Own your new world

I am an immigrant from India living in the U.S. for the last 11 years. I came to the U.S. to pursue my PhD, but ended up having a child here, and staying back in the country permanently. Unlike most immigrants who socialize mostly with their own, I ended up ‘over- assimilating’ into American culture (by that I mean I assimilated more than I should have and more than I wanted to). I did not intend to do so. It probably happened that way because I was in departments, neighborhoods, workplaces and other environments where there were barely any Indians immigrants, or any immigrants for that matter. I even *lived with* Americans for more than 3 years while I lived in intentional communities. I did not go out of my way to find and hang out with fellow Indian immigrants (probably because I didn’t have the time or energy). I barely made time for my friends and relatives back home in India.

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I was not very aware of my over-assimilation until one day after about 8 years of living in the US, it hit me! Hard! I had the painful realization that the life I was leading in the U.S. was not the life I wanted, at least when it came to the people I was surrounded by. Almost everyone I spoke to on a daily basis—friends, colleagues, neighbors—were American, mostly white, some Black. Some of them were amazing people and I loved hanging out with them, but I still felt very lonely. 

 

I missed *my people*. I missed being with people who looked like me, talked like me, spoke my first language, or grew up eating the same kind of food as me. I missed being myself. I missed doing friendships my way — the Indian way. I realized I didn’t have a single Indian friend in the US, a country with 3.2 million Indian immigrants. I was often the only immigrant in the room, not just the only Indian immigrant. I felt like I was losing a piece of myself every time I had to say “spinach and cottage cheese” for palak paneer or “rice cakes” for idlis, and worst of all, “pancake made of rice and lentils” for my favorite dish,  dosas. I had had enough of “chai tea” and “naan bread”. Most significantly, I realized that day that I had actually stopped ‘code-switching’ because I didn’t go back and forth between being with ‘those people’ and ‘my people’ anymore. I was hanging out only with ‘those people’. 

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After 24 hours of mourning (which included sitting in a bathtub and cyring for hours) what felt like a loss of my identity, I decided to do something about it. I looked up ‘Tamil sangam’ in my area and found a Tamil school. I enrolled my 5 year old in the school, as much for my social needs as for his language needs. It felt wonderful to be in the company of “my people” at least every Friday evening when I took my child to Tamil school. But I later realized that wasn’t enough. I wanted my culture *inside my home* everyday, and not just outside my home on Friday evenings. So I decided to find an Indian immigrant partner.  A few months later, I got lucky and found a wonderful man who was not just an Indian immigrant but was also a Tamilian.  He is now my husband. I started going to India every summer for 2 months without fail. And now I believe I finally found the right balance of assimilation and non-assimilation to maximize my happiness.  

 

Thanks to these life experiences and my sociological training, I have developed a keen interest in observing and analysing culture and cultural differences. I have reflected on and read a lot about immigrant life and believe I can help immigrants make the most of their immigrant lives.  Because I am from India and am living in the U.S., I have a deep understanding of South Asian and U.S. cultures. If you are not South Asian, I will need some help from you in understanding your cultural practices and norms.