“Bro, stop speaking Indian!”
My friend Akul says this to me as a joke whenever I speak my mother tongue, Telugu. I have never really learned the language until recently and started to appreciate my culture as much as I do now.
When I was in the third grade, I remember not having many Indian friends, honestly, or even any at all. I saw a surge in the number of Desi people in 2017 when my family moved to Coppell.
But for some reason, I was still whitewashed. Now, what does whitewashed mean? It means that the person is not celebrating their culture and embracing the American culture instead. It is a form of assimilation, but constraining to the idea of American ideas. But, I wanted the American accent so bad. That accent that sends the eagles. Oh my god, I was eager for it.
I watched these guys, Dude Perfect. Now, back in the day, they looked like stereotypical “white-guy-american” philosophy.
I mean, five white dudes doing challenges and sports trickshots was cool to me and my brother and kind of fit that stereotype. But that was our assumption, we participated in the same ideas. We put a LEGO minifigure and took a Nerf gun and tried shooting that as a target.
It was like Andy, Dwight and Michael from “The Office” who were trying to parkour in that one episode, which was an utter failure. After that phase, my brother grew out of it, but I did not.
I rejected my mother’s rice and curry for a generic pasta. I hated the Bollywood films and their music they incorporated. I asked her so many times if I had a choice not to wear a kurta.
“I don’t want to wear that, Amma! It is so uncomfortable!”
“Chintu, please wear it. For my sake.”
“Fine.”
15 minutes later…
“Amma, can I take it off?”
I never used to appreciate the culture I grew up with, and sometimes, that challenged me in certain areas. Whenever I was with my friends, the people of TownLakes Apartments, they were actually speaking the language well. They never swayed away from the kurtas and actually ate “the disgusting” food.
But it only dawned on me during ninth grade that I needed to appreciate my culture for what it is today. I was beginning to make some new friends who were new to this country. Now that was not the problem; the way they celebrated their Indian culture is what appalled me.
I decided to start learning more about my culture and being genuinely OK with it. I started learning how to speak Telugu, I started eating the food my mother originally made at school and most of all, I wore the kurtas and dhotis in the world.
I eventually started to like Bollywood music as well. I mean, come on, no Indian person has never heard of Shah Rukh Khan, “Chammak Challo“ sung by Akon or “Om Shanti Om” directed by Faria Khan. It became so widespread within me that it became visibly annoying to some of my whitewashed friends.
But honestly, I have learned when to use my culture and my language. Like, if someone who is not Indian is making me angry, then I actually just tell them how I feel in Telugu.
So, I give a grave moral to some young ones: if you don’t like your culture, that is OK. At least participate in it first to see if you like it or not. Don’t go to the pit box and just say, “I dislike my culture!” Learn how to see the culture you were born into first of all.
A label cannot describe you that easily, so maybe change how you view and approach the concept with a different mindset.
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