Who Am I?

For the sake of this blog, I have decided to remain anonymous. The purpose of this blog is to help and connect with you. Additionally, I will be sharing my stories, some of which I am proud of, and some that I am not. While I have owned up to my mistakes and made amends with the people I have hurt, I still wish to keep some sort of privacy for not only myself but for my family as well.

Here is what I can tell you about me- my parents were both born and raised in India and married after they were introduced to one another in the states. Growing up, I remember my friends asking about arranged marriages- how was it for my parents and more importantly if I expected to have an arranged marriage.

The older I got, the more I realized how idiotic of a question that was. I was not walking around asking my Mormon friends if their parents expected them to have many wives or be one of many wives, so why did people automatically think that my skin color made and background me a candidate for an arranged marriage?

I grew up trained in both classical Indian dance as well as Bollywood, along with basketball, lacrosse, and track. I remember rushing between marching band practices and dance practices during my summer breaks.  We would watch both Hindi movies and English ones. At home, our parents spoke to us in both languages, and even sometimes in Punjabi, leading my sibling and me to be fluent in Hindi and Punjabi (more my sibling than I).  I can distinctly remember one instance where my sibling and I were grounded for not doing something that our parents had asked us to do, probably something along the lines of not cleaning our rooms.  This was the first time our parents grounded us; naturally, we were shocked.  The punishment? No television for the weekend…aside from the Hindi channel.

My parents were smart though, the Hindi channel was just an hour-long show that came on some public channels like PBS on Sunday mornings.  In our household, our culture and heritage were big for us; I knew more names for vegetables in Hindi than I did in English.  My sibling and I would pronounce English words the way people would pronounce them back in India.  I would refer to the periods at the end of sentences as “full stops,” and on occasion, my sibling and I were made fun of because of this.

Yet my heritage has never been something that I have not been proud of. When someone would ask me, “what is your background?” I would always get confused.  I know that I am American and that I am also Indian, but was I American Indian or Indian American?

I am sure that I am not the only one who has had this thought before.  I guess it is somewhat fair to say that Christopher Columbus ruined the whole “American Indian” term, because well if I were to refer myself as an American Indian to the average American, they would think I was what I like to call, a First American, the indigenous people of the country we live in. But with Christopher’s labeling aside, I was always confused with how I was supposed to answer this question.  At times, I felt obligated to say that I was an American Indian.  After all, I was born in this country and English was my first language.  On official documents, I would state that my nationality is American.

However, putting the word, “Indian” after “American” did not feel right to me.  My values, ethics, and beliefs stem from my parents and they are Indian.  My parents made sure we knew where we came from, they made sure we enjoyed mingling in Indian parties with our desi family and friends.  They made sure we celebrated Diwali and understood the meaning of it and other Hindu holidays, but at the same time, they never wanted us to feel left out when it came to the American culture.  They recognized that the United States is a melting pot, so they also celebrated Christmas along with other more culturally American holidays.

So, that is who I am, I am a first-generation Indian American who at times may think that they are really an American Indian. I am someone who loves where I come from and was brought up with the best of both cultures.  But, as you will see in my journey, navigating the two cultures at times has caused a great deal of stress and heartache in the family and has taught me several great lessons about life, family, forgiveness, and strength.