. Then, shifting to my uncle's motel, it was a tiny roadside motel off of Route 1 in New Jersey. There's a lot of us in a very small space. So, they had the space where the family lives on premise at the motel, and then, they had one extra room designated for family that was coming in.
So, my aunt and uncle, at the time, already had two little boys, probably one was a year old and another one was two-and-a-half years old or something. They had a crib. I was seven years old and I was absolutely obsessed and fascinated by this crib. I had insisted (and I think begged) and done everything I could as a kid to say, "Can I sleep in the crib?" They were like, "Yes, sure."
So, I got to sleep in the crib. I remember my sister being really upset about it, because she was nine and she also wanted to sleep in a crib, because we'd never seen a crib before. It was like this, I don't know, Porshe of sleeping arrangements. I don't know. Everyone else was sort of sleeping on mats on the floor and beds or whatever else.
So, my aunt was like, "Yes," because her boys were so little, they kind of just snuggled up next to her on the bed, "Yes, you could go sleep in the crib." I remember being really cramped in the crib as a seven-year-old, but I just loved that couple of nights that I spent there.
I mean, I have very good memories of it, just coming, and so forth. I don't think we went to school for that little interim period that we were here, so, when we first came. Then, we just stayed at the motel and my parents were trying to figure out whether we should stay or that. We didn't get enrolled into school. So, I think there were several months--and I think it must've been summer in India or school break in India--here for several months where we didn't have school or anything.
Then, when I returned, it was second grade. So, I think I left in the middle of first, and then, just was immediately put into second grade or something like that. I don't know what happened actually, but, then, when we came back and I started third grade, I remember that very distinctly, because, by that time, we had shifted from that motel to Jersey City, which was a big immigrant hub (still is) at the time.
I remember being enrolled in this school called PS 8, which is like all the schools in the city--they're just named a number. We were very close to the school. It's like the school was at the end of the block and our home was maybe a few hundred feet away. So, I remember walking to the school, I remember standing in line in the courtyard and all that kind of stuff. I don't remember it being a hard experience. I just remember it being different.
I think some of it might be just retrospect, because I seem to have really good memories. I think there were a lot of other immigrant children in this school, which made it feel, like, "I'm not so out of place." I do remember this very young girl. Her name was Misty and she was very light skinned and had blonde hair and very light eyes. When I looked at her, I thought, "Okay, this is American. She must be American."
I also have a very distinct memory, because she was [in] third grade, she was a tiny, little thing and she used to sit in front of me. I used to just look at her hair and think, like, "Oh, my God, her hair is so nice and it's blonde," and just that's what I associate with America.
Then, Misty didn't show up for a day, and then, she didn't show up for another day. Then, we were like, "Oh, what happened to her?" and so forth. She had had this terrible accident where she was so tiny that she had gotten caught between two elevator doors and the sensor had not gone off. So, she was out for [a while].
This is just what I remember about this child in my third grade. She was out for weeks. Then, ultimately, she had recovered enough to come back, but that's what the teacher had told us, like she had an accident and the accident was in an elevator and that type of thing. Other than that, I don't have very strong memories of third grade.
I have a few more of fourth grade. I remember my teacher's name was Ms. Hirsch. It was still PS #8. I remember where I sat. I remember the teacher had asked us to bring an instrument, if we have any at home. I brought in a flute that was next to our altar at home, that kind of thing, yes.
SI: When you came here, did you speak any English or had you studied any English?
GS: Yes. So, from the very beginning when we went to private school in India, it was what we call an English medium school. So, they taught everything in English. So, my first spoken language was Gujarati, but my first written language had always been in English. So, I remember being able to understand everyone.
I remember being put in ESL (English as a second language) in that PS #8. Then, I also remember being pulled out within a couple of months, because they're like, "Well, English is not a second language for you," because I think a lot of kids who were in there did not know written English.
So, I remember my ESL teacher. Her name was, I distinctly remember, because her name was the same last name as mine. It was Mrs. Shah, and she spoke our native tongue. So, when she taught us, she was able to really relate to us. So, I don't remember English being a huge barrier, especially from the writing and reading perspective, or school being hard.
SI: Did you have any kind of impression of what America might be like before you came here?
