As a South Asian youth, there was a stigma that I found myself when my family moved into a dominant Caucasian and religious part of Queens, NY. I went from a diverse Asian and Hispanic neighborhood to a neighborhood where I was one of the few South Asian youth in the school and community.
Despite there being other South Asians in the neighborhood and the school, it wasn’t for the following grade year that I would get the chance to interact with them. As a young child in elementary school, the shift into a sizeable Caucasian neighborhood took a toll on me. This change would allow for me to develop a negative view of myself.
The most significant problem was the lack of acceptance I received from many of my peers. While many welcomed me with open arms, I found myself a victim of harsh words from the kids around me. One thing that makes me different from the individuals that I had to face was my skin color. The second thing was that as an Indian, I had hair on my arms. These two factors showed me that there was something that I had that would allow for people to make me feel left out. These two significant factors permitted me to find myself.
Despite having met many of the South Asians in the school over the years, I found myself continuing to struggle with the identity I held in this community. I found myself struggling much until I reached high school. Because of what I faced, I found myself saddened and disgraced by the South Asian Identity that I held. As a young child, I found that it was a barrier for myself from making friends and finding acceptance in the community that did not look like me.
When I began understanding the value of my heritage, I found myself not caring about the words of other people. One needs to realize that as human beings we are not going to be able to please everyone around us. However, once finding acceptance with the identity I was born with, I found myself always asking myself if the harsh behaviors I faced as a young child were because of a lack of understanding or merely racism that the kids learned from their families. I always asked whether the kids were just ignorant or racist.
Though I have come to believe that a lack of education drives people to pursue ideas about one another. These notions often allow people to create prejudices that may force us to separate from another. The lack of knowledge and acceptance by adults in a family enable the children to pursue prejudice feeling towards kids their age. Since our families are the primary force of learning, it is time to begin educating people to avoid stigmas that allow children to face discriminatory behaviors at a young age.
Although I remain conflicted by the world around me, I find that that inner child will always be fearful of what people may see pleasant by my appearances. Although I may have overcome the childhood stigma around my skin color and body makeup, I find that the challenge exists for myself as a young adult. I see that if the children are learning from their parents and adult figures around them, then adults must live with stigmas of body image as well. As a young adult who lives in New York, I have come across stigmas in the media around the female body, which create pressures for women to look specific ways. This shame has forced me to receive commentary on my appearance even while a young adult in college. It seems that there is no direct escape on separations between people due to their presentations. The notions of presentation are one that is expected to be integrated into our social norms. Therefore it becomes a battle that seems a bit endless.