Speaking of Silence

I am proud to be my mother’s daughter.

I’ve always carried a sense of pride in my identity, or at least part of my identity. There was a time when I ran away from my heritage, from the parts of me that I didn’t understand or couldn’t accept. I denied the features that were passed down through generations: my angular eyebrows, the shape of my eyes, and the tip of my nose, all of which hold a genetic story I was uncomfortable claiming.

Because of that denial, I struggled to be genuine. I struggled to belong.

But my hair tells you a different story, one that I was never afraid to hide. Its texture, its pattern, its roots in blackness, those were things I always felt pride in. For a long time, I should say that most of my life, I used that part of my identity as a shield. I clung on to one part of myself while completely denying the other.

In a recent conversation with my mother, she said, “You used to tell people you were just Black, and I just kept it inside, but in my head I would be like ‘no, you’re Indian too.”

What I inherited from my mom wasn’t just her lineage and strength, it was also her aches of the unknown, her aches of hardly knowing the land and people she comes from. The longing to belong somewhere she had never gotten the pleasure of knowing, that longing became my own.

My mother was born in Kolkata, India. She was adopted into a white family in the U.S. when she was just a few months old. Her connection to India was severed before she could remember it. I once asked her if she ever felt Indian “enough” growing up.

“I never had any cultural experience, we wouldn’t cook Indian food, or I never had Indian food,” she later explained, “In seventh grade, we got some kind of short story that came with a recipe for beef curry. I remember going home and making it, and we made it a few times. But that was it.” She paused. “I had an Indian Barbie doll, and a couple of other things that my grandma had gotten. But that was it.”

I asked her later if she ever feels less Indian because we don’t have much of a cultural background, and she responded, “Yeah, I never feel like a real Indian, and I feel like other Indians don’t see me as one either. I don’t know if that’s true, but I think it probably is.”

Her words returned to me one slow afternoon at work, the day my manager had laughed in my face. I had just told him about coworkers sniffing jackets in the backroom, convinced that Indians had tried them on. “Well, isn’t it common knowledge that all Indians are stinky?” He joked. I looked at him with disbelief, “I feel like those thoughts should be kept to yourself.” He chuckled, “Well, do you eat curry every day?” His ignorance was outstanding.

I still flinch when people joke about Indian culture, the food, the accents, and the stereotypes. What took me a long time to realize was that my mom had been raised with the same mockery and ignorance in her own home. “I wouldn’t want to go to India,” My grandmother said once. “It’s dirty and stinky.”

When I asked what being Indian meant to my mom, she paused, “It means truth. My Truth. My foundation. My beginning. And I need to explore it.” She paused again, her voice slightly cracking this time, “I think I missed out on a lot. That’s where my family is, my culture, who I truly am.”

She told me about an online group she had joined for Indian adoptees. Most of them had been adopted into white families from the same orphanage in Kolkata. “We all have the same beginning story, like it had been copied and pasted. We were all adopted by very religious parents who taught us to believe that we were saved.”

Before she found that group, my mom carried her disconnection in silence. I realized I had been doing the same. For years, I would sit alone in quiet shame, never realizing that my older brother carried the same silence with him.“People who are Indian usually don’t get the best light in America. It’s not like when you say you’re Black, people are like ‘Oh, cool.’ Or Mexican, ‘Oh, cool.’ Indian people are ‘Yucky.’ So it’s not really something you go and tell people about,” he said. I don’t get embarrassed, but I kind of don’t want them to know.”

“So it feels more vulnerable for you?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said quietly.  He hesitated, “I’m definitely not as uncomfortable anymore. But when people ask what I am, I still say I’m Black and White. And then they’ll say, ‘No, there’s more.’ Then I’ll be like ‘Okay, yeah. I’m Indian too.”

For both my brother and me, being mixed means everything and nothing. We wear our Blackness proudly, our Whiteness slightly, but our Indian-ness? That sat in a locked box buried hundreds of feet underground.

Matilynn, my best friend of 8 years, told me, “When we were younger, you’d just say, ‘Oh, I’m just black.’ But now you’re saying, ‘I’m Indian and black.’ And you’re more proud of it now.”

When I asked her what being a good ally looked like from someone outside of an Indian identity, and she said, “Be there. Be open to learning. Don’t be oblivious. Be aware that your experience is going to be different from someone else’s. Especially of a different background and a different skin color.” Then she added, “Like if you had never had Indian food, I’d be there with you if you wanted to try all the things. So you don’t feel alone.”

I thought about that, “So you don’t feel alone.”

Maybe that’s what it was all along. My denial. My unacceptance. Maybe it wasn’t just shame. Maybe I was just alone. Maybe I was invisible, even to myself.

But now, I’m learning to hold it all, to cherish it. Every part of myself, every inch of my identity. What was once shameful is now sacred.

It took me a long time to say it, but I am proud to be Indian. I wear my features with dignity. I look at my heritage with adoration.

I’m proud to say I’m Indian without shame, for my mother, for my brother, for myself.