GS: It was such a long time ago that I can't remember, but I do remember that it was viewed as a very positive, positive place and opportunity in my family, that getting the visa was a very, very big deal. So, because it was ingrained in me at a young age that it's a very big deal, I actually remember standing at our window in that home in Baroda. I had seen a shooting star or something and wished, like, "Oh, let us get our visa," like I'd wished on it, "Let us get our visa."
Looking back on it, I don't even think it's something I wanted; I just remember thinking, "Oh, it's so important to my parents, so, let's let this happen." My impression or what I was told was just a very positive type of thing, yes.
SI: What was your neighborhood like in Jersey City? You mentioned there were a lot of immigrant families around.
GS: Yes, it was very urban. Again, we lived in a studio apartment. It had multiple stories. We lived in multiple apartments in Jersey City, but the first one we lived in was on the street called Sherman Avenue, which I very much remember. There were a couple of other families as well above us.
Even though we were very young, just seven, I remember walking to school by ourselves, walking to the corner store by ourselves. I remember that, because we're two sisters, there used to be a set of sisters upstairs, who were slightly older than us, but used to come down and play on the sidewalk. They would always invite us to play. So, we'd play jump rope with them and double Dutch with them. So, I do remember it being a very heavily immigrant population all around us, a lot of them being Indian immigrants
SI: Were a lot of them Gujarati?
GS: Yes, they were, because I think we spoke in Gujarati. I remember speaking to them in Gujarati as a child.
SI: I wondered if you continued to use Gujarati in the home frequently.
GS: We did, for a very long time, and I still am very fluent in Gujarati. Lots of it has [been lost?]. My habit is to have started speaking in English, mainly because all of my education is in English and has been since I started school. I think, even though I'm still very fluent--I still can talk to my parents in Gujarati--I tend to default to English much more now. Also, I think I have a larger vocabulary in English than I do in Gujarati, yes.
SI: When you came here, did your family continue some kind of religious practices, as you had done in India?
GS: We did not regularly go to temple once we moved here, I remember. Neither one of my parents is very religious, even now, like not immediately. Even as a teen, when we used to go to the mandir temple, it wasn't like we had to go. It was kind like, "Oh, because it was cultural," someone else was going or some event was going on.
We did have an altar in our home, a small, little altar that I know both my parents prayed to, but we didn't grow up very religious in that way or we didn't have any very strict religious rules at all in our home. I mean, until this day, it's kind of like we still [do that]. I have an altar in our home and we pray, but no one has ever said, "You must do that," or anything like that.
SI: Tell me a little bit more about Jersey City. Did you continue living there for a while?
GS: So, we had one apartment that was associated with that school district, with that school, PS 8, I mean. I want to say we stayed there for a year. I remember there was a lot of talk and murmurs, like, when my parents would talk to people or anyone else, on break-ins.
Someone had told my parents that, "You should buy a really, really big TV, because a really, really big TV is hard to move. So, even if someone breaks in, they can't take the TV." So, I remember having this really bulky, large TV, because my parents were convinced that there will be a break-in, but they won't be able to carry the TV out. So, we had this really bulky TV.
Then, I do remember, have some memory of some kind of break-in, but it wasn't serious. No one was home. I think it was like we had gotten home and realized there was a break-in, but the TV was still there. [laughter] So, I remember that.
That was a studio apartment. There was a bed, and then, we had this mattress on the floor that my sister and I used to sleep in. From there, we moved to a one-bedroom apartment. I can't remember the name of the street, but, at the time, it felt like it was really far away from the school, because we moved from, basically, being next to the school or a few hundred feet away from the school to this apartment, which it took maybe fifteen to twenty minutes to walk in the morning to the school after we moved.
Again, as a child, I thought I was walking five miles, but, as an adult, I took my kids to that neighborhood and I started the mileage and drove from the apartment to the school, the route we used to take. I think it was 0.7 miles or something like that. So, it probably did take a kid fifteen minutes to walk, but I remember being really, really cold in the winter and thinking, "Oh, my God, we have to walk, like, miles to school," but it wasn't miles--it was 0.7 miles.
