My name is Faiqa and Native Born is my blog. Rudyard Kipling, British poet of the 19th century, wrote a poem of same title. In the poem, Kipling writes, “Change the skies, but not my heart that roams.” I’ve always taken that line to mean that Kipling hoped that as the British Empire expanded its lordship over “the lesser races” in the 19th century, British nationals living and being born abroad would always keep their hearts in Britain.
Like Kipling, I have strong ties to the subcontinent. Unlike Kipling, I’m not an colonialist racist with a fine command of the English language and an exceptional knack for timeless storytelling.
My parents migrated from India to Pakistan and then landed in America in the 70s. My husband was born in India, grew up in Saudi and migrated to the States in the 90s. People read about this thing called “diplomacy,” but this family has lived it every day.
Most of my childhood was spent explaining American culture to my parents. Or explaining my parents’ culture to America. Somewhere in all that explaining, I got a good grasp of not only what America is and who my parents were, but of who I am, too. I learned that a human being is a composite of borrowed ideals and values and that the best kinds of humans are the ones who don’t blindly borrow.
My married life has been spent negotiating common ground between three disparate cultures: India, Pakistan and America. Our children, second generation Americans with a Pakistani American mother and Indian born father exemplifies the paradigm that we are all going to have to accept in the coming years.
I boarded my first international flight at nine months old and have been visiting the “homeland,” or somewhere in the vicinity, almost every year since then. But, like Kipling hoped for his compatriots, the essence of my heart remains constant.
I don’t have two cultures, I have one. An American one.
Because America incorporates everyone’s culture, it affords its citizens the unique opportunity to combine heritage and nationality in a relatively seamless way. Americans can be Muslim, eat daal, say Assalaamu Alaiykum to each other, and wear salwaar kameez and not be any less of an American than Joe Six Pack. Anyone who disagrees with that is, in my opinion, intellectually or ethically challenged. (Translation: A Jerk)
I’m not an ABCD (American Born Confused Desi). I was born American and will always be American.
I’ve found in my conversations with people from various backgrounds that everyone, to some degree, wants to know about other cultures. People generally want to respect and hold some level of understanding of others.
This blog exists to help you and myself find the answers to the questions we both might be too afraid to ask of people who seem very different from us. We could even find answers to the questions we don’t even know to ask in the first place. I don’t speak for any group of people, I offer only what I know to be real and true about the world I live in. It’s enough for me, and I hope that it will be enough for you.
If you’d like to contact me with constructive questions and polite criticisms, I’d love to hear from you.
Also, I am very generous with guest posts, so if you have a blog and would like me to write something for you, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’m terrible at saying no.
If you’re going to be nasty, just be advised that I’m not as forgiving as I am thoughtful.
Email me at faiqa[at]native-born[dot]com.
