Tattva

Nowhere is assimilation more prominent than in the American high school. I would not consider myself particularly successful at maintaining my traditions and customs. At the same time, I never fit in, and perhaps most importantly, I never found a balance between both extremes. I will cross the stage of my graduation ceremony (the day I wrote this) cognizant of the fact that I am not a normal American, and I am also not a normal Hindu.

The United States of America is often referred to as a melting pot, which refers to two salient attributes of the nation and its people. One aspect is its rich diversity, as people have come from around the world to settle in the self-proclaimed “Land of Opportunity.” However, the concept of a melting pot also suggests that the American culture is one that centers around assimilation—where the numerous emigrant cultures blend into one uniform standard for everyone to follow.

Nowhere is assimilation more prominent than in the American high school, where children segregate themselves and form cliques based upon petty objects such as clothing. Unfamiliarity of someone’s lifestyle and traditions can lead to immature moments of ridicule at this stage. In this environment, it is extremely difficult to remain faithful to your identity while “fitting in” in the society that you live in.

Perhaps I am not a writer best suited for this topic. After all, I would not consider myself particularly successful at maintaining my traditions and customs. At the same time, I never fit in, and perhaps most importantly, I never found a balance between both extremes. It all just melded together into this bizarre blend that anyone would consider “weird.” I will cross the stage of my graduation ceremony (the day I wrote this) cognizant of the fact that I am not a normal American, and I am also not a normal Hindu.

However, there are certain positives I can identify about my journey. In many aspects, I did not waver from the way I was raised by my parents, and by extension, this allowed me to educate my peers about my way of life. After successfully advocating for the Boston Public Schools to recognize the festival of Diwali as a religious holiday, I observed the holiday by taking the day off and was able to explain to teachers and classmates alike about the significance of Diwali the following day. By wearing the traditional kurta pyjama on the day of my star birthday, I was able to talk about the unique lunar calendar that Hindus follow. Had I not done some of these things, there are hundreds of people who would only be exposed to a Hindu culture through the distortions that Western media projects.

The reason for that has to do with our school’s demographics—and the demographics of the city of Boston. Most of the Hindus in Massachusetts live in suburbs on the outskirts of Boston—places such as Westborough, Westford, and Franklin. Very few live in the city of Boston itself, and as a result, there were only three Indians in my grade at Boston Latin School. I have spent the past six years in a place where the term “Asian” is usually a reference to a student of either Chinese or Vietnamese descent.

One of the focal points of contention for me as a Hindu-American in high school might seem trivial to some, as it pertained to my diet. As an adherent of Jainism, I am a staunch vegetarian. Our school’s cafeteria was quite incapable of catering to a vegetarian’s needs—throughout my six years in BLS, the only vegetarian meal offered was a slice of greasy cheese pizza. As a result, I would often wait until after school to eat a slice of pizza offered from one of the food vendors that set up shop in front of our school building, because these slices were more edible and significantly cheaper as well.

But it was not the physical challenge of finding food at school that concerned me as much as the mental and psychological effects of being viewed strangely for my eating choice. Students—sometimes out of genuine curiosity but often times in an attempt to ridicule—would ask all sorts of ludicrous questions about when it could be appropriate for me to eat meat. Some children would gawk at me when they found out that I had never eaten meat in my life, and then would proceed to talk about how meat “just tasted so good,” and how they “could never live as a vegetarian.” Others would try to lure me into eating meat by making the claim that “chicken tastes so good,” ignoring the fact that because I had never tasted chicken, I could not appreciate such descriptions. A particular favorite of some was to tell me that the food I had in my hands contained meat—even if it was the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had brought from home. To this day I am trying to figure out the mental satisfaction one could obtain from such a ploy.

Through all of the heckling and teasing, I refused to try meat. I remained firm in my convictions, and by the end of six years, many students have grown to not only respect it, but appreciate it. As a result, I no longer have to remain uptight and defensive about it, which I used to be in the past.

Now, in other regards, there are many things that I regret. These actions were truly unbecoming of a Hindu, and they were not particularly moral either. The way I see it at this point is that life is all about the struggle for one to overcome their inherent flaws. And at least after four years of high school, I have come to identify a few of them. Hopefully, I will spend these next four years in college overcoming them and progressing.

Sanchay Jain is a 2010 graduate of Boston Latin School in Massachusetts. He has interned in the Scheduling Office of MA Gov. Deval Patrick and is a branch manager of Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, USA. Sanchay enjoys reading and listening to music. He will attend New York University in the Fall of 2010 to study political science.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 at 12:07 am and is filed under Editorials/Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.