The second apartment was a basement unit, so, like, only half of it had windows going upward. It was a little more dingy, I would say, than the first apartment we were used to, because this was a basement unit, always felt musty, but it was bigger. All of a sudden, we had a separate kitchen and a bedroom. So, I remember that.
From there, we moved. I think we stayed there for a couple more years. Then, from there, we moved to Trenton, which is when my parents bought their convenience store. So, their first business that they owned themselves was a convenience store.
SI: What had they done before that?
GS: So, for a while, they worked at the motel that my uncle owned, like cleaning rooms or whatever. Then, we did this month where we kind of hopped around to people's [homes], like their friends. They had all these random friends across [the US], like they had some family in Ohio, they had some family in North Carolina. The family in North Carolina also had a motel. So, I remember going there and spending some time at a roadside motel.
Then, in Ohio, it was my dad's uncles. It was three of them and the three of them jointly owned a liquor store. So, I remember going there and staying at their house for a little while. My dad tried working there. There's all things we tried before we had moved to Jersey City.
When we moved to Jersey City, my mom was working. Because she had a little bit of work experience--she had worked in a factory, she had worked at a grocery store--she actually was the one who was able to get almost what I consider like a white-collar job. She got a bookkeeping job in New York City.
My dad worked at someone's convenience store. So, a friend of a friend owned a convenience store and my dad basically worked there from five AM to whenever it closed. So, my dad was working at this convenience store, my mom was going into the city for some kind of bookkeeping job. They did that the whole time we lived in Jersey City.
Before, I think, like during that whole thing, they were trying to save money. They ultimately bought a convenience store, but they also borrowed a ton of money to buy this convenience store, from friends and family and all that stuff.
SI: It sounds like the family had quite a network in the US already.
GS: Yes, a really big network. In fact (I think I wrote this down), I have a novel called Anagram Destiny out and the novel very much speaks to this community. It speaks to my parents' struggle when they came to this country, but also speaks to, like, there's this whole network.
[Editor's Note: You can find out more about Dr. Shah's novel, published in 2024, by visiting her website: https://shahgrishma.com.]
A lot of the people that their network is with is people from that village of Sankheda who have also moved here. They're all very tightly-knit because they grew up together. They just have this huge connection. So, not only is it a social network, but it's a financial network. They all let each other borrow money--on interest, not just for fun--but they let each other borrow money and they use that money to buy businesses and grow businesses.
So, I very distinctly remember my dad having this logbook when we wanted to buy the convenience store in Trenton, our first one--really, the only one they owned on their own. He had a list of his friends and the amount of money that he had borrowed from them.
I remember them making phone calls, like, "Okay, this person's going to give me a thousand dollars. Okay, this person's giving me five hundred dollars," to basically gather the money to buy this convenience store. Then, this logbook had whether they're charging interest or non-interest and how long it took them to pay it back and that kind of thing.
SI: Did you move to Trenton or were you outside of Trenton?
GS: No, we moved to Trenton.
SI: You moved to Trenton. What was that neighborhood like?
GS: That neighborhood, so, the way it was was, we had our convenience store and we lived behind the convenience store. So, we had bought the whole building and the building was a store in the front and our home in the back. That home also had two bedrooms. It was obviously bigger than [our] Jersey City home, still kind of older and dingy. I think that building had been there for at least eighty or ninety years or something like that. It was still a little bit urban.
There was this big school behind us. I want to say that school was called PS 12. I just remember a ton of kids at that school who would come to the store in the morning, sometimes give my parents a really hard time. It would just be like [chaos]. So, I remember, my mom used to stand at the door and only let two kids in at a time, because they would just be really rowdy and that kind of stuff.
We went to Catholic school in Trenton for a year, because the public schools weren't known to be very good or everyone told us that the public schools weren't good. So, I went to a Catholic school called Holy Cross for fifth grade. Okay, so, I'm sorry, we must've been in Jersey City for just two years, because I remember starting fifth grade in Trenton.
We were there for a year before my parents decided to get an apartment in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, because the schools were better. They were like, "We just can't afford to keep you in private school," and I think they also were like, "Why would you go to a Catholic school?" It didn't make any sense to them. So, we got an apartment in Lawrenceville and we had that apartment so that we could go to school in Lawrenceville.
