Indian American

Indian American; a phrase I’ve always been too scared to process and accept. If you were to ask me what my ethnicity is, as if it wasn’t obvious to the naked eye, I would say Indian. Adding “American” to the end of my answer would just feel wrong. I’m Indian and Indian only, why would I want to add American to it. It feels though as if I gave into the assimilation attempts done by my peers and gave up on my culture. Then again, what do I know about being Indian? Everytime, I visit India I get reminded of the cruel fact that I may be Indian from the outside, I am fully white from the inside. I'm surrounded by the remarks of my family asking whether or not I even speak Hindi. So that makes me American, right? Except, I am not, I am nowhere close. To be American, I need to be white, the whole blonde hair and blue eyes bullshit. Even if I were to start calling myself American, I would never be accepted. I will forever be an immigrant in the eyes of the American people, a low class citizen who is from a third world country with unhygienic street food. So then what am I? I know nothing about my Indian side, but I look every part of it. I know everything about my American side, but look nothing like it. So then what the fuck am I?