Being Indian-American

And what that tiny af hyphen means

I’ve published mini-versions of this post for myself over several years, but every time I write anything with “Indian-American” in the title, I find that my feelings have changed dramatically 6 months later. Thus, I’ve never hit the green Publish button on Medium on this topic.

Looking at past drafts now, I think this ever-evolving struggle is part of the loaded nature of that hyphen between Indian and American. The definition is always changing. And at this moment in time, this is what being Indian-American means to me.

My instagram summarizes my long-term, low-key identity crisis as, “I look Indian, sound American, and live in Europe.”

Well 80% of the time I look Indian, and 20% of the time I’m “somewhere from Latin America” or I “look like a friend who’s Columbian” or my “skin tone is exotic and hard to place.”

I often smile at people’s confused faces and allow them to hesitantly take their best guess, adding their thoughts to my mental distribution of poll results.

The confusion only intensifies the moment conversation begins. As soon as anyone hears my not-so-dulcet American tones, almost certainly a question about my identity will casually be brought up in the following 2 minutes. Usually in the form of “where are you from?”

My standard answer is always at the ready: “I’m from San Francisco. [pause]. My parents are Indian. Yes, I was born in the US. Yes, I speak Hindi.”

Somehow that combination of 4 short sentences helps people form a satisfying identity of me in their minds. I assume because it answers many life questions like what opportunities I grew up with, how connected I am to my root culture, and why there’s a disparity between what I look and sound like.

In the past 2 years while living in Europe though, my identity crisis has changed in nature. Whereas in America it was about finding common American ground with others, in Europe it’s about reminding people I’m Indian too.

Being raised in the US by Indian parents and having gone to an American university that was majority-white, I was easily identified as “Indian.” (Even the “American” was assumed and so dropped in conversation). People naturally see what is in contrast to them, and my fierce focus on grades and scholarships, filial connection to an infinite network of Indian aunties and uncles, and extreme deliberation over how to tell my parents about dating and drinking (#subtlecurrytraits #growingupbrown) often distinguished me in people’s minds and made them see me as quite Indian.

Now living in Europe, I find that people rarely see me as Indian. They attribute qualities of being warm and easy to converse with as American, and ask me about the car or media cultures, instead of the diwali or bollywood cultures. They inquire about what it was like to grow up in the US, instead of what it was like to grow up in an Indian household — neither of which can be answered without the other.

I’ve expended many paragraphs in my nightly journal asking why people perceive me this way because lately, I’ve been missing my Indian identity, the one I was pushing away in the US, simply to feel the balance with the word on the other side of the hyphen.

Is it because whilst growing up, I somehow managed to wage less wars between the two sides of my identity by accepting what each offers, and so the clash and contrast are less obvious to others now? Or maybe since my friendships in the US are deeper having had more time to mature, people know the complex Indian side of me more than only my surface identity, which is more American. Or maybe, many Europeans simply don’t think about race and identity the way America with its immigrant-history does.

I’m not sure what the answer is yet to allowing other people to see the harmony that I (finally after a turbulent and non-unique decade) feel internally. And I am convinced that encouraging others to see this balance is the way for them to know the most authentic me.

However, I have luckily found a way to make things more complicated. Now I have another qualm to add to the exciting mix of quandaries: at what point of living in Europe do I get to add another hyphen to my identity?

Living in Germany and the UK has changed my perspective in quite non-American ways. I don’t work on weekends anymore. I order the smallest Starbucks drink which still feels huge. I often don’t even go to Starbucks. (woh). And on top of that, I am more aware of the rich cultural intricacies across languages and boundaries, the ones that mean sometimes convenience and efficiency are not always the goals to optimize for.

At what point of living in Europe does someone add another hyphen to their name? After more time here, will I feel the need to identify myself as some version of Indian-American-European.

I’ve met people who have spent 20+ years in Germany, and 17 years in their original home country, and when asked where they are from, they too share their rehearsed 4 sentences that encapsulates their identity crisis. I’m proud to say that I’m shaping up to be one of these confusing people, with so many identities that each one defines me more, but matters less. Each one adds more color to my personality, resulting in more gray territory.

Moving to Europe has moved me closer to understanding what that minuscule, yet grand hyphen between Indian and American means; it’s a literal and figurative representation of the constant tug-of-war between the words it combines. A sharp and piercing connection of two worlds.

Still figuring it out,

Niki (the Americanized version of Nikita)