An Indian in America or an American in India?

(For all you confused people out there, an American Indian is not the same as an Indian American. The term American Indian, referring to Native Americans, is a misnomer. Native Americans did not come from India and Indian people are not native to North America.)

I was born in a small community hospital in my mother’s hometown of Salem, Tamil Nadu, in south India. I spent the first few years of my life there and in Coimbatore, where my paternal grandparents lived. When I was four, my dad was accepted as a PhD candidate in the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. About a year after he left, my mother, Suresh, and I joined him in Canada. I arrived knowing two English words: “yes” and “no”.

Pause here. First of all, am I technically a first generation or a second generation immigrant? Does that make me more Indian or more American? Second, you can imagine a couple different options for how our upbringing could be.

1) Our parents could have assimilated completely and let us grow up as “normal” western kids.
2) Our parents could have completely retained all our Indian customs and raised us the same way, without any regard to how we managed the social scene at school.
3) We could have all found a middle ground that made us stick out in both American and Indian communities, but would somehow appease both identities.

We probably shifted several times on this gradient during the past 17-18 years. There have been times where I was angry at my parents, angry at my peers, or just angry at the world. At the same time, there have been moments when I felt like I had the best deal out of the lot. The truth is, these days I simply feel unique, out-of-place, whatever you want to call it. The kind of Indian or American I understand myself to be is not the same held by Americans or Indians. I am some freakish hybrid that somehow matches my life.

Grade school was hell. During the 7-8 years that it took my mom to realize that she couldn’t raise her kids the way she knew and had learned, I lived a double life that was at times torturous. Clothing was always bought in pairs so that my brother and I could wear the same things to school and parties. Hair was neatly parted and oiled, and vibhuti (ashes) adorned our foreheads as we walked into school each morning. Soon after the car pulled away, hair would be remade, and ashes wiped off furtively before any kids would see us. Lunch was simply cruel. So many days we carried nice, spicy curries mixed with rice or spread on bread. While I loved it, kids would make fun of the food and cringe at the smell. I soon learned to eat my lunches separately from the other kids or keep food covered as much as possible. Recess was more exchange of name-calling, hiding, and feeling bad. Yet, through all of this, I was always one of the smartest kids in class. Fear of losing my reputation kept me from fights or adverse events.

Middle school brought on the guilt. I have to mention that my mom has a death stare that would make me feel like a horrible person and literally bring me to tears. Needless to say, I did everything I could to prevent its onset. I also had the biggest guilt conscience and I was ever afraid of being found out. But, how’s a confused 12 year-old supposed to withstand peer pressure? Enter hormones. I still remember the heart pounding and mind wrenching guilt I felt after our graduation dance in 8th grade, where I had danced with a girl for the first time in my life. I was so guilt-ridden that I confessed to my mom soon after. My mom was quite a drama queen when it came to these things, so she was immediately worried that my life was headed in the wrong direction, that I’d get sucked into the never-ending death spiral of modern western culture. Such events and others would make me confused and angry. I didn’t even know who to get angry at or how to proceed, and so I would end up dwelling in a tangled thought process. Thankfully, high school brought on a change.

High school and college were times of maturation and change for both Suresh and me and our parents. We became much more involved in the Sai community and found a niche for ourselves. I think we evolved as a family to take on an identity that was different from the one we came from and the one expected in the local culture. I look at myself over the last few years and I see an amalgamation of spiritual, cultural, and social traits that make me who I am today. I had to peruse my beliefs and truly make them MY beliefs. In the process, however, I set myself up to differ markedly from any particular identity that I might have been associated with. But I like to believe that I garnered the best from both worlds. I find myself defending American ideals in India and defending Indian practices in America. I am cued in to the similarities that lie behind the superficial differences. I think this tendency to see oneness between such cultures is the biggest gift I have received from my upbringing.

Going forward, I’m sure that my identity will play a huge role in relationships, work, and my view on the world. And while it may not be justified to call me purely Indian or American, I am satisfied knowing that I thrive in niche unique to myself.