She didn’t understand that those clothes were a large part of my new American identity. They were the armor that helped me hide among my classmates at school. Our house fell just outside the city line of the public school that most of the Indian kids who lived near Devon Avenue attended, so we kept to ourselves or the few other Indian immigrant kids who also attended our public school. Those first few months after we moved to Chicago had been rough. Neel and I were teased and harassed about our accents, our clothing, and the fact that we didn’t fall into either the black or white racial category that most of the other kids did. I couldn’t understand why our parents had moved us halfway around the world, away from Nani and Nana, who spoiled us and always took our side against our parents, to experience all these negative things that we had never experienced in India. In Ahmedabad, I had never questioned whether I belonged in the community in which we lived. Now, in addition to doing work we had never done before like laundry, cleaning, and cooking, I was constantly reminded by kids at school that we did not belong. That we were “other.” That we were foreign. I quickly learned that being foreign was the worst thing you could be in America.
One day Neel wasn’t in the usual place where we would meet after school. I heard some rustling by the bushes and found him curled up with his hands over his stomach, like he’d been punched repeatedly. On his back, some schoolkids had taped a sign that said, Go Home Towelhead. I didn’t understand. We didn’t wear turbans. Neel didn’t say one word to me when we walked home, and I knew not to ask. That night, he told me we needed to learn to act like the other American kids when we were outside our home. No more lunches packed with Indian food, no more shiny gold earrings, and no more Indian clothes. Survival required blending in.
First, I studied American television shows after school, trying to mimic the accents. Our parents only spoke Gujarati to us in the home when we first arrived, so Neel and I would practice our American accents with each other in hushed whispers out of their earshot. Having been born into India’s upper caste, we could easily tell which students were America’s equivalent of upper caste—the white ones—and we found ways to connect to those students. Neel began helping them with their math homework, using that time to befriend them by showing them that he liked the same TV shows, sports, and foods as them. Convincing them that even though he looked different on the outside, he was the same as them on the inside. Once we’d transitioned, we avoided the other Indian immigrants who came through the school, remaining quiet and avoiding eye contact when the other kids teased them. To come to their aid would have meant giving up some of the ground we had gained. They would have to find their own way to be American, just as Neel and I had found ours.
My mother’s need to preserve our Indian heritage by interacting only with the immigrant Gujarati community outside of our schooling undid all the hard work we’d put into fitting in. It infuriated me, but I’d never had the courage to tell her, because on some level, I was still that little girl in India who had been taught at an early age never to challenge her parents.
Now, as I stood in my bedroom clutching my orange tank top to my chest—something that was bare shouldered and far from sober—I winced, thinking about how many fights she and I had had over clothing, knowing none of them had been about the clothes. There was no need to add another argument to the list.
I turned my small suitcase upside down, the contents falling into a pile on my bed. I pulled out everything sleeveless, replacing the items with simple cotton long-sleeved shirts and modest dresses that fell below my knees.
Satisfied that the new contents of the suitcase would have passed my mother’s scrutiny, I zipped it shut.
Pausing with one hand on the cold doorknob of my bedroom and the other hauling my bag behind me, I checked my watch. Carrie was supposed to be here in five minutes, which really meant twenty. I couldn’t shake my mother’s reaction upon learning I hadn’t opened her birthday card. I let go of the suitcase and knelt on the floor by my bed, dropping my head until I felt the scratchy carpet fibers brushing against my cheek. Peering into the darkness beneath, I saw the old shoebox.
I lifted the lid with the care of an archaeologist unearthing a centuries-old artifact. Lying on top was the unopened pale-green card. Every birthday, I received a card from my parents with a check or cash inside. During those childhood years when money was tight, it would be eleven dollars. When things got better, it jumped up to fifty-one, and at its peak it hit two hundred and fifty-one, an amount that represented a tiny fortune to my parents. Knowing I could earn that money in a couple hours, whereas they would work for days, I told them they didn’t need to send me anything, but they insisted.