She plays with her cousins dick and12/9/2023 ![]() But over that first Thanksgiving meal, I forgot my homesickness. I'd been missing my family terribly and was homesick. There were invisible but strict boundaries to friendships that I was just starting to decipher. Invitations to people's homes - a deep part of the culture back home in India - weren't common. Just a few months into my stay in America, I was struggling to understand American friendliness - everyone was quick to smile, say hello and joke around, but there were barriers to getting closer to people. How could I not? I was so far from home and my family in India. I fell in love with the holiday right away. We stuffed ourselves, shared stories, laughed a lot and eventually faded into a food coma. The couple from New Zealand - the cooks in the house - were vegan, so they made tofurky and lots of vegetables. A few months later, I was invited to my first Thanksgiving dinner at a house shared by two Indians, one American, two New Zealanders and their sweet black Labrador, named Willow. I'd arrived in the United States in August of that year to start graduate school at the University of Missouri, Columbia. I celebrated my first Thanksgiving in 2002. Editor's note: This story was originally published in November 2022 and has been updated. ![]()
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