(Self) Made in the U.S.A.

Sehar Mansoor, 32, used to live in Gujarat, India and looks back on her childhood with fondness. Mansoor lived happy and comfortable in a house with 20 family members-- each of whom had their own room--her family had maids, and she attended private school. However, in 2001, this all changed when she moved to the United States for political asylum when she was 16 years old.

India has a history of religious tensions between Muslims and Hindus. According to an article in the New York Times by John F. Burns, from December 1992 to January 1993 there was a surge of Hindu-Muslim riots known as the Bombay riots. “At least 1,100 people were killed, most of them Muslims… in a three-hour period on March 12, 1993, 13 bombs, reportedly set by leaders of the city’s Muslim underworld, killed more than 260 people and left more than 700 others injured,” Burns wrote. The Bombay riots were neither the beginning nor end of Hindu-Muslim rioting in India.

Mansoor said “I think the religious beliefs in India are really, really strong and they kind of forget who your neighbors were and who you grew up with. So that turmoil, of I guess, the Hindu-Muslim riots, didn’t turn out to be really well for my family.” She did not remember the name of the specific riots that affected her family, but she recalled the dispute and violence regarded ownership of a piece of land. She explained that some people in her community, “a densely populated Hindu area,” started to think that her parents were in support of the anti-Hindu Muslims. “My father was actually jailed,” she said. “In custody my dad had his first stroke and he was paralyzed. So, there was a lot of brutal beating and torture that my dad suffered while he was in custody.” Mansoor explained the police also wanted to arrest her mother, but didn’t when Mansoor’s father “surrendered himself instead.” When her late father was released from prison, he was bedridden. “That totally changed the dynamics of my family,” she said, explaining how although her family was large, her father was the only breadwinner.

“I absolutely hated America when I first came,” she said. Mansoor and her immediate family lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland, California. The rest of her family parted ways to the U.S., Canada, and Bangladesh. Her father occupied the only bed in their small apartment due to his paralysis, and Mansoor, her mother and two sisters slept on the floor. She worked 12 hour shifts as a cashier at a gas station and was paid $4 an hour “under the table” for two years; she recalls the lack of safety she felt in that neighborhood, explaining how she once got her tires slashed because she refused to sell cigarettes to minors.

However, when she got the proper documentation to start working, she began to make her way up the professional ladder.

Now, she’s getting her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree at USF and works as a property accountant—both full-time; and in 2011 she and her sisters bought their own house. “I’m a self-made person. I started at the bottom,” Mansoor said. “I don’t think I’ve reached my peak yet but if this is where my life is, I’m pretty happy… I have a good job, I’m getting an education, I’m with my family,” she said, explaining how she and her sisters have done well through all their hard work.

“I sometimes do complain about why do I have to face all this adversity,” Mansoor said, “But I think all of this has just made me a stronger person.”