“NEXT KID, GET YOUR FOOD!”, I’d hear this sentence every 30 seconds starting at exactly 12:00 p.m. at my small, catholic middle school. It echoed inside the tiny, windowed walls of my cafeteria, but that exclaimed sentence would never be directed towards me. The ears of my fair-skinned classmates caught that phrase because they were always on line for food. But I never got on that line. Not because I didn’t have money for it, no. I had my own food and it was something that I was grateful for. Classic, homemade Indian food – rice and some curry. I loved the food, it was something that gave me comfort, knowing my mother made it for me and it had centuries worth of culture ingrained in its recipe. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. It tasted good, it looked amazing, and I had it all the time. How naive I was.
How could my 12 year old mind not think of the quality of Indian food that has been stereotyped for so long. The smell.
Two sets of six long tables fill the cafeteria, two grades eating at a time. But this one day was different. There was the older grade sitting in the cafeteria this time. I sat there waiting for my friends to come back from the lunch line. Each one walked one by one to my table. I eye their food. He has pizza, she has pasta, they have ham sandwiches. But I never thought any differently, it was just food in my eyes. How naive I was.
I opened up my tin food capsule like I did every other day I had done at this school. I picked up my spoon with a grin, ready to finally eat my granules of rice covered in curry with my friends. But is it ever that simple? My spoon lowers from my mouth the second I hear a voice come from the older kids’ table.
“Ew what is that horrible smell?”
“Oh my – I wanna throw up, bleh.”
“It’s that kid’s food over there.”
“Eat that stuff at your house, it reeks.”
In that one moment, I was an alien. I felt the anguish of being criticized for being born the way I am. How could I feel so distant from the people that surrounded me my entire life… in just 10 seconds? Was I not born here in the same country they were born in? Was I not in the same school as them? Weren’t we all friends? How naive I was. In those 10 seconds, I became an outsider not only in my own school, but in my own community. Why did they care so much about food? Why did I feel so left out? My family always told me to love myself and who I was, but how could I when everything about me would be made fun of? My young self couldn’t wrap its mind around the fact that not everyone supports you. I thought everyone would be nice to me. I wanted to share my food with those around me, I wasn’t selfish. But I didn’t realize the problem wasn’t because of me, but because of the environment I was in.
“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me”, a famous statement that is incredibly false. Words hurt. Their words hurt me. Not in the way they made me feel in that moment, but in the exponential effect it had on me as time continued to go on. Their words made me despise the food at home. Their words ignited arguments between my parents and I over why I don’t want to bring food from home anymore. Nights in my house were filled with bickering from my parents and I. They didn’t understand why I suddenly didn’t want to eat our food. They would always ask,
“But you were fine just a few days ago, what happened?’.
I believed that they could never understand the hurt I received from school. I believed that they wouldn’t get it. So I never told them why. I didn’t want my embarrassment of my culture to be exposed because I was ashamed. I didn’t just want to be an outsider anymore. What seemed to be just words from a couple of 8th graders gradually spiraled into an avalanche of hatred towards my own culture. If they said this about my food, what would they say about the Indian clothes I wore? I only wore shorts and t-shirts my entire time in middle school. What would they do if they saw the traditions we have? Celebrating Onam, would they call me an alien? The classical dances we danced in, would they make fun of our movements? Even just deciding to eat with my hands, would they call me a beast? I just didn’t want to be Indian anymore. I was starting to hate who I was. I wanted to have food that didn’t smell for once. I spoke only English and not our native language. I wanted to be like the people who criticized me. My desire to just be “normal” was too strong that I let go of everything that defined me.
I would buy food from school. The plain and flavorless food they served to us. But it allowed me to finally be like them. I got to eat what they eat. I wouldn’t be an outsider to anyone anymore. How naive I was. Why did they still criticize me?
“Hey, where’s your smelly food? We miss it.”
Words and insults kept going for as long as that class ate lunch with our grade. It never stopped until they graduated. It was a very tough year for me to go through, all because of the food I decided to eat. Food is meant to bring people together. For cultures to intertwine instead of clash. I wanted my food to be like that but I guess that just added to my testimony of…
How naive I was.
