American Born Confused Desi. That's a common term used for people like me. I was born and raised in Illinois, and my parents immigrated here from India almost 30 years ago. Growing up, I found myself dealing with an identity crisis.
As a young child, I spoke my mother tongue Malayalam fluently. By the time I started school, my parents made it a priority that I knew English. In the process, I found myself forgetting Malayalam. This was embarrassing for me especially when I traveled to India to visit relatives.
My awkward and Americanized Malayalam was laughed at as people straight up told me that the problem with kids like me were that we were culture-less, not being in touch with our roots. They always made fun of little grammar mistakes and errors in pronunciation. Despite my inability to speak properly, I understood every word they said. The embarrassment I got from this made me extremely insecure about my Malayalam which resulted to me not speaking at all.
In elementary school, I was the only brown kid in my class. I was bullied for years due to that. I got a lot of insults thrown at me. I heard the term "Go back to your country" a lot which was kind of funny because I was born here so that phrase was pointless in my case. As an ABCD (American Born Confused Desi), this was the lowest point in my life. I, along with my skin color, was not accepted in school. Because of that, I wondered how people back in India would accept me. Whenever I went there to visit, I felt so out of place. I was an outcast in both countries. Nothing quite felt like home. My heart is tied to two different lands that are totally different from each other.
The unwelcoming feeling I had in both countries made me feel really frustrated. No matter what, I could not get that balance I always tried getting. By the time I graduated high school, I gave up trying to find the balance. I realized no matter how hard I try there will always be some flaw that people will find. My idea of balance was getting total acceptance from two countries. I had to understand that was not going to be possible.
Since then I have been trying to do my own thing.The opinions of others do not phase me as much as they used to. One thing that I try to do now is to encourage younger kids who are like me. If they mess up, I want them to know that it is okay. Being supportive and encouraging is the only way you're going to have ABCDs being more in touch with their roots and culture. Laughing at their mistakes is not going to help anyone.
