I had at first viewed the cognitive dissonance I experienced as strictly about Indian versus American identity, a gross oversimplification that reduced my understanding of myself—and of culture—to a monolithic set of immutable traits. I didn’t yet have the language to articulate the complexity of my feelings. My struggle to become my own person was complicated further by trying to understand what part my cultural heritage played in my identity, a heritage that was overshadowed by Papa’s expectations of me and underscored by our liminal place in American consciousness.
