WE ARE: A Nation of Immigrants - New Haven 2018
The Participants
Ranendra
Bangladesh
Portrait Location:
Center Church on the Green C6
Current occupation: Musician (drums), composer and music teacher
Arrival in the US: 1995
Reason for migration: I applied and was accepted for the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program
Commentary: When I was growing up in Bangladesh, I learned about Manhattan, the World Trade Center and the other sky scrapers so I went to my roof to see if I could see the Empire State Building! I was amazed to see how huge the buildings were when I arrived in New York City.
America is a nation built by immigrants. It’s what the Statue of Liberty stands for. But while this country is a melting pot of many different cultures, as individuals we still have our own identities, our own roots. Many different ethnicities live here in New Haven and make this beautiful city cosmopolitan. You can separate each person’s identity and culture but you can also weave them together to create new multicultural traditions. I play drums in a trio. We play Western classical music infused with Indian classical music. We play folk music from Bangladesh and the Indian subcontinent. And we play Jewish folk music. So we have merged several different cultures into something new. That is what makes this city – and this country-- such a unique and wonderful place to live.