"For the longest time, I thought I was just an Asian-American, and that was enough to identify myself and for society to define me. And as I got older, neither I nor society was satisfied with that simple, vague definition.
My family, throughout my elementary school years, used to live in a predominantly white town in northern New Jersey. Although, when I say “town”, it was more village like: we lived in the mountains, where your closest neighbor was down the street. Despite being an all white neighborhood, most of my friends back then were Japanese. This is mostly due to the fact that my mom wanted us to learn culture from very early on. She was willing to drive 30 to 40 minutes to our friend’s house so we could have Japanese friends, and she sent us to hoshuukou, or Saturday Japanese school. I had loved it because it was all I knew. I had Japanese friends, went to Japanese school, and ate Japanese cuisine that my mother made all the time. I thought I was Japanese! I was completely aware that I didn’t look like anyone else, but in my mind, there were a handful of half-white, half-Japanese kids at school too, so I assumed I was one of them and didn’t make much of it.
I remember in the 4th year of Japanese school, we were playing dodgeball, and no one wanted me on their team. I was surprised because I thought I got along with everyone. Turns out, I was just hated by the most popular guy in class. He told me that no one wanted a “weird person” on our team because “I wasn't Japanese and I wasn’t white”. This was the first time that I was shocked about not being included. And I cried. Hard.
My teacher came after several minutes and saw me by myself. She asked me why I wasn’t playing and I told her what had happened. She looked at me and paused for a second. Then she smiled and led me to the teacher’s lounge, where she gave me some snacks and tea, talked to some teachers, and then left. I tried to avoid everyone for the rest of the day, but people were surprisingly nice. They included me in everything that day, and were more conscious weeks and months after that. I wasn’t entirely sure what my teacher said to those kids, and I never will know. All I know is that she is an amazing person to be able to explain the complex issues of race and culture in terms that a bunch of 8 year olds could understand.
As far as I was concerned, I definitely wasn’t American, because the white people at my school didn’t accept me. I was Japanese, but not fully. And if people said something mean about it, they’d have to apologize. That was when I was 8. Although at that time my teachers were the ones that supported me, life didn’t always work out that way. That time taught me a little that I am different, but I didn’t really know what to make of it.
The next experience is positive. Little old me, now 10, had been doing classical piano all her life. Although I didn’t get the cultural context of western music until high school, I knew that we played in a recital every year in December and ate snacks after we all finished playing. The last recital of my life in New Jersey, I became friends with this boy named Rijul. He was Indian. This was new for me, I’d never really had many Indian friends before. We got along really well, and so did my family and his family. Sometime in the spring, his mom asked me if I’d like to come see her dance at the nearby church. This dance truly changed my life. Everything from the music to the costuming to the hand movements and bells on her feet left me completely in love. I went up to her after and told her how much I enjoyed it and asked what it was called. She told me it was an ancient art form from India- the classical dance called Bharatanatyam.
I loved Bharatanatyam, and while I have questioned every part of myself and everything in my life, Bharatanatyam was the one thing that never even crossed my mind to quit. I loved every minute of it. Granted, other parents and students thought of a “halfie” dancing Bharatanatyam was “not natural”. But I loved dancing and that’s all that mattered to me. Dance changed my life: it made me a more confident person, and gave me a better sense of who I was. I was one of the best dancers in the class, and I completed my graduation performance. I, now, deserved to be called Japanese as well as Indian. I learned that it didn’t matter what other people thought, it only mattered if I felt good in my own skin. And that’s exactly what heritage let me feel: safe and comfortable, yet living on the edge without a second of boredom.
Now, it wasn’t that I hated white culture or white people. To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to. I had been doing classical piano since I was little, and my mom loved it. I loved it. Playing piano is still my passion to this day. I thought that being a pianist was what I wanted to do for the longest time because it took me to another world. I loved learning the western history behind the music, and although I had been hurt by white culture and people in the past, music only made me appreciate their rich culture and history.
I’m now a junior at UIUC. Musicology made me excited about going to class everyday and learning about new cultures and practices, both western and nonwestern. It makes me a more open-minded person everyday, which I now realize is an extremely valuable quality that I’ve gained thus far in my college career. I was formerly president for SPICMACAY, an organization that promotes Indian Classical Music and Dance. I’m now the undergraduate president of ASHA, who organizes Holi and is a non-profit that helps underprivileged children gain access to education. Not only that but I have come to learn more about cultures that are not my own: I joined a Balinese music ensemble. All while studying western music and playing piano on a day-to-day basis. I even reached out to areas outside of music: I joined the Leadership Certificate program to build more confidence in myself, and work at the Illinois Leadership Center. I’m involved in Crescendo: a music organization that strives to give representation to underrepresented minorities within the music department. And I guess that’s what this whole journey, my life, has been. A way for me to feel confident and comfortable in my own skin. I am far happier than I was when I was little and far happier than I was in high school. My heritage has given me so much: it has shaped my into the strong and independent individual I am today and it has shown me how beautiful history and culture is and can be. The reason I am happy every morning because I am proud to have my heritage. Although these stories I’ve presented here are only the bare surface of all the accounts I’ve experienced with identity and culture, I am a Japanese-Indian-American and calling me anything else would be a completely inaccurate representation of who I am.
