My acquaintance with American society has been developed on three occasions: first, as a spouse (and a student) when my husband was a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin, second, as a conference speaker/attendee, and finally, as a visiting fellow at Harvard University. I now provide a thumbnail sketch of my life journey from my childhood to my present circumstances.

I was born and raised in a Muslim family in the predominantly Muslim country of Bangladesh, but I spent several years of my childhood in Pakistan. I had a middle-class professional upbringing in Dhaka (the capital of Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan) and Karachi (a city in the then West Pakistan). Both my parents were educated people. We moved back to Dhaka (in the then East Pakistan) in 1970. In 1971 East Pakistan gained independence from West Pakistan through a civil war and came to be known as Bangladesh. During the Pakistan period, my father was promoted to the position of an executive director in the State Bank of Pakistan. In the independent Bangladesh, he became the deputy governor of the Bangladesh Bank. My mother was a stay-at-home mum. I attended a private school and two missionary (private) schools and colleges in Dhaka and Karachi. In these educational institutions we had teaching staff from Europe and America. At home, I spoke Bengali (my mother tongue), and in schools and colleges the medium of instruction was English. I was also taught Urdu in Pakistan as it was a curriculum requirement.