My name is Kobir Ahmed Chowdhury. I was born in 1974
in Bangladesh. It's a very small village called Porchok, and then it's Sylhet
Bangladesh. And right after high school,
I had a wonderful opportunity or I was one of the lucky one
to be selected on a visa program
through a lottery system, and that's what brought me here
to the United States. How old were you?
Just 17. So when you did come to Brooklyn, what was that transition
like for you? Oh it was... I had no family here,
and my uncle knew somebody who lived here.
That was our only thing to grow up, and he was very kind
to allow me to come to his house.
When I call from England, Heathrow Airport,
he was not home, somebody else picked up the phone.
So that guy later on even today, I appreciate
how he comforted me, and he said, "Look come, it's okay,
we'll come to the airport, pick you up."
And yeah, they were very cordial, nice,
many people live together, obviously. And first few months, I couldn't complete
a whole letter because I would tear down and
it's just so, so far, so different,
so much that I didn't know about.
It was a struggle, but at times like this, you would
pray more.
You would appreciate what you had and look forward to what you are
gonna make out of yourself and how you're gonna make yourself better.
And those are the things would comfort you.
And yeah, it was not easy,
it was not easy. Tell me about some of the things you learned to
do, to take care of yourself and build a life? Well,
I had no skills, just from high school. And you also have to
worry about paying rent end of the month,
people are nice, but they cannot afford to support you financially.
With no skill, I would... And a lot of people were not working
at that time, not working, not having a job for three months,
six months, was very normal.
After a week or so, one of the roommate
said they could come with me to start looking for jobs,
and so I did go with him, but I met him in the
train station. I didn't dress properly. So he kinda yelled at me said,
"Hey that's not how you guys are... " Only if I knew.
So I came home, changed my shoes into
something else, went with him. We went around just, "I'm looking for a
job." He would say that but
we wouldn't land anything. Then
he said, "Okay, we'll have a cup of coffee or something,
let's go to this mall, they have a nice food court on the
seventh floor." But right as we get in, there was a little water
fountain with a little stage there, it was Christmas times. I came in
September. Christmas decoration and festivity was very big at that time,
I remember. So there was some kind of dancing performance in that stage,
the winter time, they'll close the stage and make into a performing place.
It was amazing and colorful and very nice.
We walked on each floor, we went to the seventh floor.
The store we were buying coffee from, he said,
"We're looking for a job."
So, who became my boss, he said "Who?"
He said both of us,
but he picked on me and he said, "Look, you can come around
back to the corridor and I wanna talk to you for a minute."
So I did go, and I was so nervous, I was so nervous.
I thought he would first ask me my name,
this was my natural thinking. So I said,
I was prepared to tell him my name, but he said,
"How are you?" I said, "My name is Kobir Ahmed Chowdhury," just...
He said, "Hey, no, you'll totally be fine, don't worry, I'm not... "
Then he said, if I could come a couple hours from 11:00 to
I think 3:00 or something just to deliver food within the mall for different
floors, or maybe some time outside, end of the week time. There was no
discussion of what he would pay me or anything. I just was happy
that I have a job.
So end of that week, I worked I think 15 hours,
three hours a day, just for deliveries and stuff.
And
he put a lot of singles, $1 bills
and maybe a five and a 20 on the top. This felt like
a lot of money, and he knew he wanted to make me feel
good. So he gave me a lot of money, I thought it was
a lot of money, I grabbed it, I was... I told him, "Thank
you." I came home, I didn't count it over there.
Came home, I counted the money, it was $60.
And I realized,
how much does a ticket cost to go back home,
because $60 times whatever... I think it was $500 or $600 or something.
My feet would hurt, delivery, it's a struggle.
So
I really broke down, I said, "How long will I take?
Or how much do I have to make to make enough money to
go and see my family again?" But things got over
and I started making... I made good money. Six months later,
I became a manager of that store.