My family, throughout my elementary school years, used to live in a predominantly white town in northern New Jersey. Although, when I say “town”, it was more village like: we lived in the mountains, where your closest neighbor was down the street. Despite being an all white neighborhood, most of my friends back then were Japanese. This is mostly due to the fact that my mom wanted us to learn culture from very early on. She was willing to drive 30 to 40 minutes to our friend’s house so we could have Japanese friends, and she sent us to hoshuukou, or Saturday Japanese school. I had loved it because it was all I knew. I had Japanese friends, went to Japanese school, and ate Japanese cuisine that my mother made all the time. I thought I was Japanese! I was completely aware that I didn’t look like anyone else, but in my mind, there were a handful of half-white, half-Japanese kids at school too, so I assumed I was one of them and didn’t make much of it.
I remember in the 4th year of Japanese school, we were playing dodgeball, and no one wanted me on their team. I was surprised because I thought I got along with everyone. Turns out, I was just hated by the most popular guy in class. He told me that no one wanted a “weird person” on our team because “I wasn't Japanese and I wasn’t white”. This was the first time that I was shocked about not being included. And I cried. Hard.
My teacher came after several minutes and saw me by myself. She asked me why I wasn’t playing and I told her what had happened. She looked at me and paused for a second. Then she smiled and led me to the teacher’s lounge, where she gave me some snacks and tea, talked to some teachers, and then left. I tried to avoid everyone for the rest of the day, but people were surprisingly nice. They included me in everything that day, and were more conscious weeks and months after that. I wasn’t entirely sure what my teacher said to those kids, and I never will know. All I know is that she is an amazing person to be able to explain the complex issues of race and culture in terms that a bunch of 8 year olds could understand.
As far as I was concerned, I definitely wasn’t American, because the white people at my school didn’t accept me. I was Japanese, but not fully. And if people said something mean about it, they’d have to apologize. That was when I was 8. Although at that time my teachers were the ones that supported me, life didn’t always work out that way. That time taught me a little that I am different, but I didn’t really know what to make of it.
The next experience is positive. Little old me, now 10, had been doing classical piano all her life. Although I didn’t get the cultural context of western music until high school, I knew that we played in a recital every year in December and ate snacks after we all finished playing. The last recital of my life in New Jersey, I became friends with this boy named Rijul. He was Indian. This was new for me, I’d never really had many Indian friends before. We got along really well, and so did my family and his family. Sometime in the spring, his mom asked me if I’d like to come see her dance at the nearby church. This dance truly changed my life. Everything from the music to the costuming to the hand movements and bells on her feet left me completely in love. I went up to her after and told her how much I enjoyed it and asked what it was called. She told me it was an ancient art form from India- the classical dance called Bharatanatyam.
I loved Bharatanatyam, and while I have questioned every part of myself and everything in my life, Bharatanatyam was the one thing that never even crossed my mind to quit. I loved every minute of it. Granted, other parents and students thought of a “halfie” dancing Bharatanatyam was “not natural”. But I loved dancing and that’s all that mattered to me. Dance changed my life: it made me a more confident person, and gave me a better sense of who I was. I was one of the best dancers in the class, and I completed my graduation performance. I, now, deserved to be called Japanese as well as Indian. I learned that it didn’t matter what other people thought, it only mattered if I felt good in my own skin. And that’s exactly what heritage let me feel: safe and comfortable, yet living on the edge without a second of boredom.
Now, it wasn’t that I hated white culture or white people. To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to. I had been doing classical piano since I was little, and my mom loved it. I loved it. Playing piano is still my passion to this day. I thought that being a pianist was what I wanted to do for the longest time because it took me to another world. I loved learning the western history behind the music, and although I had been hurt by white culture and people in the past, music only made me appreciate their rich culture and history.
I’m now a junior at UIUC. Musicology made me excited about going to class everyday and learning about new cultures and practices, both western and nonwestern. It makes me a more open-minded person everyday, which I now realize is an extremely valuable quality that I’ve gained thus far in my college career. I was formerly president for SPICMACAY, an organization that promotes Indian Classical Music and Dance. I’m now the undergraduate president of ASHA, who organizes Holi and is a non-profit that helps underprivileged children gain access to education. Not only that but I have come to learn more about cultures that are not my own: I joined a Balinese music ensemble. All while studying western music and playing piano on a day-to-day basis. I even reached out to areas outside of music: I joined the Leadership Certificate program to build more confidence in myself, and work at the Illinois Leadership Center. I’m involved in Crescendo: a music organization that strives to give representation to underrepresented minorities within the music department. And I guess that’s what this whole journey, my life, has been. A way for me to feel confident and comfortable in my own skin. I am far happier than I was when I was little and far happier than I was in high school. My heritage has given me so much: it has shaped my into the strong and independent individual I am today and it has shown me how beautiful history and culture is and can be. The reason I am happy every morning because I am proud to have my heritage. Although these stories I’ve presented here are only the bare surface of all the accounts I’ve experienced with identity and culture, I am a Japanese-Indian-American and calling me anything else would be a completely inaccurate representation of who I am.