SI: You were young, so, this might not be the case, but did you have to do anything in the store?
GS: Yes. Oh, my gosh, we worked in the store all the time. [laughter] This was a family affair. By the time we got the store, I was already probably ten, ten-plus. I remember stocking shelves, I remember running the register. I remember that there were just a ton of loyal, regular customers. It was very much a family business. Everyone who came in understood that it was a family business.
So, if my dad needed to take a bathroom break or go to the bank or something, he would leave me and my sister at the counter. We knew how to do math. If someone bought milk, we knew how to give change. We knew how to run the cash register. Then, sometimes, it would just be as simple as telling them that, "My dad's coming back in five minutes--can you wait?"
So, as a young child, I remember doing a lot of things, like stocking shelves, waking up with them in the morning to help with the paper assembly and all that kind of stuff, because, back then, a bunch of newspapers came separately and you'd assemble them together. Then, as we got older--we had that store until 2008, I want to say--as we got older, I mean, there were whole weeks and months when we just ran the store.
My parents used to sometimes go to India for a month. We'd be like, "Then, we'll just watch the business for you, run the business for you." So, we kind of grew up with it. I remember being fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and being able to run the whole [store], do everything that needed to get done for the day in the store.
SI: What was the name of the business?
GS: It was called Broad Street News. It was on Broad Street in Trenton. So, it was called Broad Street News.
SI: Was there a local Indian community or Gujarati community that you were part of? I've heard from other people that they had to travel a lot to meet people.
GS: So, we did have a community. It was called--first of all, we used to have our normal, like, Sankheda village that we're part of. They used to have annual get-togethers or regular functions and that was a couple of hundred people. So, we had that. There was a larger community, which is part of your caste or whatever, which I don't fully understand even what caste I am or anything like that, but that was called your samaj. So, that's the larger community.
So, we didn't have to travel very far because a lot of this community existed in New Jersey already, and so, much of our socialization, I guess, was with the community. It wasn't really outside of that community. So, the only socialization I had outside of that community was school and the friends I had in school. Everything else outside of school was with this community, with family or family friends who were part of this.
SI: Do you have any memories of how your family would celebrate holidays in the US?
GS: Yes. So, we celebrated Christmas way more than we celebrated Diwali. Because my uncle had come a little bit earlier than my mom, he was one of the first people to have a real home, and not just a real home, like a nice suburban home in a nice part of New Jersey. I remember, when I was maybe nine or ten, him putting up the Christmas tree, having all of us over for Christmas, saying we're going to exchange presents. In reality, it was just the parents buying presents for the kids, but it was all good.
I remember celebrating Christmas since I was probably eight or nine years old. We're not Christian, we're Hindu, but I remember Christmas very much. For Diwali and other holidays that were actually religious-based for us, it was some kind of party or get-together with that community that I talked about, that community of people that either had come from the same village or were part of the same network.
Other than that, I don't remember celebrating any other holidays. It was just Diwali and Christmas. Of course, we did Halloween and stuff because it was just [popular], but Halloween was more school related, like, you went to school dressed up, and then, you went trick or treating, but I don't remember any other holidays as a child. As I got older and the community built a bigger presence, I remember going to the temple more to celebrate holidays. Particularly, there's a temple in Sayreville, New Jersey, that we used to go to a lot.
SI: When you moved to Lawrenceville, you were in this apartment. Did you stay there for a while?
GS: Yes. So, we stayed there [from] sixth grade to when I graduated high school. So, I did everything from sixth grade onward in Lawrenceville. That's when I think we finally felt like we had settled, because we did all our schooling from sixth grade onward in Lawrenceville. So, like, when someone asks, "Where'd you go to school?" I often say I grew up in Lawrenceville. The apartment we had was not too far from that motel that we originally lived at when we came. That motel is also in Lawrenceville, yes.
SI: Tell me a little bit about the schooling there. Your parents moved there because they wanted a better schooling experience. What was it like for you?
GS: So, it was called Lawrence Intermediate School. When I first went to that school, I thought it was like the lap of luxury. It just felt like such a nice school compared to the public schools I had been to in Jersey City.
