(Actual) Indian Education

"When I first saw America, I began shirking my Indian-ness and wholly adopting American culture in an attempt to fit in. I spent the better part of my teenage years acting as though my own culture was backwards, primitive, and something worth being ashamed of."

~Nikita Mandhani (freelance writer for Teen Vogue"

                   

First Grade

My hair was too messy and my voice was way too loud and assertive, all that first year at school the other kids didn't really get me. They mispronounced my name on purpose, made fun of the food I brought to lunch and I wondered why kids just like me didn't see me as an equal. 

They put their hands above their heads in an indian dancer pose and asked me, "Raagini! Raagini! is this how you dance?" "Raagini! Raagini! Is this how you talk?"

I was always falling into a trap. Some trap with words that I hadn't yet learned how to manuver around yet. It was because I was too bold, too outspoken, it was far too easy to get me to slip up. It was far too easy to get me to say something that had a double meaning that I didn't intend it to have. I have always said that Satire is the best form of persuasion. Satire ridicules an argument to the point where it cannot even stand up to defend itself because the opposers are too busy laughing. And what was the argument this time? That I was a well-rounded, normal, person who deserved as much respect and friendship as the next one.

Second Grade

John Smith, a classmate, redheaded and so meaty and popular that no one ever dared to cross him made me hate myself for fourteen days straight. 

"I'm sorry", he said.

"Y-you were making fun of India, you don't like me because I'm Indian!".

There. I had layed it all out. The feelings that had been bubbling within me for the past year spewed out of me when I made that accusation. The teacher had been lucky enough to deal with me during the tearstained outburst.

"Honey, what exactly did he say?" Miss Burton asked.

"He wouldn't stop using an indian accent and saying, "I'm Raagini, I'm from Indiana. I eat curry and in my spare time I cheer for the Colts"

John turned red. Funny. One of the only handicaps that white people is the ability of superiors to know when they are lying or embarrassed, yet the little ones always seem to get away with it. They are too sweet, too cute, too much the very pictures of  young all-American boys.

"No!" John cried. "I-I- you see I was just trying to make India BIGGER! By adding Indiana to it".

He put a hand on my shoulder and it felt sick and slimy. If it were me now I would have given him a cold chuckle. What a BS answer: to make India bigger? But the teacher accepted it. And I never realized why he didn't get in trouble until now. Racism is a touchy subject and no one expects a little Indian second-grader to call her white classmates out on it.  Obviously with no punishment he didn't stop poking fun at me, until he got old enough to realize that discounting an entire group of people because of the color of their skin was stupidity in itself. Either way, whatever bond I felt with India was broken that day. 

I said, No, I'm not. I am not Indian. American I am.

Third Grade

My forecasted 7-11 cashier career began with my very first day as cashier of Mrs. Coronado's class shop. I gave the kids soda (a rare delicacy), jewelry, knick-knacks and whatever else they wanted for the points they earned for being good; and I loved it.

As I gleefully picked out what I wanted before all the other kids (as the cashier was allowed to do) I heard someone whisper, "wow! what a teacher's pet". I discounted the comment and went on to pick out a pair of black, heart-shaped earings that I still have today. But that comment bit at me, why was I a teacher's pet, I didn't even particularly like Mrs. Coronodo. In a parent teacher conference, she told my mom and dad that I walked like a penguin in the hallways (Eight years later and I still don't know what this means). I guess it was like when kids asked me sarcastically, "Raagini, do you love school?" 

Well, I didn't hate it? Who doesn't like learning things, and writers workshop: God! I loved writer's workshop. But did that mean I liked getting up everyday early in the morning and doing math problems, hell no! Just because I'm decently smart doesn't mean I loved school. Then they would ask me if I loved math and they seemed genuinely surprised when I replied with a "no". Why did I have to like math? Why couldn't I prefer writing instead? Why did these kids all box me into the same category? I waited in earnest for the generalizations to end.

I'm still waiting.

Epilogue

There are a lot of things I could talk about growing up Indian and going to an American school system. I could talk about the expected friend groups in middle school. I could talk about just this year when my good friend told me she was pleasently surprised to meet me because her first experience with an Indian girl was a weird smelly chipmunk-faced middle-schooler who wouldn't take a shower or a hint. I could talk about that time in fourth grade when we were nine, and dumb and discussing which girl would look cute with which boy and the white boys took one look and my Indian friend and paired her up with the only other Indian guy in the class. They said it "made sense". I don't know. I've grown up a lot since those awful Elementary and Middle School days. I've found people who know how outspoken and loud I am, people who know I occasionally stumble over saying dumb things and don't write off my ideas for it (SHOUTOUT TO VAL'S CLASS). I've found people who not only don't make fun of my culture, but embrace it. Maybe my experience was a lot worse than most other first-generation kids, probably because in addition to being an Indian-American I was pretty darn weird. But I'm growing and I'm learning. And slowly but surely, I'm learning how to love who I am again.