Column: An immigrant's view of our elections

• What is it like to be an American? Let me list the ways.
• My friend from India saw our election process first hand.
• I hope one day her enthusiasm will be rewarded with the right to vote, too.

A few months ago my friend and co-worker, Pradnya Dixit, a recent immigrant from Pune, India, presented me with a daunting, yet humbling, request: What books would I recommend that she read to help her understand America and what it means to be a citizen.

Pradnya moved to the United States two years ago with her new husband, and since then she has slowly navigated her way through the maze of politics, race, religion and culture that make the United States so unique.

I am slowly compiling a short list of 10 books -- biographies and history, novels and nonfiction, Pulitzer Prize winners and pop culture best-sellers -- that herald the country's freedoms and rich diversity. The books will also reflect my own separate journeys as a woman, an African-American woman and an African American.

The list was nearly complete when something stranger than fiction happened: President Obama inexplicably stumbled in his first presidential debate with Mitt Romney, sending shock waves across the Democratic Party base -- and all the way through India's caste system.

President Obama, Pradnya told me, is very popular in India, and many citizens wanted him to be re-elected. Back in 2008, Obama's campaign had resonated with members of India's social hierarchy, who saw hope for themselves in his unprecedented victory.

Pradnya and her husband are here on work visas, and not yet citizens, but she closely followed the presidential debates as if they already were. India does not have televised debates, so Pradnya was upset by Obama's performance in the first presidential debate. Why, she asked, didn't the president defend himself against Romney? Would he get another chance in another debate? How long after Election Day do we learn the results? What happens after the elections if Romney wins -- is there rioting in the streets?

It was then that I realized that this U.S. presidential campaign, with its ups and downs, momentum and poll swings, gave Pradnya a firsthand look at what it means to be an American -- at least every four years. Her enthusiasm, and her concern for Obama, reminded me of the importance of our right to vote, and the privilege of our democratic system that we sometimes take for granted.

The president's improved performance in the second and third debates lifted Pradnya's spirits, thought it also prompted more questions. Why was Romney allowed to get in the president's face? Why was Romney agreeing with everything Obama said? Would Obama's performance boost his chances of winning? And later: What's a Gallup poll that says Romney is up by seven?

On Election Day, Pradnya wanted to know how Americans could prove that they had voted. In India, the fingers of voters are dyed. Americans had no such colorful proof, I said, other than the "I Voted" stickers that some of us attached to our clothes.

I hope to have Pradnya's reading list ready by Thanksgiving. Coincidentally, one of the books is Obama's best-selling memoir, Dreams From My Father, about racial identity in America.

My list is a very personal one, and it's debatable whether the books will have an impact on Pradnya as they have had on me. My dream for Pradnya is that someday she, too, will be asked by a new immigrant for book recommendations on being American. Her list, like mine, will be carefully compiled with the understanding that being an American, like life, is a journey of sequels.

Sharon Shahid is the online managing editor at the Newseum, a museum of news based in Washington, D.C. She also is a former member of USA TODAY's editorial board.