An Audacious Asian-Pacific Heritage Month
By Mansi Tanna
America — the biggest melting pot of cultures in the world can be a lot. For anyone. Growing up as an Indian American, it had its ups and downs, and I'm sure if your family moved here from another country you can relate to this topic. In honor of Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, I want to share my story growing up as a first generation American.
This feeling of luck at having been born in America has followed me since I was a child. Whenever we visited our cousins from India, they would always introduce us to their friends as, “these are my cousins from America” (which is a big thing there). I knew I hit a “jackpot” before I could vocalize it, and even now, as I sit down to apply for jobs, there’s a question that repeatedly pops up as a part of many applications: Will you now or in the future need visa sponsorship for work? It’s a question I don’t have to worry about because my parents did for me what people back home wish to do. Move to America and become a citizen.
I grew up trying to navigate through clashing cultures. For me it was the Indian-American culture clash. For anyone who knows…our cultures and customs are very strict and conservative. I battled between loving my culture and being ashamed of it at times. For instance, in the seventh grade I was the coolest kid to come back from winter break. I remember we had gone to India, and my Baa (grandma) wanted to get my nose pierced. This is a custom for girls in our culture, but here it’s just a face piercing. It was cool for people to come up to me at lunch and say. “Wow I wish my mom would let me pierce my nose.” In my head I was thinking, “This wasn’t even my idea.” But there was also a time I was embarrassed at lunch. People always used to say, “Why does your food smell like this?” My mom always taught me to embrace my culture, so I was never ashamed of it. I just didn’t know how to explain it to someone.
As an Indian American, you can be categorized into two different categories. An “ABCD” or a “FOB.” I would probably classify as an “ABCD” in the brown community. This acronym — American Born Confused Desi — carries the message that there is a cultural understanding that we first-generationers missed out on and now don’t have access to our Indian roots. Because of this, we don’t know how to correctly exist in our inherited social framework. I personally categorize myself as a South Asian American woman, and when I am judged by my fellow brown people, I categorize as a woman of color in America, with a dash of my own identity. I embraced mixing my Indian culture and American culture into my own identity. And shit, I love it. There is nothing better than Samosas and Mimosas! I grew up always wondering why would our parents raise us in a different country and expect us not to adapt to it? Why can’t we embrace both?
Don’t get me wrong, being a first generation is a forever battle. You will never be American enough for the Americans, and you’ll never be Indian to the Indians. The confusion of combining both cultures often stems from the task of pioneering new spaces of identity, and we often have to do this without the guidance of our parents or the support of our community. Basically, we have this challenge of facing the expectations of collectivist communities and family values at home, but we were brought up in a larger culture that promotes individualism and fosters a sense of self-ownership. Growing up, I knew I was different. In Bharatanatyam class (Indian classical dance), I would often feel alone. I had this attraction to hip hop & Spanish music, and Mom would always say, “It’s our culture to learn Bharatanatyam.” Over the years, I realized that I used to hide what I liked to do, who I was attracted to, and what I believed in because I thought my family and community would judge me. After my mom passed away, and I moved to downtown Atlanta for college, and I said “F**k this, I am going to make the life I want. That is why my parents came to America, right?”
In all, I believe that all immigrants may not be going in the same direction, but we share one thing in common — we’re fighting adversity so we can get to someplace we want to be. This Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, I’m embracing my culture by living my life for me.
