For Kygonahalli Somashekara, growing up in India, he always had a fascination with going abroad. He was particularly curious about the technological advancements in the United States and other countries. After graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering, he started working for Tata Consultancy Services, which at the time was still budding with only 17 or 18 employees. At Tata, he was one of only three employees who did not have a degree from abroad, such as MIT or Caltech, which fueled his desire to study overseas. He applied to and was accepted by NYU, but he couldn't obtain sponsorship for the visa or afford the tuition.
Luckily, in the 1970s, the United States began offering visas to individuals educated in certain STEM fields. His visa application was approved, and he saw this as his best opportunity to go abroad, especially since it didn't involve paying tuition. In March of 1971, Kygonahalli left India and arrived in the United States. Just one or two months prior to his departure, he had married his wife, Hema Somashekara, who followed him after he had settled.
When Kygonahalli first arrived, he moved to Queens, New York, where he stayed with a cousin. He was able to secure a part-time job the very next day as a filing clerk, working from 5 pm to 9 pm, which allowed him to search for a full-time job as a computer programmer during the day. However, it was difficult to find a programming job because much of the commercial programming he had done in India was on second-generation computers, such as the IBM 1410 series, which was outdated in the U.S. As a result, his first full-time job was as a data entry clerk at a small garment manufacturing company. Then, in 1973, he enrolled at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and completed a master’s degree in engineering.
Hema, who had a medical degree from Hyderabad, faced her own challenges when she arrived in the United States. Her medical license didn't transfer, so she had to pass the Education Certification for Foreign Medical Graduates exam, which she successfully did. She was then accepted into a four-year internship program in pathology at a hospital in Brooklyn. During this time, they had children, and despite the challenges of raising young kids while working, Hema completed her internship. Afterward, she took some time off to focus on raising their children. While it was difficult to find a position after this break, she eventually secured a role as a house physician at a local hospital, where she worked for four years before taking another break to focus on her children once again. After they moved to New Jersey, and as their children grew older and started school, Hema pursued a residency in psychiatry, which took four years to complete.
As early immigrants arriving in the New York area in the 1970s, Kygonahalli and Hema were part of many South Asian "firsts." Around 1975, they remembered visiting the very first Indian restaurant in Manhattan, located near the United Nations. They also participated in early cultural events, including the establishment of the large Ganesh temple in Flushing, Queens, which began in 1978 or 1979 in someone's small house.
When asked about whether they faced any discrimination, Kygonahalli responded with typical Indian modesty and shared only positive experiences. However, when pressed, he admitted that while he did not encounter overt discrimination during his early years in the U.S., he faced challenges later in his career while working at the New York City Office of the Comptroller. He applied for a Deputy position but saw it go to someone with less knowledge but more influence. At the time, his team consisted of two African Americans, one Chinese, and two or three Caucasians. During a performance evaluation, he recommended merit raises for the two African American employees, as they were efficient workers, though outspoken in meetings. His boss refused the suggestion. Knowing his own raise was planned, Kygonahalli offered to split his raise between the two African American employees, but in the end, none of them received a raise.
He also encountered another setback during the Y2K preparations. He was appointed as a project manager and tasked with creating a detailed plan for data conversion within a very short timeframe. Despite limited resources, he developed a comprehensive plan that included the necessary manpower. However, his supervisor hired a manager with no programming experience to act as a buffer between them. Furthermore, this manager presented the plan Kygonahalli had drafted as his own work to the executive management. Despite the disappointment, Kygonahalli successfully led the conversion of millions of accounts with only four programmers, while the private sector spent millions on similar data transitions. He continued to work diligently until his retirement.
When asked for advice to young Indians in America, Kygonahalli advised, "Be goal-oriented. There are only 335 million people in the U.S., compared to over a billion in India, which leads to a better distribution of resources and more potential opportunities. However, since you don’t look like most people here, you need to work harder and prove that you are exceptional."
Comments