My Trans-cultural Identities

Coming closer to my 55th birthday has me thinking back on my life and experiences. While the number 55 doesn't fit the way I feel, it's gratifying to reflect on the people I have met, the places I have traveled, and the many memories created over the last few decades. One thing I can say about my life is that it hasn't been very conventional. I have never fit very neatly into categories when it comes to describing who I am. This has been a continually fascinating and perplexing question to respond to over the years.

I was born in India, but am neither Hindu nor Muslim. Rather I grew up in a Christian household in which both sides of my family converted 4-5 generations ago due to the persistence of American missionaries and the influence of British colonial rule. Christians are a minority in India, and Adventists are a minority within Protestant Christian denominations, so I often felt quite different than everyone around me. This 'differentness' shaped me in so many ways - my values and beliefs, my comfort with living on the margins, my interest in travel and questioning social norms.

At 15, I left the bubble of southern California when my parents relocated to the Dominican Republic in the early 80s. I spent the last two years of high school at an international school in the capital, avoiding the wealthy Dominican "plasticas" with their chauffeurs and body guards, and trying to get by with my rudimentary grasp of Spanish. I hung out with an interesting band of misfits and overachievers from different parts of the world, who also didn't quite fit into Dominican society. Those years in DR were formative and led me on a very different path than if I had stayed in Irvine, gone to UCI and done what was expected of me as a good Indian daughter.

I've had a lifelong love of languages and was a Linguistics major in college, but ironically, my parents didn't teach me their native languages of Tamil, Telegu or Kannada. Like so many immigrants in the US, facing the pressure to assimilate, they quickly chose to raise their children with English as our primary language at home as they thought this would help us be accepted more readily by our teachers and peers. I ended up studying Spanish, French and Japanese in college and then dabbling in Italian and German on my own, but I have regretted not being fluent in Tamil nor having any exposure to Hindi growing up.

When it came to dating and marriage, I made some unconventional choices, marrying outside my ethnic and religious communities. How could I be expected to marry an Indian when I never met any Indians
growing up (who weren't my extended family members)? My parents moved to the white, Republican suburbs in Orange County during my adolescent years and there was only one other Indian family I had contact with (with 2 daughters and no cute sons). Despite my parents' obvious wishes for a nice Christian Indian son-in-law, I dated and later married an American from upstate NY. He was adopted as a child and this sense of rootlessness led him to travel, learn about other cultures and languages, and we connected on these passions and a love of music and books. Together we lived in Japan for a year and a half and explored other ways of doing life beyond the confines of tradition. Though our marriage didn't last too many years, we remained friends until his passing in 2015.

Later, I thwarted my parents' wishes for a good Indian husband again, and I brought a German scientist to the alter. We were as different as could be on many levels, but also shared many of the values and interests that keep us connected even now. I learned later that his mom was hoping for a German mate for her son, and was a bit taken aback that he went all the way to the US to find an Indian bride.

Over the years, I lived and worked in several states and countries, including New York, Georgia, and Japan, and have been energized by the thrill of immersion and adapting to diverse cultures. My previous career in international marketing afforded me the ability to travel on a corporate budget, but I found myself preferring my travels in Asia, the Caribbean, Central American and the Pacific Islands, staying in small B&Bs and hanging with locals far away from the crowded city centers where we held our trade shows and business meetings. 

Being part of a multi-cultural family has had it's joys and challenges. It's been exciting to learn about the ways that other societies have structured daily life, but it has also been jolting at times to recognize the things that we take for granted in the US - the waste and consumerism for example, but also the entitlement and 'we're better than everyone else' brand of patriotism, Seeing the world through my daughter's perspective, one who straddles 3 cultures - American, German and Indian - has been moving and educational, and continually teaches me about what it means to belong.

Looking ahead at this next year, I am itching to resume some trans-cultural immersion experiences again now that it seems that COVID is in the rear-view mirror. Living through this pandemic has required that we adapt and rethink our lives, and for me that means considering how and where I want to do life, under what constraints and freedoms.