Tag: Immigration

Is There a Sadness In Your Parents You Can’t Quite Understand?

December 10, 2024

Your parents may also have difficulty identifying what it is. But then, when you think about it, they left everything they knew, and likely most everyone they knew, to find opportunity. That was their main goal. Opportunity. And really it can be translated to mean deep sacrifice, even sacrifice of connecting with themselves.

So everything else takes second place. I often wonder if my parents had time to grieve. But I think I know the answer. Many had little time to pause, breathe, rest, in the ways they deserved. And may have unintentionally passed the heartache down to their children. Generational patterns, modeling, trauma, we can’t always tangibly place it, because it sits in our bones. But you know it’s there.

Work on identifying the ways you also hold a sadness, maybe for them, for yourself, for both. Take it, examine it, try to know it so you can release it. Allow it to stop here.

Believe Me When I Tell You

August 31, 2024

The body and mind become so weary from holding secrets. I had now hid my relationship for months. My parents suspected nothing but they also always assumed I was doing something I shouldn’t be. I was groomed to be stealthy. It was without intention they created this in me. They didn’t know how to nurture autonomy in this big, foreign country. Maybe even for themselves. 

The weight of what I knew and all the what ifs were getting too heavy. I couldn’t take it much longer. And then it happened, before I realized what was coming out of my mouth. One afternoon, as Mom shook her head while she watched a show about interracial couples, I blurted out that I had an American boyfriend.

She stared at me for a few seconds. She gritted her teeth. I prepared for a smack. And then she went back to watching her show, calling me silly and waving me away. It was too much for her. She couldn’t even imagine it. 

I walked out. I went straight to my boyfriend’s house.

Summary of a scene from Where the Tiger Dwells, a memoir

A Million Miles of What They Carried

August 16, 2024

What did they carry with them, my parents, over thousands of miles? What pieces of jewelry did they carefully choose? Which did they keep and which did they have to tear away from? Did they want to wear them all on each of their fingers, filling them as high as they’d fit? As many chains that could go around their necks? What did they stuff into their pockets? What are the most valuable things, maybe viable things, to an immigrant?

Did they wonder which clothes would be most acceptable? Or did they even worry about this? Did they want to take all their clothes, even the ones that were a little snug from high school that reminded them of good times with their childhood friends? Did they want to take some of their shoes, maybe all of them? But would their shoes work there? They had heard it was bitter cold, almost uninhabitable. How do you then dress for that? How, I mean, what, do you put on?

Did they speak to each item that meant something, the ones they couldn’t take with? The doors, the walls with the little lizzards sitting still like decor, the little random steel cups and clay pots in the kitchen? Did they say goodbye, or maybe one day I’ll see you again? What did they think would happen? That they’d never return to the ground and sky and trees they knew so well? The childhood toys, dolls, the table they ate their meals on, where they sat with their mothers and fathers, their siblings, where they prayed over their dal, rice, chutney, chicken. They couldn’t take those.

What about the well in the backyard, the one they leant over as children, yelling into it, echoes responding with giggles. What stories had they told their friends about the well, as they all encircled it, bent over slightly, seeking the bottom? What lay in the darkness? What fears had they buried there and what new ones would well up?

Did they wave goodbye to the animals that freely roamed the dirt roads in front of their houses, the pigs, the dogs, as animals should? Isn’t it in fact their home too? Isn’t freedom for all? Did they whisper into the creatures’ ears one last time, did they give some of them names, letting them know they were going to a far away place where the animals wouldn’t love them the same? Did they know that then? Did they know foreign meant foreigner, a bad word, outsider, feared, to be ridiculed, cursed at, in a place that would never quite feel like home? Did they leave space for this as they were gathering all the things they would carry?

What’s Your Story?

June 19, 2018

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One of the most powerful ways we can undo injustice is by sharing our stories. I share some of my stories of race, immigration and perceptions of American life through the lens of a woman of color in Essays of Night and Daylight.

Something important changes as we hear others’ stories. We hear threads of similarity. We hear joy, pain, struggle and strength. We hear ourselves.

