Racial discrimination and partial ideals are not nonexistent. Growing up in the suburbs of hot, sunny southern California, one of the most diverse areas in the world, you would think that a young elementary school kid would be oblivious to the decade-old prejudices that once so severely tainted the inclusive country of America. However, time and again, experiments and
tests have proven the inborn nature of humans: we prefer those who are similar to us. Groups form. 

In elementary school, I was never the type to go to my friends’ houses after school. I was never a part of Girl Scouts like the majority of the other girls in my grade. I never invited my classmates to my crazy desi birthday parties, and I would rarely go or get invited to theirs, furthering the already enlarging basin of disconnect. 

As a child, my weekends would consist of hanging out with my Indian friends, all of which had grown up alongside me and who I have always considered my second family. These were the people whose houses I could pretend to fall asleep at and my parents would laugh and let my sister and I just spend the night. For my early years of elementary school, my parents never became too close with anyone at school’s parents, my class having no other Indian kid. Asking to sleep over at school friend’s houses was out of the question. People tend to trust people that they are similar to. There was already a cultural separation. 

Reservations have a tendency to pile on; before long, they solidify into false stigmas that make up generations of immigrant American’s minds. Simply by nature, I’m extremely self-conscious and have always put up standards for myself. If my friends wore Justice, I had to wear Justice. If I didn’t, I would be unfashionable because I was Indian. If rolling backpacks were in, I had to have one. My parents never said “no” to these things, and I lived every day trying to conform to this pretense of the “American ideals”. 

As I grew older and became more aware (or rather less oblivious to societies’ reactions and the unclear social constructs that seemingly captivate so many American’s lives), I grew to be more self- conscious. I became so self-conscious to the point where my obnoxious self, who loved to read out loud to the class, became shy and avoided being called on when I saw that I couldn’t pronounce a word after my initial scan of the passage. When other people mispronounced a word, it was okay. However, if I had mispronounced a word, –in my head– it was because I was Indian and because English wasn’t mine or my parents’ first language. I remember in first grade we had spelling tests that were verbally given. I would practice every night with my parents and was on the highest level in my class. There came a day where I failed a list; I remember coming home from school that afternoon full of anger. My parents had been pronouncing the word wrong when they were testing me the previous night, and when my teacher had tested me, I butchered the spelling, not knowing that it was the same word. Everything moment of my life seemed to be taken up by my constantly over-thinking and over-analyzing mind. 

I would refuse to take Indian food for lunch, even though I would feast on my friend’s Korean food and gush over how good of a chef her mom was. I gave up eating my favorite tangy curry for lunch to eat chicken nuggets or bread with Nutella so that it wouldn’t smell and so people would stop asking what I was eating. I tried to subdue all of the nuances that came from being a first generation American. However, at the time, I did not realize that those nuances were what made up my unique identity. Those differences were what created the accepting American identity and mentality. 

You may not realize how important representation in media and in general is for young kids. When Obama was running for president, I remember being so excited and just saying,“Papa, you should pick him, because he’s brown like me.” Granted, skin color should not be what determines who our president should be. However, to my five-year-old self, I could see that he could understand me and was different and brave in his own way. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to be the first Indian woman to become the president of the United States of America. 

In fifth grade, I had no interest in Student Council, as all the people who were trying out for it were the same confident people that I assumed I would never fit in with. However, that year, I remember seeing (now my friend) another Asian girl run for president and actually win. She inspired me and I ran and won the next year in my own, unique way; trust me, you saw no one else with huge bows in their hair screaming “If you like Llamas, vote for Dhama!” (I guess my Indian last name did come in handy). This inspired me to continue my leadership. I continued on to be vice-president of my freshman class and president of my sophomore class, inspiring others to take a risk and go for it. 

Even simply seeing Disney princesses like Tiana and Jasmin, or even Barbies with brown hair, made me so happy as a child. This doesn’t mean that I wasn’t Cinderella and Ariel practically every year, but it also didn’t mean that my friend next-door couldn’t be Jasmin. The fact of the matter is that something as simple as shedding light on culture through media in forms of people of dignity and power, such as the president or princesses, could impact children so much. People of color can see a future in a country where they may not have much of a background, in a place that used to feel like a European dominated world. People of America can see a future created by the syncretism of cultures from everyone’s mother countries and from each individual’s beliefs where they feel represented and have all the
resources for success. 

