Made in America

Recently I was asked how my immigrant parents raised me. She wanted to know how I balanced two different cultures and what role my parents played in all this. As I think back, I do not think that anyone has ever asked me about what role my parents played in figuring out my cultural identity. The question has always been how have I dealt with this issue within myself. Growing up, my siblings and I were never forced to choose one way or the other. I felt that my parents did a wonderful job of teaching us about where they grew up. My father tells us stories of his time living in our ancestral village. When sharing his experiences, he would not only just share the story in Punjabi (our mother tongue), but also give us definitions of words we did not understand. By defining words, he helped us become more fluent in our mother tongue, I especially appreciated this part. I can communicate with those who may not know English very well by speaking Punjabi.

When I went to India after getting married, my husband’s cousin poked fun at me when we went to a restaurant with traditional displays. There was a display with a wall of cow dung molded into patties. People, especially in the villages, dry the patties in the sun and use them for fueling fires. He didn't try to hide the fact that he was thinking, “this poor-clueless-American girl must not know anything about village life.” He then asked me, “Bhabi (meaning sister-in-law), what are these?” When I told him what they were in Punjabi, the look on his face was classic. He almost fell over with shock that I could even know the name or the functionality of it. This incident happened when we first arrived. I felt good about myself because the look of confusion on his face made me feel prideful in how my parents prepared me for this moment.

Once we got to my husband's village, a cousin’s wife asked my husband if I spoke like the rest of them. What the hell? Was I expected to speak like a Martian? The reason why we have the means to stump people when they assume we do not know about the language and culture is because of our parents. My father defining words for us as children came in handy. As I reflect back on my first experience with my in laws, I owe it to my father for giving me the tools to prove them wrong. His storytelling in Punjabi and watching Indian movies together as a family helped me learn more about where my family originates from. Because of all those experiences, I learned more about the languages, traditions, cultural practices as well as holidays. Now I can say I know how to speak Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Spanish (from School), and English (just in case you didn’t notice!).

Although this was my experience, my sister had a very different experience upon her visit to India. She was attending a cousin’s wedding and on her first day in the country there were many people around because of the wedding festivities. There was an older gentlemen there, and he was making small talk with my sister in the little English he knew. Among the questions he was asking her, he asked her the name of our ancestral village. From all of the stories our father had told us, this was an answer that is engrained into our identity. Where you are from is a major part of who you are. This older man had shockingly never heard of our village. He then came to the conclusion that my sister was this poor little American born girl who didn’t know something as basic as her village. Just because his knowledge of Punjab’s geography was insufficient, my sister was the one who was wrong. My sister shared with me that she chose not to speak to anyone other than our father, because she was made to feel dumb. She could not deal with the prejudice the was coming her way. She has since learned that nothing is wrong with her, but in fact with the people who judge is where improvement can be made. You cannot change the minds of everyone, but never take such actions to heart.

Whenever anyone has made a comment about me being well spoken for a person born here or I know a lot about my culture for an American, I usually try to brush it off. The fact of the matter is, why should any of it even matter? There are times when it does bother me, because of the assumptions people are making of what I should be like. So sorry I did not fit into your mold of how I should be! I am not supposed to speak Punjabi very clearly, or dress in Indian attire, or know anything about any traditions apparently! An Indian born in America means that we have a hard time speaking anything other than English, and know absolutely nothing about where our families came from and their customs. Just a couple of days ago my cousin’s wife saw my children for the first time. She recently married and came from India not too long ago. She was surprised that my children know very limited English. She was so shocked and stated, “What! They do not know English?” Umm, yeah that is correct. They will pick up English as soon as they start school, if they do not learn our language in the early years the opportunity to teach them will be lost. I also spoke Punjabi until I started school and I think I turned out alright. My cousin’s wife, born and raised in India, assumed that because her husband was born here and cannot speak the language very well that all American born must be the same. She herself said she finds it funny when he speaks Punjabi because his pronunciation is all wrong. Basically he are better off with his English! My thought when she said that was, “WOW did she just say that out loud about her husband? Mean!”

Just a few weeks ago I had an experience with my son at a school we were hoping to send him. We had been visiting for two or three weeks and the last time we went everything turned a bit strange. He went into the bathroom and was speaking in Punjabi, and a teacher was taking the older children to the bathroom at the same time. She so rudely said to him, “speak English, I cannot understand you!” This was after I told her that he speaks some English, but Punjabi is his first language. After this happened, he came into his classroom and his teacher told me that they like to ask their parents to leave their home language at the door and speak only English. I was just beside myself. She then spoke down to me by telling me how academic the school was and asked “will your son be able to sit during circle time?” I was livid at this point, I felt she was making some assumptions about me and my son by the tone she was taking with me. Since my son has been home with me and I am now trying to put him in school, he would need to learn from school how to sit and listen like his peers. That is why I want him there, idiot! She went on to correct me when I was telling my son what to say when he needed something. I took a week or so to think about this whole interaction. I came to the conclusion that my son was not going to attend such a place, which made us feel it is such a terrible thing to speak our language. He will no doubt encounter much as we all have through our lives, but I’ll be damned if I knowingly send him into such a teacher’s classroom!!!

It is saddening to see such behavior from an adult towards a young child, I cannot even imagine what she would do to an adult. When I spoke to the school administrators, I was told that this is absolutely NOT their policy. So this question begs, why did this woman feel the need to make up such a thing up? Now as a mother myself, I am looking at my own childhood to find tools from my parents so I too can raise my children to have a strong sense of self. There will be many instances in their lives where they may question their identity because of outside forces. I hope to give them tools to not change for other people. I have been told many times in school and outside that I am a girl of color, which automatically means limited education. In my 30+ years of life there are some things have not changed much. What will we do to change that? My parents did not believe I had limited options due to my gender. They supported me in my educational endeavors, to question what does not feel right and to speak my mind. They worked their a$$e$ off to put me through graduate school. Both my sister and I hold 2 degrees from prestigious universities. Anyone who told me I could not do something, I did it to show myself that I could. More than just living in two different cultures, my parents gave me the tools to know what I wanted and needed. They did not say, ‘okay you finished high school, now you need to get married.” They gave us the gift of their teachings to show us how to be strong in our sense of self. We don’t blindly follow others, we ask ourselves if this is right for us. They also let us decide how we wanted to incorporate or fuse our 2 cultures together. The parts we wanted to adopt and which we wanted to cut were a choice we were allowed to make. I love them for that! Thank you for giving us the gift of culture and accepting us for who we have become! As I was writing this post I felt a great appreciation for what you did for us. I hope I can do the same for my two sweet babies!