I Switched My Stereotype

Around a week ago, one of my friends told me that someone thought that I was "pretty for an Indian." Numerous times I had been told that I was a "cool Indian." But compared to what? I guess not fitting the stereotype that was set for me was an occasion to be celebrated. The funny thing is, I fit that stereotype to the T. Identity is fluid. I've maintained high grades my whole life, worked to be in advanced classes, suck at sports, my house smells like spices (which is great by the way), sometimes I eat curry (it's good, come to my house if you wanna try some real Indian food), my grandparents live in a rural part of India, and my parents have Indian accents. 

When people make fun of them for having accents, it makes me angry because they have no idea the struggles they went through to make it this far in life. Do you know what the Partition was? (Definitely NOT the Beyonce song.) My grandparents were forced to move from Pakistan to India, leaving everything behind and living with the fear of being murdered every night. My father grew up in poverty, living in a small house with a tin roof that leaked. My mother's parents were murdered when a midnight robbery went wrong. My grandparents fought the robbers like a lion, and died protecting their children. Yeah their accent might be funny, but have you any idea the stories of struggles that are behind it?

But the thing that gets me the most is that I know deep down a tiny part of me has been taught to be ashamed of my culture. I feel happy when someone says, "You're ______ for an Indian." It's embarrassing to know that for some reason I've been trained to look down at people who fit the stereotype of a cultural outsider. For some strange reason I look down on the people that are just like who I am. No matter how hard I try, people will see me as my skin color first. They see that skin tone and assume I fit the stereotype of an Indian, before allowing me to prove that I merely fit another one.

Acceptance!

When I was little, diversity had been ingrained in me. In first grade I sat down in Mrs. Dospil's class and learned that it was one of the Core Democratic Values of America. Diversity! It was everywhere! Everybody got along and accepted each others' differences! I was part of the Melting Pot of America! Only now, I realize it's more like a machine. See, I came into society proud to decorate my arms with Mendhi. I think I stopped in third grade, sick of the teasing and questions. It's only okay to do it now because society thinks that it's "cool." I never dared to wear a Bindi to anywhere that wasn't explicitly an Indian function. But now I see people wearing them to raves because they apparently look cool. How come when they do it now it's cool, but when 6 year old Rohini did it, she was a "fobby" freak? Eventually, through teasing and trial and error, I figured out how to blend right into the background. I learned how to wear makeup, pick my outfits, and tailor my physical appearance. I even changed the way that I pronounced some words. Sometimes I catch myself making fun of the way that my parents talk and it makes me sick.

 The strange thing about the whole situation is that I didn't abandon a stereotype-I merely chose another. The definition of a stereotype is "a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing." By becoming everyone else's version of normal, I've just made myself at home as another oversimplified image. I'm a stereotype in a stereotype... meta-stereotype. Since I've grown up, I've watched people around me (myself included) change who they are and how they act just to fit in. The Melting Pot I live in is more like a machine to me because it takes in many different people, but they all come out looking the same. Almost everyone is a carbon copy of the next (or at least wants to be), and those who are not? They end up being ostracized. It makes me cringe to think that I had to change the way I looked in order to be happy in my social environment. 

Just the same way that Victor tried to change Thomas in Smoke Signals, everyone decided to change me into someone who is cool and pretty "for an Indian." The irony that was depicted in Smoke Signals is the same irony that I feel I relate to right now. I'm supposed to be proud of breaking free from my stereotype when I've just trapped myself in another. It's like if a prisoner took a spoon and dug a hole in the ground. When he came up on the other side, he found himself in the next cell, but all of the other prisoners cheered for him. I can imagine them yelling, "Great! You did it!" Great! I did it! Someone saw me as attractive but kudos to me for doing it while I'm Indian!

