Aakansha Kanyal

Mr. Matt Tuozzo

English 109 Honors

September 8, 2023

The Great American Scheme

Since the late 1700s, America has trademarked itself as the melting point of cultures all

around the world. To solidify themselves in that position they even went as far as to put up a

statue entrance of the country holding the torch of liberty. This marketing strategy is the

equivalent of Kohls’s Cash, where they have to spend a certain amount to get 50 or more dollars

off. They pull the customers in under the pretense that they are getting a better deal than they are.

Thousands of immigrants fall prey to the marketing scheme of the catchphrase and statue.

My family was one of them.

Coming to the States from India, we thought we were getting the deal of the century as

for the mere price of leaving behind everything that we knew, we could earn back the chance at a

superior education and work in a more diverse environment. And at first glance, it seemed to be

just that.

Stepping into the classroom on my first day of American first grade, I remember being

stunned. Staring back at me were 30 pairs of eyes.

Some blue. Some brown. Some were covered behind thick black hair. Others were

surrounded by a scatter of freckles.

For the first time in my vast education experience of 3 years, I wasn’t staring back at a

hoard of kids who all looked like me. My first-grade classroom in a tiny corner of the United
States stood as the literal embodiment of America’s catchphrase. My classroom was the melting

pot.

The deal was looking even more promising.

In the next months, I learned about the Indigenous people of America as I cut out a hand

turkey on brown construction paper smothered in red, orange, and yellow feathers. I learned

about Jolly Old St. Nick surprising children around the world with presents while performing

Feliz Navidad at the annual winter performance. I even learned entire the pledge of allegiance to

the flag of an indivisible nation.

But at the same time, I was learning to unlearn.

After receiving dozens of pointing fingers and shushed laughs at the tikka on my

forehead after pooja, I learned to refuse this offering from the gods. On the many occasions, my

mother refused my refusal I learned to “accidentally” wipe it off before I stepped on the campus

of my school.

After awkward pauses or multiple failed attempts at my name in attendance, I learned to

nod yes to any version of my name that sounded even remotely similar. I became Akanksha,

Akansha, or at times even Akarsh. When giving a name for an order, I learned to give up my

own name, the one chosen for me by my grandmother and instead learned my Starbucks name,

AJ.

After having peers move away from my lunch table because my food looked and smelled

“weird”, I learned to beg my mom to stop packing me Indian food for school. I unlearned my
love for the spices and flavors in the dishes, the recipes for which were passed down from

generations.

This continued into middle and high school. Despite going to a school with a mostly

Indian demographic, I still felt the need to unlearn my culture. And I wasn’t the only one. No one

embraced their cultural side in an attempt to protect themselves from any possible ridicule. This

unspoken threat of social demise only further internalized the need to remove myself from any

cultural context. Thus, little by little, my unlearning increased until I hid all my relations and

association with my culture.

But even as hard as I tried, I never really could. The fact that I was an Indian citizen was

not something I could escape. And this became painfully obvious the summer before my junior

year. I was forced to move to Canada for a year while my parents dealt with the aftermath of

immigration and Green Card issues and they had to renew a work visa. I was taken away from

the only support system and friend group I had known for the past few years of my life and was

placed in a new environment in the midst of a pandemic.

Amidst, I managed to keep in contact with a few of my friends some of whom were

becoming good friends with other people during this time. a new kid joined, an ironic addition to

our graduating class just as I had left. He had transferred from basis Goodyear and though I

hadn’t met him personally, I felt like I had known him forever.

The closeness translated smoothly into our in-person friendship. From the first time we

met, we already had inside jokes. Despite the speed at which we became friends, our relationship

was just as close as some of my friends whom I had known for years. This quick friendship was

one that I had never experienced before but a friendship that I greatly valued as it was something

uniquely different from my other relationships.

 What made it uniquely different was his different experiences. Most of my other friends

are from the same cultural community as me. Since we all had the same experiences, we never

really felt the need to share them. But Albert had never experienced them which made him

inherently curious about our culture and our experiences.

Initially, this started as just one Bollywood movie recommendation. When he came into

school the next day singing the songs of the movie, I knew that it wouldn’t just stop there. Soon

we had monthly Bollywood movie nights featuring the classics such as Bahubali and RRR.

While we did these movie nights with just our small friend group, he wasn’t afraid to show his

appreciation for the culture more publicly. In fact, when Natu Natu won the Oscar, his

excitement rivaled that of the cast of the movie itself. These small gestures made it even easier

to share more about my culture with him.

During the Navatri festival, I invited him to join us. I had gone to this event for the past 8

years, but I had never enjoyed it as much as this time. Every time that I had gone before it was

more of an obligation to my parents, but this time I went for myself. It was an entirely new

experience this time. It was as if I was experiencing everything through his lens. I had a

newfound appreciation for the traditional clothes, the distinct spices and flavors in the food, and

the intricacies of the folk dance.

Sharing my cultural stories and experiences with Albert pushed me to see it in a new

light. Seeing it being appreciated by someone not directly in that community helped me

understand that my culture is worth being shared.

Now once again, I am learning to unlearn. But this time, I am unlearning the teaching that

I need to hide one identity to fit into another.