The "Un-American" American

““You kids have only ever thought of yourselves as American, but, unfortunately, you’ll always be brown.””

My aunt said this to me, while both of my feet were propped up on her couch, as we were discussing life in the aftermath of Trump’s election.

I have a vivid memory of sitting in my fifth-grade classroom, around the age of ten, trying to name what English songs I liked. I knew only one album: The Who’s Greatest Hits. I couldn’t even name the tracks themselves, or even recite the lyrics to any of their songs, but I clung to this knowledge. I couldn’t tell anyone that I didn’t know the title of my favorite English song, but I knew that I sure as hell could sing along to the entire soundtrack of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.

That’s the problem I faced because I was from an immigrant family: I grew up in America and learned its values, but returned to a home that belonged to an entirely different culture. Somewhere in between the two worlds, I turned into a hybrid that couldn’t fully function in either culture. All throughout elementary school, people would ask me what my ethnicity was. I would say, “I’m 100% Indian and 100% American.” I inevitably got the response, “That’s not possible.” And then I would get flustered – my classmates would name at least three different countries that their family was from, and I would think, if my entire family is from India, why couldn’t I be Indian and American? I remember going home and telling my parents, “I can’t be 100% Indian and American; the kids at school said that isn’t possible.” My parents would then reassure me that I could, in fact, identify as an Indian and an American, but it took me many years to truly come to terms with this mixed identity.

However, despite the current political climate and anti-immigrant rhetoric, this is a good time to be brown. After the 2017 MET Gala, an author at Buzzfeed wrote an article titled, “Desis Low Key Stole The Show At The MET Gala This Year.” There were six brown people at the MET Gala, and to me, that’s something to celebrate. On the flip side to that, there were a mere six people out of the entire guest list, and I’m excited?

If you had told the ten-year old version of myself, who struggled to name even one English song, that in a little over a decade, I would be in college, not studying to become a doctor, watching an Indian speak at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, I probably wouldn’t have believed you (Thanks, Hasan Minhaj). Now, Aziz Ansari and Mindy Kaling are both successful, mainstream comedians; they’re the first step into integrating the immigrant mentality into the entertainment industry, since they reach out to first-generation children and non-immigrant viewers alike. Dev Patel is starting to get more and more famous, getting bigger roles in bigger movies, coming a long way from “Skins” (though he’s only cast in roles that make him straight from India, despite being from London – but that’s a completely different problem). Even Riz Ahmed, though not Indian, is starting to become more famous, telling fans that he can be both Pakistani and British, without losing any element of his identity.

My cousin and I in traditional Indian clothing.

I needed someone to tell me that in elementary school; then, there was no real representation of brown people in American entertainment, which made me feel isolated from America itself. In the few instances where there would be an Indian role in a movie or TV show, people would assume that the fictional Indian character represented a reality for every Indian or brown person that they saw in real life. It’s a problem that I’ve constantly run into – people have asked me if my life is really like what they’ve seen in movies, if I would get an arranged marriage, or if I was really as awkward as the tiny Indian girl in that one movie – and was I just as insecure about getting a boyfriend as she was? Or was I studying to become a doctor? And wasn’t Bend It Like Beckham the greatest Bollywood movie ever? (I had to explain time and time again that it was an English movie that just happened to be about Indians. It had Keira Knightley in it, c’mon, people).

None of those stereotypes are inherently malicious; everyone who asked me these things questioned out of ignorance or a preconceived notion. But these stereotypes, even if they weren’t true, suddenly became my reality. Growing up, I often felt people thought that I was smarter than I actually was. Generally, people assume that Indians are incredibly smart, because of the high value Indian culture places on education. Because of that, I felt that I was awarded compliments about my own intelligence that I had never earned. I knew my own strengths and weaknesses, but when people would compliment me, I would just think, no, that’s not me, that’s not based on my merit – that’s just based on my skin color.

In American culture, there’s no place for Indians. That’s startlingly evident in day to day conversation; I can’t classify myself as Asian, despite the fact that India is actually part of the Asian continent. Our place is narrowed down to one story, which is the story often depicted on TV. Most of the time, the main Indian storyline would involve parents being too strict and not understanding Western values, and because of that, an Indian character rebels to fit in with their peers. Or there would be an Indian girl who struggles to understand love, because she wouldn’t get a sense of “real” love, in the Western sense, from her parents or Bollywood movies. The problem with these narratives isn’t if they hold any seeds of truth, but that this portrayal leads to this being the only immigrant narrative.

Even if the entertainment industry had figured out their version of the immigrant narrative, I had not. I’m sure my parents have most likely experienced at least one form of racism, but yet, I only have a vague idea of the hardships that come with immigrating to America (it’s a long, arduous process, no matter how much you hear about how “easy” it is to come to the U.S.). I can’t claim my parent’s story as my own history, so I claim America’s history as my own. When you grow up in America, you feel American. It’s how you identify, and so you think that “all men are created equal” applies to you, too.

For an Indian, you’re “equal” in most situations, say, until, you walk into the airport. One time, I stood in a security line and was forced to take off several articles of clothing that I knew were not required by TSA regulations to be removed. The white man behind me asked if he had to do the same, and the officer told him that he didn’t. In that split second, it was equally humiliating and infuriating.

It almost feels wrong to complain about that type of racism, when so many minorities in America alone have suffered far worse. I’ve seen news about unarmed Sikhs and Indians being shot for no apparent reason, and the only people that seem to get mad are part of my fellow brown community. It only highlights what the black community has been trying to tell America, through the Black Lives Matter movement, and the racial injustice that they must face on a day to day basis. They’re right; the “all men are created equal” clause suddenly doesn’t apply if your skin is darker, or you’re perceived as different. Yet out of these tragic deaths arises a solidarity that the brown community usually fails to acknowledge: if every minority is being treated as less, we must stand with them.         

Me - in a different sari.

Under Trump’s America, life is different. More of my friends have seen hate crimes. Some people I know bring their passports with them to mundane activities, in case they need to prove their citizenship. All of my brown friends put great care into how they present themselves at the airport – though to be fair, that has been happening since post 9/11, and is not necessarily limited to life under this administration. However, personally, it means that I have never been more aware of my own skin color. Despite being the only brown girl in my grade for the majority of elementary school, I would argue that I am more conscious about my skin now than I was then.

Now, it seems as if being brown means being “un-American”, even though this country was founded by immigrants. Before this election, I had thought that I had finally come to terms with my identity. I was, and am, truly an Indian-American. I realized my physical insecurities all stemmed from having dark skin, and once I recognized that, I decided that being insecure wasn’t worth it. Not if it meant feeling less because of who I am.

I grew up accepting American history as my own – because without it, I have no history. I can’t claim India’s history as my own, especially since I have only ever visited a couple times. My parents immigrated at different points of their lives, and so they each have stories of their own. And, when my aunt pointed out that I would “unfortunately, always be brown,” I understand. I see that even if I grew up embracing a country and its values, for an indefinite amount of time, it won’t embrace me back.

Yet, even under Trump’s America, amidst all chaos, for the first time in my life, I can see people like me on television. I can see comedians telling autobiographical stories – stories that parallel to my own life. I’ve never experienced that before. I see people with skin as dark as mine pointing out the brokenness in the world, in the government, and ending it with a punchline. And if you have never experienced searching for someone, anyone, that looks like you, it’s impossible to explain that type of happiness.