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The Identity Crisis

By Aazamina Rangwala, January '07

“To be nobody but yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” - E.E. Cummings

For those of us with some hyphenation attached to our identity, whether it be Indian-American, Irish-American, Chinese-American or whatever – what does that really mean? Does it mean half-and-half? Does it mean balance? I have always felt short at both ends and as of late, it has been frightening to think about the possibility of the latter part of the hyphenation taking dominance.

I remember as a young adolescent, I always struggled to remain loyal to the customs, traditions, and more or less, the mentality that was rooted in my parent’s lives, while also trying hard to assimilate in the prevailing, modern American culture I was surrounded by. While I am American by the virtue of the fact that I was born in the United States, I am Indian not because of my genetic composition but because of my parents. It is the standards and cultural values that my parents instilled and illustrated that essentially became deeply rooted into my life. However, I realized that when my parents leave this world, they will take certain things with them that I will never be able to emulate. This very thought led me to an opportunity – an opportunity that ended up turning into a responsibility to reclaim my otherwise Indian side. By living and working at the ground level and experiencing the threshold of India through various manifestations over the past seven months, I still may not quite understand what it means to be Indian-American, but I do recognize the core of being Indian.

I guess I have accepted that a bi-cultural upbringing is a rich but imperfect thing, and I must experiment what to do with it. I suppose this is why I decided to pack up my bags and head back to the motherland – to experience India through a different lens and forge connections with a country that defines my very essence.

It is important that we make our experiences relevant. I have often found myself pondering over the next question: Who do I want to be at the end of my fellowship and more simply put, who do I want to be at the end of the day? I suppose any one of us can ask ourselves this question. Perhaps we need to figure out exactly where we are first before we can answer who we want to be…

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