The Catholic school I had gone to in Trenton wasn't bad, but it was just very small. It was in an urban area. It was very cramped. It was small, was only one class for everything. I had a nun or a sister as a teacher and I always got this feeling she didn't like me. For whatever reason, I just didn't feel very good in that classroom. Her name was Sister Irene. I think she was rigid.
So, when I got to Lawrence Intermediate School, first of all, the school, I just felt like the school was really nice. I remember doing a tour. I remember going to register and the principal or whoever was in charge at the time said, "Oh, do you want a tour of the school?" and we were like, "Yes, sure."
So, we were getting a tour of the school and he showed us the art room. I think there was a multipurpose room. I just remember seeing the art room and being so excited, because they actually had really great resources. They had amazing stuff in there. The classrooms were nice.
Then, I remember starting sixth grade and my teacher ended up being great. So, I had a really good impression of the Intermediate School. That was my only year at that intermediate school, and then, it was middle school for seventh and eighth, also had a really good experience there. Then, high school, I liked a lot, too.
It was a high school that didn't have a lot of other Indian Americans, but, I don't know, by that time, because I'd been in sixth grade onward there, [I] had a small group of friends that made it feel comfortable.
SI: What did you tend to gravitate towards in school? What were your favorite subjects?
GS: In school or high school or just general?
SI: In general.
GS: Yes. I always gravitated to social sciences. I wasn't crazy about math. I think science, I was indifferent about. I was good at it and there were days I liked it and days I didn't, but I almost always gravitated towards social studies. History, sociology, anything related to the humanities, really, I enjoyed a lot.
In elementary school and middle school, I really enjoyed art quite a bit. By high school, I kind of realized that I wasn't great at art. [laughter] So, I would say always gravitated towards sort of social subjects.
SI: Were your parents always talking to you about going to college one day?
GS: Yes. I think, I don't know how this was ingrained or I don't know how this was part of the equation, but there was never a moment when it was not assumed that you're going to college. It was just an absolute one-hundred-percent assumption that you're going to college.
There wasn't a lot of talk about how you're going to get in. My parents didn't know the system at all. They didn't know what the college education system was like in the United States. They had no idea what the SATs were at the time. They knew that we needed to go to college. They had no idea what the system looked like or how we got there.
So, because my sister was older, we both navigated it on our own, I think it was a little bit harder for her because she was the first one who had to navigate it. Then, by the time it got to me, I had sort of like a better idea of how to do things, but, yes, there was always an assumption we'd go to college.
SI: You did a lot of work at the business. Did you have time for extracurricular activities?
GS: In high school, I did quite a bit, just joining afterschool clubs and that kind of thing. I don't think we had extracurriculars that were outside of school. I didn't play sports. I don't really remember doing any extracurriculars outside of school, except this one few week period where my mom had signed us up for ice skating.
I had a terrible fall and hit my head. I said, "I'm not going back," and I think that was the end of that, but almost all of our activities involved, in some way, school. They were related to school. It was an afterschool club or something like that, but we didn't really have activities that kids do now outside.
SI: There was no--I forget what it's called--but, basically, the equivalent of a language school or something like that.
GS: No, no.
SI: When you were in the process of getting into college, what were you looking for? Were there people at school helping you?
GS: Yes, so, I would say that I had a guidance counselor who wasn't very helpful. I had peers who seemed to have parents who knew what they were doing. So, whatever they said I should be doing, I would kind of follow. I had a very, very good teacher who got me involved with this organization called Operation Smile.
I was good in high school. I got good grades and I was involved in a lot of school-related activities and extracurriculars. She got me involved in this organization called Operation Smile. It's an international organization that brings people through to repair cleft lips and palettes. She insisted I go to an international leadership conference for students with them and I did go.
Then, eventually, I was selected to go abroad with them to Honduras. That was my senior year of high school when I went to Honduras. That was the pivotal shift in my life, in the sense that, prior to that, I had sort of known that global inequity exists, that poverty exists, that things in the world are not the same, because I'd been to India so many times, but I didn't know that there was a whole thing you could do about it, like that there's actually ways you can help or do anything about it.
So, when I went abroad with Operation Smile to Honduras for ten days, I came back completely altered. I had a really difficult time adjusting back to real life. I just felt like, "What am I doing? What am I doing going to high school? I need to do something more."