 

Screen Shot 2018-06-02 at 1.33.51 AMEssays of Night and Daylight
Perspective on race, immigration and American life through the lens of a woman of color.
$5.00

 

Purchase here:
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Thank you for reading!

Keep Discussions about Social Justice Moving Forward

May 17, 2018

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We are Conquistadors!

March 19, 2017

 

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I did it! Actually, we did it. There could be no other way. You, my dear, were the reason they were finally willing to understand the world as it should be seen.

When my parents came to America, they brought with them a few belongings, some big dreams and a host of misconceptions about what the people of America were like. In fact, they seemed to understand all non-Indians in a grossly inaccurate, almost caricaturistic light. It wasn’t malicious, it was simply their perspective.

In fact ironically, when I think of their perceptions, they parallel to Americans’ views of Apu from The Simpsons. He’s a clownish little Indian man with a heavy accent and unethical business practices. In the same vein, my parents saw all Americans as sex crazed hippies with no concept of collectivism, family, sacrifice or desire to maintain an untainted reputation, regardless of the costs.

It makes some sense. They would be encountering so many people unlike themselves, they had to create a sort of blueprint for understanding the many puzzle pieces that made up America. This can be useful to a degree I suppose, but it was also quite harmful. It drew lines between the perceived stark differences separating Indians and “the others.”

My parents were unable to relinquish how their custom-laden world could even vaguely line up with any strand of American culture. And further, meshing even slightly with “bad, loose, selfish” America would be treason of Indian culture.

Had my parents considered though that their children were born into this sin and may one day adopt some of these dreaded qualities? Well, no. Not for a long, long time, not until they had to face you, my very un-Indian boyfriend. Until then, they held on tight to their misinformed notions, which sometimes unwittingly teetered on the brink of intolerance.

And so when you came along, the concept of us was incomprehensible to them, a paradox. But slowly they began to bend. The change was so subtle that it almost went undetected. It was in the small interactions – silence replaced by laughter, formalities replaced by meaningful exchanges – that they were being redefined. They needed you, they needed light. They needed exposure and reflection of their own vulnerabilities.

We did this! We pushed them out of their uncomfortable places. We showed them something they had never dreamt of. We, my love, are conquistadors!

Why I Write

January 23, 2017

I write because the struggles of immigration grieve me in a personal way, a way that for a long time divided my family to near disrepair. Despite this, I believe my very conservative Christian, Indian parents attempted to understand why this American-born Indian girl had to do things a bit differently than what they had planned. And what I wanted was exactly the opposite of what had been customary for thousands of years. I, a female, wanted to do whatever I felt like doing.

Often, the shame related to making independent, very “American” decisions has led to heartbreaking consequences in some families and particularly for females. These endings are often preceded by children of immigrants desiring to adapt to American society while balancing Indian roots. These endings are also preceded by parents quickly becoming disillusioned as they begin to see the land of milk and honey for what it really is. Sometimes, it doesn’t receive families with open arms or flowing vats of opportunity. It is a place that takes far more than it can ever offer – hopes, time, a longing for family back home, culture and many, many tears. But above all things, it wants their children the most.

Some might believe I write to shame my family, and in essence, the Indian community, as we’re a highly collectivistic society. And in fact, allowing a look into the private lives of a collectivistic society is like waiting to be exiled. However, I write because if I don’t, relationships may be broken forever and families may be destroyed. Lives may potentially be lost.

I was once watching a video of author, Arundhati Roy, advocating for the rights of the most vulnerable of India. After it ended, I scrolled down to read words of praise for her efforts and her work of fiction, God of Small Things, which clings close to the often unspoken truths of India. But as I continued to scroll I saw far more comments addressing Ms. Roy with vile, demeaning adjectives and even death threats written by brutish men raised to despise females, to view us as nothing more than insentient things to be assaulted of body and spirit to their liking.

I don’t doubt opposition. Some might even say I shouldn’t be allowed to share my accounts of Indian culture, maybe that I should be banned. I should know where my place is. I should be silent.

And this is precisely why I write.