Identity Is More than Check Marks on A Form

image licensed from Adobe Stock

My parents were raised in Pakistan. The country is now a collection of memories to me. It felt more familiar when I was young. That version of myself can still see the man with leathery brown skin tug a cart filled with ripe summer mangos behind him. He walks down the pothole-riddled street, announcing his arrival in the same way he has been for years. He is the aam-waala, the bringer of mangoes. Ripe and fresh…