The Montebello-Born, Texas-Raised South Asian American Who Loves to Read

On the first day of school this year, while completing our “I am From” poems, I told my students that I was born in Montebello, California. “You’re from East LA, miss?!” Their voices were filled with admiration and surprise. I felt validated by my birthplace. For some reason, feeling so often an outsider in this community, I played up my Montebello ties – far more than my New York or Texas suburbia upbringing.

I was not lying. I was born in Montebello, CA in 1985. Two years later, my family moved to Rye Brook, NY because of my father’s job with Citibank. The next seven years were spent in idyllic suburbia. I do not know how to explain to anyone in my new life that, yes, our house did have white picket fences with an apple tree in the backyard and a weeping willow over the driveway. In New York, my parents carefully strategized my older sister’s and my language acquisition. My parents spoke Hindi and Gujarati (a Western Indian dialect), but they were adamant that my sister and I learned perfect English. So instead of speaking to us in their native language, they only conversed with us in English. My older sister showed a flair for English. A voracious reader, she would read to me every day. Her ability to assimilate in the classroom made my parents proud.

My mother was born in Gujarat, and my father was born in Uttar Pradesh, India. He came to America in 1971 to attend college, and my mother soon followed when she married my father. Despite living in America longer than they lived in India, they are both very culturally Indian. I, however, consider myself South Asian. In college, I had Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Afghani friends. Making the mistake of assuming they were Indian was a huge insult. It was safer to identify as South Asian. This experience is not unlike what I witness at my school. My Salvadorian students and Guatemalan students take offense if you assume they are Mexican. I have learned that the complicated history of India and Pakistan can be as divisive as the history of Central Americans and North Americans. In short, I refer to my students as Latino – a term both vague and inclusive.

My dad came to America in 1971 not knowing a single person. He came with a hundred dollars and a golden ticket. He loves to tell that story. He then goes on to say that the golden ticket was priceless – a college admission letter to USC. His whole life, and therefore my life, too, has been centered on the value of education. Our implicit belief in education as the means to success and happiness has determined a lot of the decisions we make in our life.

One of the biggest differences between my experience and what I see in my students’ lives is the importance of education. My parents assumed I would go to college. My dad even made a cheeky comment about not wanting to go to my sister’s college graduation (“isn’t that the point of going to college, anyway?”). High school was a GPA race to finish first. Each point on each test tormented us. So many of my students are apathetic about grades. Many are excited just to pass let alone argue that their 88% should really be an 89%.

I am respectful and proud of my English students’ ability to navigate a new language. They do it with more confidence than I could muster for my experiences at language acquisition. Having immigrant parents allows me better insight into their lives, but I do not pretend to know everything. Perhaps a more telling way of how I value the diverse backgrounds and languages of my students is in that “I am From” poem from the beginning of the year. I shared my poem with them:

I am from bicycles,

from Oreo cookies and marginal utility.

I am from the heat and swagger of Texas

(burning, big

it smells of barbeque.)

I am from the weeping willow,

the backyard apple tree

who sat three young girls

dreaming, scheming.

I’m from touching feet and fair skin,

from Kavita and Jane Austen.

I’m from the yell when angry

and the silent treatments,

from Dal Mein Kuch Kala Hai.

I’m from incense and aarti

taking off my shoes

entering a temple.

I’m from Montebello and Uttar Pradesh,

mangos and "chai" tea.

From the broken nose of my sister’s

crash at Macy’s

the lost hair of my father’s stress.

I am from the bookshelf in the white room

holding my best friends

torn covers, notes in the margin

I am from those pages

that have made me cry and let me fly.

I took some lines from the "I am From" poems of my students and combined the lines to make a class poem that I enlarged to fill a wall in our classroom:

I am from those moments

that when I laugh, I can’t stop laughing.

I’m from the loud and the rude.

From AplacateYa and

Toda Se Paga en Este Vida.

I am from quincianeras and Brown Pride.

I’m from the shut-ups and pass-it-ons

from quiet and forgets.

I’m from being impulsive at times and having

to scream almost everything I say.

From I have to work hard and always respect.

I am from the green, white, and red.

I’m from El Salvador, pupusas and tortas.

From believing in God and listening to elders.

I am from a family that is proud of

their nacionalidad.