I’ve wondered if the feeling of a fluctuating racial self-image is a universal experience for people of color. Of how you feel about your race changing depending on where you are and who you’re with. Growing up, I constantly switched back and forth on how I felt about it, sometimes proud, and sometimes desperate to be something else.
My childhood was spent in the comfort of the typical Virginian suburbs where I resided. I was an average American child in many ways- my family watched the fireworks in DC on the Fourth of July, we ate turkey and stuffing every Thanksgiving, and one of the highlights of my year would be watching the Super Bowl halftime show. When I would recall these times later, they had a shining, luminescent quality, like iridescent gold. It was because, in those moments, I felt so American, like I had the life of one of my white friends. But most of the time, I didn’t feel American at all. When I looked at myself, so physically and culturally different from the people around me, a feeling of “otherness” would creep in, threatening to overtake me.
The shimmering memories where I felt so unequivocally American would starkly contrast some of the others in my mind. These would be the moments when I would fully realize how Indian I was (or was not), but these came in different shades. The brighter ones would be where I would swell with pride at my culture, excited to partake in all of its traditions. They came in different shades, similar to the powdered colors of Holi: soft cerulean blues, tangerine oranges, and verdant greens. There were many times that I felt this way, like during Diwali, when we’d place Diyas on our windowsills, or when we went to India every December. We never celebrated Christmas; instead, we spent our winter breaks in the bustling city of Kolkata. However, though I was with my family and relatives, sometimes, I still felt as if I didn’t belong. Though I physically looked like an Indian, I never really felt like one internally. My Hindi was that of a child’s: I stuttered and hesitated before each word. Whenever I would try talking to some of my relatives who only spoke Hindi, I could feel my cheeks burning and my sentences getting caught in my throat. These moments would be dark reds, the color of anger. Except there was nowhere for the anger to be directed towards but me.
The truly haunting memories, surprisingly, came in shades of gray. No matter how much I tried to forget them, they remained like a blemish, hanging over me like a murky storm cloud. They were the ones where I was most acutely aware of my race. I could go into detail about the darker ones, but those don’t explain why these moments were the color gray. It was the small moments that happened often, where someone would comment on the food I ate, my body hair, the clothes I wore, my parents’ accent- the list goes on. These microaggressions added up over time, like winter when the constant cloudy days blend together to make you feel hollow inside. I wanted desperately to be both Indian and American, yet each hindered me from reaching the other.
I slowly started to realize that though I could try to be either Indian or American, I would never truly be perfect at either. It might sound pessimistic, but it actually helped improve my racial self-image. Using the labels “Asian,” “South Asian,” or “Indian” to describe me would technically be accurate, but not the whole truth. Just calling me culturally “American” might be somewhat accurate, but again, not entirely correct. I stopped trying to hold myself to the standard of being strictly one or the other, because I would always be both. Eliminating these expectations helped me not see myself as a failure in this regard, but as someone whose cultural identity is complex and a combination of two worlds. The colors that I am made of will always be a mixture, shaped by the moments I’ve lived through, the people who raised me, and the vibrant cultures I’ve been blessed to experience.
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