Manoj Jayadevan

The most distinctive thing that MVHS parent Manoj Jayadevan can recall from his first day in the United States is the speed of the taxi that picked him up. It was going 70 miles per hour — faster than the cars in India could go, because the taxis in the U.S. didn’t have to navigate the same crowded streets as those in India.

Jayadevan decided to immigrate from India to the U.S. in 2001 in pursuit of better job opportunities. He was interested in electrical engineering and wanted to begin working with nuclear reactors, which he couldn’t do at his current job — choosing to move to the U.S. was simply a matter of expanding his career options.

After landing in San Francisco (alone, because his family was planning to join him three months later) in anticipation of his new job in Sunnyvale, Jayadevan had to find a way to make 300 dollars last for two weeks, which was when he would receive his first paycheck. 

Jayadevan remembers finding it initially difficult to adapt to the U.S. He didn’t know what he was experiencing when he found himself extremely sleepy in the days after the flight, because he had never heard of jet lag before. He ate chicken nuggets every day for the first six weeks — not only because they were inexpensive, but also because of the convenience of being able to simply order a “Number Six” at McDonald’s. He didn’t get a haircut for the first few months, because having slightly ove

rgrown hair was preferable to not having enough money to buy food. And, he remembers experiencing miniature culture shocks, like learning that unlike in India, in the U.S., people left a lot of room between each other when standing in lines — a lesson he learned after being told that he was “breathing down somebody’s neck” the first time he went to the bank.

Overall, Jayadevan believes that immigrating was “probably the best decision he ever made.” Although he misses the liveliness and connectedness of the people in India — the quiet suburb of Cupertino just doesn’t have the same festivals, dancing and ease of connecting with family and friends nearby — he finds moving to the U.S. allowed him to get out of his comfort zone and embrace new perspectives.

“I wouldn’t change anything,” Jayadevan said. “I think what happened to me in my younger years shaped me to where I am now. If I were to just stay back in India, my viewpoint of the world would have been very limited. [Immigrating] opened my eyes massively. Coming to America, I started meeting people from all parts of the world. It’s very diverse. It shapes your thinking — you take good things from all cultures.”