ABCD

The following blog is my personal statement..(I wrote this in High School)

I always thought that being an American meant that one was born and raised in America. Or perhaps one is an American when he or she first becomes a citizen. I'm not sure anymore because at school I say I was born here, in America, but people at school still remember me as that "Indian girl." Yet when I am at home; my mother always nags about how I am so "Americanized" and that i don't know anything about my culture. I don't understand. I attend cultural festivals and naturally practice traditional dances, but I feel at times my mom was right. I don't know anything about my culture.
Although I know how to speak my native language, I naturally speak English at home because I'm use to it at school. Sometimes I feel more American than Indian. For example when I went to India I couldn't relate to anything people talked about or did. Since I grew up in America, I have such a different persepective of life than them. There was even a time when this girl wouldn't talk to me because I told her I was from America. I didn't understand because I'm the same race as she is, but she said I am American not Indian. I did not care what she said, It doesn't matter to me what I am as long as I belong somewhere. I turned to her and said, "yes I am American and very proud of it too!"

Reflecting back on what I wrote about four years ago, I realize that things have changed...

For example, Things are different in highschool than in college. In college people don't seem to care about race, instead it is embraced. It was difficult growing up in high school because I was surounded by people of the same race, mostly white. Thus, I was identified and labled as different. Now in college, it's not "abnormal" to see a bunch of brown people walking around. You don't see white people pointing out and saying heyyy look a brown girl. In high school people were racist because I wasn't white like the rest of them so I got picked on. They made up things like Indian girls smell and don't shower... I smell fine (thank you very much..You know i use deodorant!) Anyways, It seems (some) kids will always be stupid and ignorant when they are young and eventually (some) grow out of it.