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I was born on Oct 27, 2001, in the sunny city of San Jose, California, a city filled with orange trees sprawled all over, with ripe red oranges often seen rolling down the streets with no one bothering to pick them up or yet this is what I’ve heard from my mother. You see, I never stayed long enough in San Jose to see this for myself. My parents were going through a divorce just a little after I was born and my mom decided that it was best for me to grow up in an environment filled with love and happiness so she flew me back to India and left me in the care of my loving grandparents who took care of me for a few years to come before I fell into the care of my aunt and uncle who had just moved back from Cape Town, then I went on to live at a boarding school from the second to the eighth grade.
But, this isn’t the story of where I grew up it’s the story of where I didn’t. I never grew up with my dad to this day I don’t know much about him personally, I didn’t grow up with my mom till my freshman year of high school and more importantly, I didn’t grow up in America even while being an American citizen. Growing up in India has taught me a lot of things, it taught me gratitude, responsibility, respect, fondness for my culture and social awareness, but I always felt like I needed more, I didn’t quite belong wherever I went, the way I thought seemed too liberal for most institutions, I got into trouble for things that I didn’t believe were wrong, I felt out of place, restricted, misunderstood.
As the summer after eighth grade approached, I flew to Dallas to visit my mom and in what felt like a split decision we decided that it was time for me to finally live with my mom. Freshman year of high school was the new start that I didn’t plan for or anticipate, it was a whole new continent, a new country, new place, new school, new people, and soon it was going to be my new home. But, I felt out of place. Yet again. I started school with new expectations, I knew it was going to be hard I had to crack this place, learn all the social cues,the slang, pop culture references, the style, I needed to fit in because the moment I stepped into school that day I was referred to as a fob which, according to the dictionary is ‘a recent immigrant, especially regarded as being unassimilated.’
I couldn’t take it, I was so ‘normal’ back in India, I didn’t have to explain myself for the way I dressed, what I ate or my culture but to people here, all of those things that I identified with made me ‘fobbish’. On the other hand, my views seemed more accepting, I wasn’t too ‘liberal’ anymore, I met more people who had similar mindsets as I did, I finally felt like I wasn’t alone.
All these years I struggled with fitting in, finding a place that accepted me as a whole, but after trying for so long I’ve finally realized that home isn’t a place, it is what you make it. And to me, my home resides within me, because no place or person will ever accept me as I do. Also, there might be a very significant document that states that I am an American citizen, but it doesn’t make America my home, my home is in between both of these countries that have given me so much. So much love, experience, pain, and conflict, but what they both never failed to do is teach me, teach me that there’s always more to life.
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