By Shruthika Pochampally

Staff Writer
@shruthreddy

For as long as I can remember, I have felt like two different people stuck in the body of one.  One part of me strives to keep up and meet my parents’ expectations of me, in terms of school, character and personality while the other half attempts to get away with doing all of the things I love. I’m expected, not only by my parents, but by everyone in their world- family friends, relatives, grandparents- to succeed in school, to be cultured, respectful, disciplined and conservative.

As an Indian-American in Dallas, it’s not always easy to do so. Over the past few years, I have effortlessly slid into a more liberal way of doing many things, which to my parents is the less desired way. The hardest struggle of all is making sure I remain faithful to all of the standards my parents hold me up to, while also learning to accommodate the unique experiences and people I am surrounded by.

This conflict is seen in my grades. While I have learned to accept an occasional C in a difficult AP class and attribute it to the rigor of the course and not my shortfalls, my parents try to convince me that the poor grade is due to my own laziness or lack of determination. They do not put pressure on me to deliver more than I am capable of, but they still hold me to high standards. While they do not openly compare me to other successful kids my age, there is an unspoken expectation that I should be at least as good as these kids.

The same conflict is seen in my social life. I crave and thrive off of the independence so easily attainable to many teenagers my age, but my parents find this insulting. They think my decision to go out alone, to do things alone is, my way of rejecting them and my familial responsibilities. I go to a lot of concerts, where people aren’t nearly as conservative as the world my parents struggle to envelop me in. I encounter different kinds of people, many with different goals and morals than what my parents would deem acceptable. They worry that this is my way of turning into the stoic, indifferent teenager who doesn’t care about her family that is so commonly depicted in western movies today.

This is understandable and expected of almost all parents. But when I compare my experiences to those of my friends, I realize that my parents are more extreme than most, in that they worry at the thought of me doing simple things like getting a job or going to the store alone, as signs of a defiant insistence for independence.

Regardless of the unspoken struggle my parents and I go through on a constant basis, the rewards of being Indian-American are more satisfying than not. While it is often hard for me to define who I am as a person on my own terms, I have learned to accept and adore everything that comes with being Indian-American, having to fluctuate between two distinct lifestyles and living up to the expectations of my parents as well as fulfilling my own hopes and wishes.

In several months, as I head off to college, I realize that my parents won’t be coming with me. They won’t be around to remind me to keep up with my grades, to study for new lessons beforehand, to be smart when I make friends and decisions that determine my future. I will suddenly be on my own and have to fend for myself. I will have the option of straying away from the strenuous guidelines my parents have set for me and going off on my own like I have never had the option of doing before.

But I know that I will not.

No matter how defiant I am in rejecting some of my parents’ concepts, I know that they have strict expectations for me because they want the best for me. They want me to tap into my full potential and build a life for myself free of bad influences and poor choices. Even though I don’t comply with some of their rules, I know now that I wouldn’t have gotten to the place where I am without their insistence.

More important than the conflict I experience, though, is how far we’ve come since the beginning. Over the past four years, my parents have learned to let loose on many things – the clothes I’m allowed to wear, my curfew and my love for concerts. And I too, have learned to embrace many of the things that matter to them – like visiting the temple, wearing ethnic clothes to family events and promising to not only stay in college, but stick with my career choice all the way until the end of med school, a promise which gives them more happiness than you would expect.