I began my second year at U.Va. rather unceremoniously by hauling my suitcases up the four flights of stairs in Lambeth. Leaving home for school after summer break was like emerging from a dream and plunging into a cold shower — a part of me was already homesick and wished I could be coddled by my parents for just a day more. Moreover, the newly conferred title of ‘second-year’ meant a lot of big changes were coming my way. I was now no longer an underclassman and was free of the tether first year had on me. Whether it be in terms of housing, my meal plan or scheduled events, everything was more or less left up to me, so to speak.
Now, I am even more responsible for myself than ever — for cleaning my bathroom, for feeding myself, for transporting myself from place to place and so on. In the midst of all this, I realized I am also responsible for maintaining myself as a person, and making an effort to start inculcating the traditions that I grew up with in my life as I begin to venture out on my own.
To me, this is the final step in the formation of my adult self. It is up to me now to make my own decisions, define what I believe in personally and what my values are. By understanding which activities hold true meaning for me and which do not, I could establish a guideline for myself regarding how I want to spend my time.
It’s important to make the effort to keep your ‘native self’ alive. I say this from the perspective of a third-culture kid who is a part of a minority. When you are with your family, surrounded by people who are a part of your culture, it may seem easy to simply go along with tradition and practices. While I don’t come from a particularly religious family, when we are together, we make sure to observe auspicious days and festivals with the intention of understanding what it means and simply to teach ourselves what our culture stands for.
However, what I failed to notice was that it does indeed take effort and time to make sure these rituals remain special and are done wholeheartedly, with belief in them. Small things would catch my eye every time we celebrated the Festival of Lights — or Diwali — at home. My mother always made sure to clean the house from top to bottom and wear the same, beautiful, red sari every year. My father would put up lights around our front door, and light candles along the balcony. As a family, we would always deliver gifts of Indian sweets to our neighbors. Each and every one of these small gestures, although not always as significant individually, held volumes of meaning and required effort. Yet, my parents did it every single year without fail.
Now that I am on my own again, left to my own devices, it falls on me to carry on these practices. It is important to me that I keep these values and traditions alive and not let them fade. Something I’ve found I can do to keep my native culture alive in my day-to-day life is cooking Indian food. After tackling a relatively simple dish one night, I took pride simply in the fact that I was indulging in minute things that were unique to my country. More than that, it tasted like home and put my homesickness to a momentary rest.
Even better was the fact that I could share the food with my friends and explain to them what it was, how I made it. The fascination and interest they expressed was a sign that I had introduced something different, something that set me aside from others. It was a wonderful feeling and only strengthened my conviction that my newfound, culturally mixed identity is definitely something that I should display with pride.
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