Immigrant families deal with many hardships and struggle to stay on track with the coronavirus making it 10 times worse and giving these families the inability to see each other. Students in Liberty North can go through so much without anyone knowing. Freshman Khushreet Kaur shows us what it’s like to live through a pandemic with family halfway across the world. 

Punjab, India can get very hot with temperatures rising to the 100s, but it is also known as the coldest region in India ranging in the 80s, compared to Missouri with average temperatures ranging almost every week. 

“My parents are from Punjab, India. It’s not very nice there but it’s also not very bad, at the same time. I love to see my family but it can get way too hot,” freshman Khushreet Kaur said. 

In every religion, there are several different holidays and traditions that can be very important to those who are a part of the religion. But, we must respect others’ beliefs compared to our own. 

“In our religion, we celebrate Vaisakhi, you guys have Christmas, we have Vaisakhi. That day we celebrate the birth of our religion. We also have Diwali, the festival for fall or the festival of light,” Kaur said. 

Covid restrictions have prevented many immigrant families from seeing each other. Because of travel restrictions, most families haven’t reunited in at least a year. 

 “My mom had to say goodbye to her family. She did go back to get married to my dad. But we don’t get to see our family in India every year because of how hard it is to get there. We go every other year. But because of covid, it’s been three years since I’ve seen them,” Kaur said. 

It can be an ongoing cycle of moving back and forth. Kaur’s family had to go through all these hardships and struggles of moving back and forth and also unable to see family after being with them for years.

“Both my parents were born in India, and then my mom came to America. She lived here for a year, and then came back to India and got married to my dad, only then to move back to America. 4 years later, she had me and my brother here. Then we moved back to India for 2-3 years of my life. I had to learn an entirely new language which was hard, honestly,” Kaur said. 

Kaur uses her social media platform on Instagram to promote and speak up about the world’s problems. Including BLM, LGBTQ+ rights, politics, women equality, etc. She knows the struggles of being from a place other than America, so she feels the need to speak up about these topics. 

“I feel like if I don’t promote BLM, LGBTQ+, politics, etc. then people will be rude to me. If I don’t say something about it, then what would happen? That’s what I’m afraid of. If you show people that you won’t tolerate it, then they won’t be like that towards you,” Kaur said.