FB Blog Past - 8

October 18, 2012

I love when people give me ideas for blogs, particularly when I’m struggling to think of one that would be even remotely interesting.  This time it was suggested by someone that I write a bit about being a desi in un-desiland.  Knowing that this could and would possibly be a long post which would reach back years, I decided that the best way to tackle this would be to write it in several entries over the next few…well who knows, I’m fairly unreliable with timing.  So here goes. 

Growing up Brown Amongst the White Man…

My parents dragged me here when I was but a toddler tearing me away from their motherland.  I know for a fact how difficult this decision was but they had done it for the betterment of their family.  Since I’ve garnered the ability to retain any sort of memory, I’ve always been…here.  I vaguely have had memories about some other place, flashes of moments, sudden recollections of events but truly they are nothing but shadows.  Still as a very young child I somehow grasped that my home smelled different, that I, on occasion, wore different clothes (far more colorful and ornate) and I knew that the language spoken at home wouldn’t be understood by most of whom I was surrounded by.  But to be honest, did I really see the brown girl in the mirror?

No.

Neither was it shouted at me that I was different.  Back then the competition was between the blacks and whites, not the browns.  We didn’t have much say in our communities, we were only known as the quiet “Asians” down the street who would pretty much keep to themselves.  My parents were not unfriendly people, not by a long shot but for the most part we were not invited to the neighbor’s homes to celebrate Christmas and nor we sharing in summer time barbeques.  However I can recall watching my father standing next to his car in some animated conversation with the guy across the street or my mother leaning over the fence speaking with the lady of the house next door.  Even if we didn’t go to their homes, it didn’t mean they didn’t come to ours or that their children weren’t equally and warmly welcomed.

Even then, when the desi population in the US was very slim and there was no such thing as communities of browns (like there are today, and yes, there are such things everywhere you go now) we managed to eek out those with common skin color and that for the most part kept us grounded and somehow connected to “home”.  There were Friday nights when all our friends would come over, yummy spicy foods would be cooked and we would sit around the VCR and massively clunky television and watch some newly released hindi movie.  On special occasions we would pack into a few cars to go sit in a movie theater that was about a 2 hour drive away to partake in samosas during intermission and watching Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh falling in love in snow. 

Weekends were immersed in our culture, weekdays, in the other.  Yet I never could differentiate.  Childhood consciousness isn’t something that’s as in-tune or jaded to those obvious things around us such as racism, sexism or any other “ism”.  We did what we were told to do, we felt what we naturally were inclined to feel and we thought those things that were drilled into our rather undeveloped and sponge-like minds.  My parents were intent on making sure that I knew that I belonged, that I was never to think I was different nor better nor worse.  I was who I was and I should always be proud. 

So I was…there was no shame to my game. 

I was the kid who would go to school wearing a salwar kameez with pride, who would (on occasion) pull out her sabzi and roti while at lunch, who would sometimes slip up and use a word that others just didn’t understand having to strain my brain to remember the correct English translation.  I was also the little girl who could not wear shorts, go to sleepovers nor eat a pepperoni pizza.  I observed Ramadan even at that young age, sitting in the cafeteria while those around me wolfed down their meals at alarming rates while teasing and tempting me with food.  Even while I shot them nasty looks and wished the plague upon their families, I wasn’t bothered.

I did have some difficulty though, times when I just didn’t get it, when the differences made me feel alienated rather than being special; for instance, holidays.  No not the ones I observed, but the ones ‘they’ did.  Try to make a child understand why, when she was growing up in an environment where everyone was preparing for Santa Claus to visit, she would in fact not be receiving said caller without a river of tears being shed.  Yea, trust me, that’s a hard one. 

So what was it like to grow up in a white world?  No different than you probably.  I didn’t look at the world in colors, I didn’t sit around thinking I was different because honestly to me I wasn’t and they were no different then me.  I mean I was a kid right, I went out and played in the sun, the snow, amongst the leaves.  I threw fits and tantrums, I laughed and smiled, I was enthralled with Saturday morning cartoons, I loved candy and was determined to be able to master the art of double-dutch.  My parents were the center of my universe, my brother the person I most wanted to hang around with, my bed time was the one thing I wanted to dodge and school…well hell school was school.  I loved new scuff free shoes, I got dirty in the play ground and I got spankings.  As far as I could tell, my friends (white, black, brown, yellow, green, polka-dotted) all pretty much had the same lives. 

So, did I see the brown girl in the mirror?  Nope.  What was it like growing up brown in a white mans world?  At that time I would have said to you, “they’re not white, they’re just…people.”