As part of SAMHIN’s mission to encourage open conversations about mental health and the challenges of dual cultural identities of second generation South Asians, we invited Suhana Shankar, a passionate advocate for mental health awareness, to share her perspective.
When people think of growing up in the Bay Area, they often imagine diversity. That wasn’t quite my experience.
I attended an affluent, predominantly white private high school in one of the wealthiest parts of the Bay Area. My parents chose the school because they wanted to give me every opportunity they could. They believed it would prepare me for college and set me up for success, and in many ways it did. What none of us realized at the time was the social and emotional impact that environment would have on my relationship with my identity.
Like most teenagers, I desperately wanted to fit in. But as I looked around, I rarely saw people who looked like me. Without realizing it, I started comparing myself to a standard that wasn’t built to include me.
Comments like, “you’re kinda cute for an Indian girl,” or “you don’t even look Indian— you look mixed or Latina,” were often meant as compliments. At the time, I accepted them that way. Looking back, I realize they sent a different message: that the less Indian I appeared, the easier it was to fit in.
The environment around me reinforced those feelings. Racist comments about Indians often felt normalized in ways that I didn’t see happen with other racial groups. I remember one friend group made up of one white boy and four Indian boys. The Indian boys were jokingly referred to as “slaves,” and everyone laughed. At the time, it barely registered to others. It was just another joke. Looking back, I’m struck by how casually these comments were accepted and how rarely anyone questioned them.
Over time, I started hiding parts of myself that felt “too Indian.” I shortened my last name because I thought it would be easier for people to pronounce. It sounds unbelievable to me now, but at the time it genuinely felt less embarrassing than introducing myself with my full name.
Perhaps the most painful consequence wasn’t what other people thought of me, it was what I started believing about myself.
To fit in, I convinced myself that I wasn’t like “other Indians.” I distanced myself from my own community because I thought that was how I would be accepted. I wasn’t ashamed of being Indian in the sense that I wanted to reject my culture. Rather, I had absorbed the idea that the less visibly Indian I seemed, the easier it would be to belong.
For years, I assumed these feelings were simply part of growing up. It wasn’t until I left for college that I realized how much my environment had shaped the way I saw myself.
In a new community, I met people who embraced their South Asian identities in ways I had never experienced before. For the first time, I began to wonder whether being Indian wasn’t something to minimize, but something to be proud of.
I didn’t know it yet, but college would completely change my relationship with my culture, my community, and ultimately, myself.
By Sahana Shankar
Undergraduate student studying psychology, aspiring to pursue a mental health career, and a dedicated SAMHIN volunteer
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Hi Suhana – I am a first generation Indian American who was born and raised in NJ, and grew up here in the 80s and 90s. I have seen the massive growth of our community post 2000 all over the US. My parents came in the mid-70s to NYC. My nephews are the second generation of our family here in the US. Their father is white so they are mixed race Indian American.
You wrote an excellent piece, but I have a different side of it that I would like to share from my own experience.
The Indian immigrant community has grown in huge numbers with well established ones all over the US. In some ways, it is absolutely wonderful to have people of the same cultural background living together, celebrating and preserving our culture. We have shared values and a way of life so it can foster a sense of belonging and be in community with others. But at the same time it creates deep insularity and segregation to the point that many Indian kids are not getting exposure to people of other cultures and backgrounds in a multi-cultural society like the US. Someone told me they knew a US raised Indian kid from Edison who was so cut off from other non-Indians that he did not know what the Italian dessert a cannoli was!
Is living in an Indian community a guarantee that you will find acceptance and belonging? Not necessarily. I have observed the behaviors of our Indians from school age, to teenagers, college students up to adults and I have seen some really mean and exclusionary behaviors as well. Indians in the US are all about conformity and super competitiveness. They measure you by how successful you are professionally, academically and financially. You are heavily judged by very superficial standards. Many cannot see who you are behind this. There is also the assessment of how “desi” you are and how “American” you are. Based on all of this experience, I do not automatically think you can say our Indian people accept you fully as you are.
Again, this is just a sharing from my lived experience.
Hi Suhana, as a recent South Asian college graduate I absolutely resonated to your piece — being in college definitely exposed me to different ways of embracing and identifying with my heritage than I was typically used to. While I had grown up with a robust South Asian community, college allowed me to engage intellectually, and culturally, an opportunity I really enjoyed. Making friends with international students, attending school-hosted events like Sankranti and Diwali on campus, and taking classes in subjects like Sanskrit and mental health for varied demographics really helped me appreciate both my heritage and ways in which minority, immigrant communities connect with one another. I hope your undergraduate equips you with similar experiences and allows you to connect your coursework, personal experiences, and academic trajectory together, best of luck!