One of the first questions you always get when meeting new people in college is “Where are you from?” The communities in which we’ve been raised play a large role in who we become and how we perceive the world. Oftentimes, people’s experiences from their childhood impact the attitude they have towards their hometown.
The way I felt growing up affected my relationship with my hometown, especially as I got older and began to further process and reflect on my childhood. Growing up in a predominantly white town, there were few spaces outside of my house where I didn’t feel culturally alienated. Although there are many variables that have impacted my relationship with my cultural identity, I do feel that the racial breakdown of my hometown played into that.
I can confidently say that I became aware of how my family’s cultural background made me feel alienated in my community by the age of 8. I don’t think I fully grasped how my ethnic identity created this feeling until I was in high school and even into college. However, the anxiety I felt in public spaces was there.
It was mostly at school. I remember begging my mom to let me buy school lunch occasionally so that, for one lunch period a month, I could fit in and have a “normal” lunch that didn’t have weird smells and make everybody stare. I also remember at some point noticing that my facial characteristics were different than those of my peers. I wouldn’t say I have extremely large lips, but I remember one day in the third grade staring in the mirror and realizing that if I pursed my lips together they could appear thinner and more like those of my peers. The next morning, I entered the classroom with my lips pursed and attempted to stay like that the whole day– I probably looked ridiculous and I’m sure that within 30 minutes I got tired and gave in.
During my first week at Davis, I worked up the courage to attend a Pakistani Student Association meeting. I started chatting with a girl next to me and learned that, like me, she was half Pakistani and half Chinese. Although I never attended another PSA meeting or kept in contact with that girl, this moment has always stood out for me. In my hometown, the only other Pakistani person I knew was my extended family, let alone knowing another Pakistani-Chinese individual. I texted every person I knew later that night because meeting this girl was like meeting a celebrity to me. I genuinely thought that besides my brother, I was the only Chinese-Pakistani person on the planet. There was one moment in high school when I even typed “Chinese-Pakistani individuals” into Google to see if such individuals existed.
I know that no matter where I am, I will feel uncomfortable due to my struggling relationship with my identity. However, I feel this to a lesser extent in Davis because of the greater presence of an Asian community. My journey to accepting my cultural identity is not finished, and I know that once I come to a better sense of acceptance, the resentment I feel towards my hometown will lessen. I have so much love for the people of my hometown who raised me and the community that built me into the person I am currently. At the end of the day, I am still learning to overcome the conflicts surrounding my identity and the role my hometown played in that.