Being an American-born confused desi (ABCD), an affectionate term for second generation Indian, I always thought that striking a balance between the American culture that surrounds me everyday in school, popular culture, and my friend circles and the Indian traditions that took precedence in my upbringing would be the most difficult seesaw I had to balance on in my lifetime. However, little did I know that sometimes the hardest battles are the most intangible discrepancies that exist on the smaller scale of not national cultural identity, but intercommunal identity.
I grew up in a nice, quiet neighborhood in the residential suburb of Kenner, located a little under an hour away from Uptown New Orleans, going to local public schools where there existed extremely diverse student bodies representing individuals of all walks of life and foreign backgrounds. The daughter of a tenured computer science professor and an employee in a hospital’s business division, I was raised in a strictly middle class family with grounded values of simplicity of lifestyle, the importance of a dollar, treating others with compassion and human empathy, striving to honestly and humbly better society, valuing education as the key to success, and working hard for what we want, because what we want will always remain what we want, but not what we have, if we don’t earn it for ourselves. That’s not to say that my parents didn’t provide me with every luxury I could ever hope for. It is just that we were not a family of Donald Ducks diving into a swimming pool of gold coins and crisp $100 bills.
When I was getting ready to enter the 6th grade, my sister was poised to enter high school, and since her previous school ended at 8th grade, she needed to find a new school. Per the suggestions of various family friends and through the knowledge that Isidore Newman School, a private officially non-denominational (but unofficially Jewish) nursery-12 school, was widely regarded as the finest primary education provider in the city of New Orleans, my parents deduced that Newman would be the best investment for my sister’s future. Being the nerdy, academically obsessed pre-tween I was, and because my usual Sunday activity of checking out 15 books from our regional library (and subsequently accumulating a hefty fine as I habitually returned them late) was interrupted, I elected to voluntarily take the entrance exam as well…and what do you know! I got in!
For the sake of convenience, my sister and I both were put into Newman. The first day of school I walked through the large iron-wrought gates, across the marble seal embedded into the courtyard, and into the school in my Snoopy graphic t-shirt and baby blue checked Bermuda shorts, the noise of my rolling book bag announcing my presence like a cowbell. Immediately, I noticed the racial dichotomy of the majority of the city’s population and the 1% my school was educating. Everyone was white, wearing North Face jackets and Uggs boots, and squealing and hugging their friends as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, when in fact, it was clear to even me, the newcomer, that they probably had a pool party the day before. Slowly, as the boys started buying shaving cream and the girls graduated from training bras to “the new Victoria’s Secret Bombshell,” the sea of Uggs turned into the 2014 spring collection floral Louboutins. It was time to order invitations for the graduation of the Class of 2014.
I do feel like a native of New Orleans and that the city is as much mine as it is the generational lot, but there is always this sense of society that I, as a child of lacking the legacy that many of my classmates had claims to, never felt part of. Many of my classmates had parents and grandparents who had lived in New Orleans and even went to Newman. When one’s parents are best friends from birth, belong to the same societies, live on the same streets, and one grows up in a certain generation of children who share so many similarities and experience the same cultural phenomena such as Mardi Gras balls and Sunday brunches at Drago’s, there is bound to be a connection between those people that will be lacking with someone who cannot relate to those aspects of life. Similarly, I felt this. Don’t get me wrong—everyone was extremely friendly to me and showed me so much genuine love, but there was always a thickly veiled superficiality to my friendships—a barrier that prevented me from inhabiting the visceral section of their heart reserved for friends who they could better relate to. It was almost like aspects of New Orleanian culture were unlocked levels in a video game that socioeconomic status and familial legacy were only able to unlock. Those debutante balls, Mardi Gras society, and first name basis that my classmates and their families were privy to somehow were akin to a tier that I would never be able to access.
I remember zipping up my graduation dress, smoothing out the wrinkles, and looking up into the mirror. That white Yvonne de la Fleur gown, the bouquet of yellow roses, my perfectly applied makeup and curled hair intertwined with pearl pins just reminded me how different I was from that little girl who found fascination in the littlest of life’s pleasures, amazed easily by all that I encountered. She would have seen the white gown that was the epitome and embodiment of New Orleanian culture in the window of the store and her eyes would have gone wide, because it was the most beautiful think she’d ever seen. But the girl who was about to graduate just felt apathy. That is the saddest fact of all. I got used to seeing what people consider the “special” things, so to me, they weren’t special to me anymore. They were ordinary. That was the first time my heart was broken, because that fascination with the world, the easiness with which I was amazed had escaped.
Fast-forward to 5 months later when I walked in Lullwater Park at Emory University yesterday. As I sat on the log near the water and peered over the oscillating expanse, a little baby acorn caught my eye. I picked it up. My eyes twinkled. I smiled, because I felt it coming back.
