Main Page | Groups and Assignments | Bios | History | Harlem | Diversity Today | Help It was really in 1998 that I became slightly more aware that there was something wrong with our lifestyle. It was in November of 1998 that talks of posting my father in New York had begun in the Export Promotion Bureau, where he worked. Suddenly, my parents began to pray for the position with a desperation I had not seen before. Finally, on February 16th, 1999, we were walking through the JFK terminal overwhelmingly with excitement. Since then we have moved from Scarsdale to Little Neck to Fresh Meadows and I have still to figure out how to fully consolidate my two identities. In Scarsdale, for example, I was the foreigner who remarkably could speak English. But in Little Neck there were a lot more foreigners, so I told people I was half Arab to distinguish myself. I figured I wasn't lying since my mom was raised in Saudi Arabia. By the time I moved to Fresh Meadows, however, I was barely able to lay claim to my Pakistani identity as many Pakistanis would give me disdainful looks for not speaking fluent Urdu. But as the immigrant experience goes, I also spent a great deal of time trying to disappear into the American backdrop of my schools. Ironically, it was at such times that elements of my religion and culture were thrown at me. For example, whenever I informed a fellow classmate that I wasn't allowed to date, they would ask, are you getting an arranged marriage? When I was 10 and first asked that question, I wasn't sure of the answer. At 19, I'm still not sure. I look at my family's traditional history and the random acts of modernism that fit in along the way and I don't know what comes next. But as always, I'm hoping for the best! |