BROWN GIRL IN THE… DELUGE?

The struggle to belong

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Let me start with a confession. I have never fit in.

Oh, you noticed!

Well, I used to try, so very hard.

Growing up biracial or bi-cultural anywhere can be bewildering at the best of times. Can confine you to a lifetime of identity-confusion, heartsick yearning, and icy-black loneliness.

Right from the start, long ago, in rural India, I had it dinned into me how terribly different I was. My mother was American, something that, in those days, encompassed not just her nationality, but her race and culture as well. She was what made me different.

Not until I was older, could I understand what it might have been like for her living there, the sole Westerner in a very non-Western setting. Did she try to fit in?

With a vengeance!

Here is an excerpt from my mild…