They often say that you don’t realize the value of something until it’s gone. That was true in my case, but whoever said you can’t find it again?
I grew up in a nice, quiet neighborhood in the residential suburb of Kenner, located a little under an hour away from Uptown New Orleans, going to local public schools where there existed extremely diverse student bodies representing individuals of all walks of life and foreign backgrounds. The daughter of a tenured computer science professor and an employee in a hospital’s business division, I was raised in a strictly middle class family with grounded values of simplicity of lifestyle, the importance of a dollar, treating others with compassion and human empathy, striving to honestly and humbly better society, valuing education as the key to success, and working hard for what we want, because what we want will always remain what we want, but not what we have, if we don’t earn it for ourselves. That’s not to say that my parents didn’t provide me with every luxury I could ever hope for. It is just that we were not a family of Donald Ducks diving into a swimming pool of gold coins and crisp $100 bills.
When I was getting ready to enter the 6th grade, my sister was poised to enter high school, and since her previous school ended at 8th grade, she needed to find a new school. Per the suggestions of various family friends and through the knowledge that Isidore Newman School, a private officially non-denominational (but unofficially Jewish) nursery-12 school, was widely regarded as the finest primary education provider in the city of New Orleans, my parents deduced that Newman would be the best investment for my sister’s future. Being the nerdy, academically obsessed pre-tween I was, and because my usual Sunday activity of checking out 15 books from our regional library (and subsequently accumulating a hefty fine as I habitually returned them late) was interrupted, I elected to voluntarily take the entrance exam as well…and what do you know! I got in!
For the sake of convenience, my sister and I both were put into Newman. The first day of school I walked through the large iron-wrought gates, across the marble seal embedded into the courtyard, and into the school in my Snoopy graphic t-shirt and baby blue checked Bermuda shorts, the noise of my rolling book bag announcing my presence like a cowbell. Immediately, I noticed the racial dichotomy of the majority of the city’s population and the 1% my school was educating. Everyone was white, wearing North Face jackets and Uggs boots, and squealing and hugging their friends as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, when in fact, it was clear to even me, the newcomer, that they probably had a pool party the day before. Slowly, as the boys started buying shaving cream and the girls graduated from training bras to “the new Victoria’s Secret Bombshell,” the sea of Uggs turned into the 2014 spring collection floral Louboutins. It was time to order invitations for the graduation of the Class of 2014.
I do feel like a native of New Orleans and that the city is as much mine as it is the generational lot, but there is always this sense of society that I, as a child of lacking the legacy that many of my classmates had claims to, never felt part of. Many of my classmates had parents and grandparents who had lived in New Orleans and even went to Newman. When one’s parents are best friends from birth, belong to the same societies, live on the same streets, and one grows up in a certain generation of children who share so many similarities and experience the same cultural phenomena such as Mardi Gras balls and Sunday brunches at Drago’s, there is bound to be a connection between those people that will be lacking with someone who cannot relate to those aspects of life. Similarly, I felt this. Don’t get me wrong—everyone was extremely friendly to me and showed me so much genuine love, but there was always a thickly veiled superficiality to my friendships—a barrier that prevented me from inhabiting the visceral section of their heart reserved for friends who they could better relate to. It was almost like aspects of New Orleanian culture were unlocked levels in a video game that socioeconomic status and familial legacy were only able to unlock. Those debutante balls, Mardi Gras society, and first name basis that my classmates and their families were privy to somehow were akin to a tier that I would never be able to access.
I remember zipping up my graduation dress, smoothing out the wrinkles, and looking up into the mirror. That white Yvonne de la Fleur gown, the bouquet of yellow roses, my perfectly applied makeup and curled hair intertwined with pearl pins just reminded me how different I was from that little girl who found fascination in the littlest of life’s pleasures, amazed easily by all that I encountered. She would have seen the white gown that was the epitome and embodiment of New Orleanian culture in the window of the store and her eyes would have gone wide, because it was the most beautiful think she’d ever seen. But the girl who was about to graduate just felt apathy. That is the saddest fact of all. I got used to seeing what people consider the “special” things, so to me, they weren’t special to me anymore. They were ordinary. That was the first time my heart was broken, because that fascination with the world, the easiness with which I was amazed had escaped.
Fast-forward to 5 months later when I walked in Lullwater Park at Emory University yesterday. As I sat on the log near the water and peered over the oscillating expanse, a little baby acorn caught my eye. I picked it up. My eyes twinkled. I smiled, because I felt it coming back.
They often say that you don’t realize the value of something until it’s gone. That was true in my case, but whoever said you can’t find it again?