NEHA RAYAMAJHI

Neha Rayamajhi, a 2025 Subnivean Awards finalist, is a cultural worker, passionate about creating spaces and narratives centered around decolonial politics, diasporic nostalgia, and the joys of imagining anti-oppressive  futures. Her works have appeared in The South Asian Journal, Arkana Magazine, The Kathmandu Post, The Asian Arts Initiative, and other exhibitions and publications. Born in Kathmandu and raised by Nepal, she currently daydreams in Boston, Massachusetts. Find her at https://neharayamajhi.com

AN AMERICAN NOVEMBER

"Where here are you from?" the last customer asks as I clean his table. Quickly peeking at the generous tip he has left for me, I answer.

Elated, he immediately lets me know he has watched a Netflix Special featuring the mountains there.

“I hope to conquer Everest one day,” he adds. And I agree politely, which means I swallow my words with a smile, a head bobble, and a bow. The restaurant manager is watching.

I am used to this question. It is America’s favorite investigation, and I have been here for three whole years. Sometimes, the query is curiosity. Other times, it is a border. Either way, I am made to answer it far more than I prefer. I wish this country would replace “Where are you

from?” with “How are you?”

I finish setting up for the next day’s shift. Knives and spoons sit on the right side of the plate, forks on the left. This took me a while to remember, just like working the cashier’s register and serving water with ice, even in winter.

The manager walks up to me and reminds me to come in early tomorrow evening.

“The college kids will probably celebrate the election results here,” he says. “We will need extra hands.”

A smile, a head bobble, and a bow. I grab my jacket and walk towards the train station. The tip left for me is now in the manager’s pocket—this is another thing I am used to here.

It starts snowing by the time I reach Harvard Station. The Orange Line is always late. I don’t mind. The trains in Boston remind me of buses in Kathmandu—never on time, usually packed, always reeking of human desperation. I feel right at home. I like them, especially after they pass the “good” neighborhoods and start assembling faces that carry maps tracing homelands far away like mine. With them, “Where are you from?” sounds like “I miss home too.”

Last week, on this same train, I met an elder from my father’s town in Western Nepal. I complimented her choice of shawl, and she promptly asked me how I knew her language. "Nepali is my mother tongue, too," I told her, but she continued testing my claim.

She asked me for my father's family name and inquired about my grandparents. These are Nepali questions—ways of knowing and letting know, ways of life slowly fading into the deep left side of my belly. That is where my memories of home live, quiet but alive and safe.

I answered politely, just politely.

She paused, attested to having attended school with my grandmother’s sister, and finally have me a smile, a head bobble, and a nod. I could have told her that my grandmother was an only child, but instead I smiled back and said, “We are a small country.”

She started talking louder, her shoulders not as awake anymore. A white woman sitting across us with a yoga mat and a dog huffed and turned away. My new friend looked at her and then at me.

“Americans like yoga very much,” she said in our language. I chuckled. “Back in the day, the early nineties, my son didn’t allow his father and me to practice yoga outside. He said this wasn’t home and that our American neighbors already didn’t like us being here. His father started jogging. But I didn’t like running.” I forged a chuckle. "But now Americans like yoga very much," she continued. "Everybody does it outside and on TV as well!"

She spoke more, loud. For the next nine minutes, we grasped whatever we could out of one another. We were both trying to fill a void I have yet to name in the English language. I haven’t seen her since.

Tonight, an Ethiopian woman sits next to me. She has a baby in her arms. They look exhausted but peaceful, like two pieces of everything that belong together. She catches me looking and I wonder if she can smell envy.

"She is almost a year old now," she says. "You have one?" I take my phone out and show her a picture.

"He is seven now," I say.

She smiles and looks away but I can't stop the words flowing out of me. I tell her my son’s name, his new fascination with airplanes, why he lives with my mother back home, and how much he misses me.

The woman must have left the train somewhere in between those details. I didn't notice. I put the memories back in the bottom, left side of my belly.

"He will be here with me next year," I tell her, the empty train, myself.

I walk into the three-bedroom apartment I share with five other immigrants. Three are huddling around our one laptop, watching the news. The other two are working late. There is always someone working late. We are always working late.

The presidential election isn’t until tomorrow, but they have followed it for weeks. It’s taken over everywhere, but I don’t quite understand it. Even the lawyer at the Community Center has been bringing it up in our meetings. Last month, he suggested applying for my son’s immigration application earlier than I had planned.

"The new administration could make it difficult," he said.

I said no, ashamed that I didn’t have enough money saved.

America is expensive, especially if you are poor. Besides, everybody says the country will elect its first woman president and that all will be fine. The college kids are coming to our restaurant to celebrate tomorrow. I will apply for my son’s visa next year.

"He will be here with me soon," I tell the lawyer, everybody I meet, myself.

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