Children have some sort of inborn bigotry, but I truly believe that it is society’s job to create a culture of acceptance. These children need refined lenses. They need to see the importance of what truly matters in people and learn to look past appearance. 

One time, I was skipping around the track by the playground with one of my best friends. Without being provoked, a fifth grader shouted out “Terrorist,” as I passed by. I was so angry and was in utter shock. I tried to laugh it off, as I always did when something went wrong. I did not do anything; I regret that. I never told anyone. I still haven’t told anyone this out loud because of how mad it made me and because of how embarrassed I was for not doing anything. My friend yelled back to him to say that he should call her terrorist instead because she was Muslim and I was not.
Why the hell should she have had to say that? 

Psychotic people will label you as an extremist because of how media and their ignorant parents portray certain types of people. It’s true; my friend and I were both brown. Just by looking at us, however, I guarantee that you couldn’t tell what religion we practiced. Even if they knew she was Muslim and we clearly saw that they were of Caucasian descent, stats would push for us to call that kid a “terrorist” with all the recent acts of violence initiated by your everyday, middle-aged white male. 

Thankfully, we have a better sense of judgment and know that a handful of people don’t determine an individual’s characteristics. It is so wrong to taint a group of people with such negative and cruel labels, especially based off of skin color that people did not choose. My best friend is a moral person, a strong person. Why should we have let an ignorant elementary schooler label us in a way that couldn’t have been further from the truth, and that too unprovoked? 

We need to make reforms to our culture. As of right now, I am proud to say that I am almost a hundred percent comfortable in my skin, my background, and with myself. This would not have happened if I didn’t have a support system or people that I knew could relate to me. My support system didn’t only consist of my family and Indian family friends. In fact, entering high school, it was my swim buddies, school friends, and ASB family that pushed me to always be myself. 

I met one of my best friends through swim. I cherish our relationship in a different way. Yes, she’s always there for my boy stuff, my crying about swim, my constant complaining, but she never fails to give me new experiences filled with the warmth of foreign culture. She takes me to authentic dumpling, ramen, and Korean barbeque places. I swear she could be a food critic; she never settles for eating at a mediocre place, even if that means we have to drive forty minutes for good boba. I would never trade in our relationship for anything, even if that means that I forced myself to try fish balls and learn how to use chopsticks, even if it means that I have to come to the Buddhist temple again because I accidentally wore open-toed shoes (in my defense, we go barefoot in our temples). 

My friends came along to celebrate holi, a Hindu celebration of color, with me. They came out of it obsessed with pakoras and samosas, listening to “Chikni Chameli,” and came out of the event with a lot of color on their faces. The start of my journey towards acceptances of myself came through embracing my culture. I loved Bollywood dancing and jamming out to the eccentric beats, laughing at the dramatized scenes of the blockbuster movies. 

This was where Bollywood Dance Club came into play. My school has a 12% Asian population; out of that, I can almost guarantee that Indians make up less than 5% of that population. We needed over ten people to start the club; it would’ve never been started without the people who went on a limb to try something new, even when they weren’t Indian. I still commend them for that, and now one of our star dancers is a Hispanic boy. My point is that I learned to embrace my culture through Bollywood. Freshman year, I was shy in ASB and people had a muted profile on me. However, I remember everyone going crazy after I let loose and was in my element, dancing hard with a huge smile on my face and with the other fearless members who weren’t afraid to show off their –or their adopted– culture. I would not have ever been able to do it without my ASB family who would support the club and me at every single event.

I organized a culture show last year with my club and brought together so many people. The environment that night made me so emotional, with everyone cheering on for Belly dancers, Vietnamese dancers, Polynesian dancers, and our proud Bollywood dancers alike and as one. Now, everyone knows at my school knows what Bollywood is and there are new people who are willing to try it every week, no matter their background. 

I’m no longer embarrassed to wear kurtis to school. My teachers rave about how yummy naan bread is. I see girls –and boys– with henna all the time. What I have learned through all of this is that we need to learn how to accept and embrace our cultures, educate and spread our knowledge to others, and to integrate our backgrounds and experiences we have adopted from loved ones to create our own American identities, accepting identities.

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