worcesthsujdkajbuiahdkj??? sauce

 If you ask me where I am from, I will tell you I am American. You can hear my voice and I sound just like you, but look at my face, and the melanin in my skin might say otherwise. It's clear that I am also South Asian (more specifically from Bangladesh, but nobody even knows where that is, so I've chosen to not bother anymore).

I was born and raised here in Michigan, and while it is true that English isn't my first language, it still is the one I'm most confident in. When I was little, I could speak Spanish, Bangla, and English very fluently and had no issues switching back and forth between them. It wasn't until after I started school that it became an issue. It seemed I had been hard wired to speak to adults in Bangla or sometimes Spanish (mainly because that's what I spoke at home), yet I could communicate with my other classmates in English with ease. If my own teachers struggled to communicate with me, the only solution apparently was to stop speaking all the other "foreign" languages entirely so that it was easier for everyone else. Sure, the only people who speak Bangla are other Bengali people, but how was it fair I had to give up 2 whole languages to make it easier for the teachers who had no interest trying to learn (at the minimum) a few words or phrases in Spanish?

Today, I sit here, doing my Spanish homework, with my head in my hands because I can't speak the language anymore. I cannot remember all the grammar rules I used to know and have to force the syllables out of my mouth so I don't sound white-washed. Tonight, I'll ask my grandmother to cook some comfort food for dinner like daal₁ and then stumble over the "bh" syllable in the Bangla word for rice₂ because that sound doesn't exist in English. 

But no matter. At least I try. Unlike *some* people₃ when they look at my name. Now my name isn't even exceptionally odd, I'll just tell you it's pronounced just like the store minus an "h". But if I've learned anything in my 17 years of existence in this country, I can tell you that there's this strange phenomenon of Americans adding random letters to words just to "make the sounds work". And because of this, the most common mispronunciation of my name becomes "Zahara"-- just like the dance team. After being absolutely being tormented by the questionable ways people try to say my name, I've learned to respond to anything that vaguely resembles it (usually anything that begins with the letter "z" since how many non-jargon specific words actually start with that letter aside from maybe zany or zebra). You're talking about the dance team? I will turn around. It's not that I think people are talking about me; I've just become so desensitized that its basically just a reflex.

So, any time someone asks me the dreaded question of where I'm from, no matter the response I pick, I feel like a fake. I'm too brown to be American, and too American to be from Bangladesh. For the record, I haven't even been to the motherland, but my ties to my homeland were severed and I know if I went there, I would be nothing more than a foreigner, despite the fact my entire family is from there. 

I'll just say I'm Asian-American. Wait, I can't say that, since the only Asia anyone really cares about is China, Japan, and Korea. So, Ill say I'm Sasian₄-American. Hold on, I can't say that either. One time, last year, my math teacher was talking about naming traditions. In Mexico, you get the last names of both parents instead of just one, and naturally, since most of the people in that class were Indian, she asked how last name distribution worked there. After a solid minute of silence, I realized she was looking at me, expecting some kind of response. Who was going to tell her that just because I'm South Asian doesn't make me Indian? Do I not get the liberty of using broader labels other than just being #thatbengaliamericangirl like everyone else? 

Maybe, instead of choosing a label for myself, I should let others pick. I should say that I'm both Bengali and American, and whichever label you think feels more accurate should be who I am. Or even better: you shouldn't care. Why should my origin matter to you if the only person you need to know is the one standing before you? Maybe instead of forcing people into your standard boxes of your culturally stereotypical ideals, you should consider that people cannot be confined to something as rigid as these kinds of classifications. Portions of my own identity have been shattered and torn and now, I must spend the rest of my life scrambling to reclaim what was once mine because of ignorant people. It is time to do away with this, so that future generations aren't forced to live like me; a person of multiple cultures but also none at all.

₁. a type of lentils, commonly eaten with rice

₂. "bhat", not to be confused with "chaal" which is processed rice before it's cooked

₃. how can white people pronounce wrcheshiole sauce and not my name? worchoens? wishhjskofhjkandj??????? wwoshjdkoaknd??Adhuuiadhgiyuycuagjca??2u38qu40rofhhuo???? you know what i mean.

₄. South Asian