My grandfather immigrated this country and he left his wife and kids in India.He had started doing city construction jobs with his brother who came years before he did. Some days he had worked all 24 hours a day to get the job done. They had worked so hard. He lived on Atlantic in Queens and the closest Indian store was in Jackson Heights. The sikh temple was right by our house, and he would go there and help serve the free food for all as we call it langar. To come here, he had to give up alot. His diet had changed. He had gone from eating indian rotis every day to eating a butter roll with a coffee every morning. I am sure he had missed eating all those Indian sweets and foods he ate there. A few years later  my grandmother and her kids had came as well. With my grandma came many things from the old country. one thing she brought was a jalebi roller. a jalebi is this crunchy indian sweet. You could only make them with a certain roller and at the time it either was a days job to make or you could get it from India. My grandmother made them for him. My grandfather was delighted. Its very hard work to make them. Since then we had had a tradition of making jalebis at every event holiday, party for the sake of all those years of sacrifice and thankfulness.

– Karanjeet Singh

Relationship:  Grandchild of im/migrant Grandchild of im/migrant