Jadyn Daniel
Throughout my childhood, I went to a predominantly white public school. Still, the racial comments didn't arise until sixth grade. As a kid, my mom had no time to pack me lunch, so I bought it from the cafeteria. Once I got to middle school, I begged her to send me Indian food for lunch because the cafeteria lunch was nasty. Indian food is what I grew up on; it was my norm, my everyday meals. At first, she said no, repeatedly telling me, “I’m sorry, but I have too much work,” or, “ Maybe tomorrow,” which I was ok with. However, January 12th was my last straw; the cafeteria served hotdogs that day. I got my lunch and sat next to my good friend Stephen. We were mindlessly droning about homework and classes when suddenly he turned to me, mouth agape, eyes full of twisted excitement.
“....What?” I say with a mouthful of hotdog and a worried tone.
“THIS DOG AIN’T COOKED!”
He continued laughing and cutting open the hotdog. The color was bright pink in some places. Immediately spitting the hot dog into the closest napkin, my face turning sour with disgust. I knew right then I could not do it anymore; I NEEDED a packed lunch. After that incident, I brought a packed lunch. Sometimes it was American food, like sandwiches, pasta, or leftover pizza from the night before; other times it was rice and chicken soup, dosa and chicken curry, or fish curry with roti. Normally, I would share my food with friends who would gladly eat it, but this day was different. I had sardine curry and roti.
Conversations about pets being mayors of states occurred as I mindlessly listened to my friends ramble their thoughts on the topic. Suddenly, one friend turned to me and made a snarky remark,
“ Your food looks like what I feed to my cat.”
I was a deer in headlights; no one had ever said that to me. I sat there and awkwardly laughed, hoping the attention would leave me, but another friend chimed in,
“OMG IT DOES!”
All my friends laughed and pointed, making the same snarky remarks about my curry. Their laughter rang like an amplified speaker of laughter coming from every direction. It felt like I couldn’t escape, and the walls were closing in. When the bell rang, I was sucked out of my trance and forced back to reality.
That day, I threw my lunch out and vowed to never bring Indian food to school. My mom was confused about why I only took American food to school. I honestly think she felt hurt, but I decided not to tell her what happened. That incident followed me as I continued to grow. I finally got an understanding of how Indian people were perceived: unhygienic, weird, and having nasty-looking food. The ringing lunch bell became a constant reminder of these struggles throughout middle school. It made me cautious and disappointed to be an Indian until COVID-19.
During COVID-19, TikTok became a big social media platform. I was sucked into the constant watch scroll, watch scroll, watch scroll; it was crazy. One of the best things about TikTok was seeing others like me with the same culture making videos about makeup saying, "Is it brown girl friendly?” when testing foundation brands or food content creators showing the beauty of Indian cuisine or content creators reminiscing shared childhood experiences of our food being called cat food or us being called weird and unhygienic, turning it into a joke. These content creators showed me I should be proud of my heritage because it was the best part of my identity, the one thing I could always return to. Now, when someone makes a comment stereotyping or degrading my culture, I move on and ignore the comments because the only opinion on my identity that matters comes from me.