I think that's where the spark to be in service or study global development came into play. By the time I got to college, I knew I wanted to study international relations and global development, that kind of stuff.
SI: What did you do during the trip to Honduras?
GS: So, Operation Smile, on all of their service trips, brings two high school students on each trip. So, what we do is, we do a lot of play therapy and, like, basic hygiene kind of things, like how to brush your teeth, all that kind of stuff, with the children while they wait for surgery and while they wait to be called for surgery. So, it was just a lot of education, basic education around ways to care [for] yourself, and then, play therapy, like before and after surgery, talking to parents, making them feel better, that kind of stuff.
SI: Had your sister been involved in anything like that or was it just that you got involved?
GS: My sister had not been involved in anything like that when I got involved. She's involved now because, as a whole family, we're involved with the organization, but not at the time. No, my sister was not involved.
SI: Did she go to college right after high school?
GS: She did.
SI: Did that provide you with any kind of model or guide?
GS: My sister went to Rider University, which is a private school. The model it provided me is, I recall my parents struggling to pay her tuition. Rider is in Lawrenceville. It was right next to [us], literally five minutes down the road from where we lived. So, it made a lot of sense for her to go there when she got in.
I do remember my parents having a lot of conversations around, "It's really expensive." They struggled to pay her tuition. She had a ton of aid and loans, but they still had struggled to pay the tuition. I remember, in the back of my head, thinking, "Oh, I should go to a cheaper school." I don't know, I knew that Rutgers was a state school.
I had applied to Rutgers and NYU and a number of other schools. I knew, in the back of my head, NYU was not a feasible option financially. So, yes, it did have an impact on what school I selected and I think affordability was one of the key factors.
SI: You ultimately chose to go to Douglass at Rutgers. What was that process like? What were your first few days and weeks like at Douglass?
GS: I think I only had two options. I had Rutgers and I had something called the General Studies Program at NYU. Those were my two options. I think we looked at the sticker price for NYU and said, "Okay, well, this is not happening," and so, I had gotten into Douglass.
I can't even remember right now if I had gotten into Rutgers College. I'm guessing not, because why wouldn't I go to Rutgers? I don't know. I remember getting into Douglass. I remember having a conversation with my parents, "I'm going to live on campus." So, I stayed there for the first year. I had a really great first-year experience, but I did go home a lot, like every weekend.
By the end of freshman year, I had just kind of come to a conclusion that, "I go home a lot--I should just live at home." So, I went back sophomore year and lived at home, but I did have a very active college life, in the sense that I was involved with a lot of things at Rutgers while I was there, undergrad.
I was an executive board member for a couple of Indian organizations on campus. I had, by that time, started something called Operation Smile Club for undergrad. I remember being at that Activities Office a lot. I think it was called RAC at the time, Rutgers Activity Center.
SI: Yes.
GS: I think the people there knew me really well. I remember, later in my life, I was working somewhere and the person came in and said, "I know who you are. You used to go to Rutgers. I used to work at the RAC." I'm like, "You do?" and she's like, "Yes, you used to come in and reserve rooms all the time. I know exactly who you are."
So, I had a great experience at Rutgers in general, but I also had a really good experience at Douglass. I was part of--I think it's called PLEN [Public Leadership Education Network]. It was some sort of leadership program. Douglass also does a first-year experience for the class or the cohort.
I remember the first-year experience being excellent, because it was like this big gathering in the chapel with really great speakers. So, overall, I wasn't crazy about living in the dorms, but I had a great time during my experience as an undergrad there. I had a great roommate that first year. It was just, overall, a good experience. I felt happy with the choice, yes.
SI: Let me just pause for one second; I forgot to ask you how much time you have today. Are you able to go a little further?
GS: Well, it depends. Do you think that it'll be another hour or do you think it'll be a few moments?
SI: I think it'll probably be another hour. I want to talk about your career and all that.
GS: Oh, you do? okay.
SI: Yes.
GS: Is it okay if we break and do another hour at a different time?
SI: Yes, that'd be great.
GS: Yes. Okay, let's do that.
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Reviewed by Shaun Illingworth 2/3/2026
Reviewed by Grishma Shah 3/29/2026