But hey, if you think of the word "Indian" and picture this: 

Well, that's okay! That's me! Kind of. I'm a mix of the two stereotypes. I still dance around my house listening to Bollywood music. I LOVE Bollywood movies. I still like to get dressed up in Indian clothes. I still study in my room and learn because I like it. I still won't be able to play sports for my life. And guess what I want to be when I grow up? A doctor! The only difference is that I'm doing these things because I want to do them. It's not my stereotype, it's me. I'm also someone that likes to go to rock concerts, wear a hoodie, hang out with my friends, and eat burgers. So... who am I? I have changed myself from a stereotypical Indian into some weird stereotype of normal.

All this talk about physical appearances made me think of a song! (I know. The surprise.) It reminds me of Mrs. Potato Head by Melanie Martinez. She sings, "No one will love you if you're unattractive. Oh Mrs. Potato Head tell me, is it true that pain is beauty? Does a new face come with a warranty? Will a pretty face make it better?"

I still don't know the answer to that question. Does it?

The Fear We Carry

A motif that is widely displayed in The Things They Carried is fear. One of the most obvious fears when going into war, or even realizing that you've been drafted, is the fear of dying. I used one of my favorite quotes about death and the fear of death as my first picture. When I think about the fear of death, I think about how people never want to let go of the things that they love, the people that they love, or the things that they want to do. I think the scariest thing about death is that people don't understand how closely intertwined life and death are. Without the other, one cannot exist. Life is only beautiful because death makes your time with life finite. 

The second picture that I have is a personal fear of mine, which I believe is very common. It is the fear of the future. So much is expected out of my friends and I... sometimes I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't live up to the expectations. It stresses me out just to think about taking the ACT, SAT, AP tests, and balancing good grades this year. On top of all of that, even if I score well, there's no knowing for sure where I'll go in life. I'm afraid of losing the people that I'm close to now, and living on my own, and having a job, and having to pay bills. The future is so frightening because it's impossible for me to fathom what it holds.

The next image is a GIF of Rapunzel from Tangled. It looks like she is afraid of the dark, but I think that the scariest thing about the dark is the fact that you don't know what it holds. It's the fear of the unknown. In the dark, you're never sure what (or who) is lurking in the shadows. Admittedly, I become well acquainted with this fear every time I watch a horror movie. The fear can also be related to war though, because when soldiers first enter war, they don't know what kinds of horrors it holds-in the dark or otherwise. Whether it be sounds in the mountains, the enemy in the bushes, or the pure violence of war, something is always biding its time. Pablo Picasso once said, "Everything you can imagine is real." What if you're imagining something horrible pacing back and forth in the dark? That's the thing about the unknown. You can never be sure if it isn't.

Another obvious fear in the book is the fear of appearing as a coward. All of the soldiers wear a mask of bravery, terrified to let anyone else know how scared they are on the inside. This is the same fear that makes us do things when someone says "I triple dog dare you!" Courage the Cowardly Dog is supposed to be brave (or at least that can be assumed by looking at his name), but he turns out to be afraid of everything. It made me think that he might be our deepest sense of fears personified and made into a cartoon. We all appear brave on the surface but just below something makes us feel nervous. Our self-confidence is superficial. We have a perpetual need to bury that fear underneath a facade of bravery. 

The last picture of the polar bear is supposed to show fear of embarrassment. This fear is what holds us back from trying new things. It's what holds me back from singing in front of people. It's also what pushes people from saying "no" to things. The group of soldiers are afraid to be anything less than fearless, because to show their true emotions would mean certain embarrassment. Fear both holds us back and pushes us out of our comfort zone. Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese monk who advocated for peace during the war. Perhaps that is what makes his remark on fear so meaningful: "Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones." When FDR said that the only thing we should fear is fear itself, is that true? Or would it be healthier just to acknowledge our fears in hopes that we can move on, and live in the moment?

Fear reminds me of a couple lines from the song "Cue The Sun!" by Daphne Loves Derby. "If I find my way through the darkest of days will I laugh about the things that kept me awake? If my greatest fear paints itself so crystal clear, will I run away or will I hide?"