My mother’s ancestors arrived in the US during the late 1700s from Germany and England. I’ve held an American passport since birth. My first language is English which I speak with an American accent.
Despite all of this, I never felt American growing up. My father is from India and from him I inherited brown skin, thick black hair and an unpronounceable name. In all the ways that culture is soaked in, I knew I wasn’t American, that I was a guest in this country, that I didn’t fully belong.
As a kid, the quintessential American to me was Marcia Brady of The Brady Bunch. I ached to be Marcia, with her long straight blonde hair and perfect outfits. Everyone knew that Americans lived in big houses, ate hamburgers grilled by dads in the backyard, and watched football on Sunday afternoons.
Americans didn’t have names like Karabi Bhattacharyya, didn’t eat rice and dal at home, and didn’t make yearly trips to India. Americans didn’t have dads who had accents. Growing up, nothing connected my story to the story of this country.
Even now, multiracial people are almost invisible in literature, pop culture, the media or even research. In, Multitudes: The Multiracial Experience and How to Forge a Culture of Absolute Belonging, I write about the importance of seeing (and ensuring) our individual stories are part of the larger story of the United States. Each of the books on this list widened my understanding of who could be American.
I learned there is no single story of what it is to be American, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reminds us in her viral TED talk. Americans can be multiracial, undocumented, speak English as a second or third language. Americans can hate football or love cricket.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
