Excelsior

Issue date: 11/23/09 Section: Columns

Media Credit: The London Guardian Beating the Odds: Bengali women paying off microfinance loans.

It was the middle of Kindergarten when we were working on projects that described our ethnic heritage.  Most of my fellow classmates were drawing Italian, French, and Portuguese flags from European countries.  Sometimes pictures of meatballs or spaghetti, some ethnic food would appear on the paper next to stick figure human beings.  I looked down at my paper.  I didn't really know what to draw, or something I could draw that represented my Bengali culture.  I started with the flag which was easy enough, a green rectangle with a big red dot in the center.  I then started drawing myself with a brown crayon.  I tried to draw a sari on my self-portrait but it ended up looking like a loincloth. I figured I had drawn enough; I couldn't think of anything else that came from Bangladesh besides the flag and myself.

I brought the picture to my teacher.  She asked me where my family was from.  It was a little while before I answered "Bung-luh-desh", having a country of origin with so many syllables is difficult.  My teacher didn't respond right away.  It seemed that after a moment all she seemed to be able to say was, "Excuse me?" I repeated myself again; I thought that perhaps she didn't hear me correctly, or maybe I wasn't clear enough. "Bung-luh-desh". She replied, "Oh! Where is that country exactly?" This was a tough question in my five year old mind as I had hardly figured out the size of the United States. "Um….Asia?" Again, she shook her head as if understanding. I felt nervous. Did I just make up my country of origin? "I don't know much about that country. I guess I will have to look it up. Do you know how to spell it?" I felt a sinking feeling in my heart. First, I wasn't sure if the country I was from existed anymore, and now I was asked to spell the name of it even though I could hardly say it. "I….I don't know….I think it starts with a B…." I hung my head in shame. "It's okay." she answered, "We'll just have to ask your mom to spell it for us. I'll send a note home tonight."

Little did I know, this was the first of many long conversations about my country of origin. Growing up, it seemed like no one knew where I was from. If I described the location, I would get the answer, "Oh so you're from India", and I would have to start my cycle of explanation all over again. The one time in elementary school where someone finally understood where I was from was when they found a "Made in Bangladesh" sign on one of their T-shirt labels. He quickly found out that many of his clothing items were made in Bangladesh as well. Apparently, the only thing Bangladesh was known for was its sweatshops, which made dozens of items for clothing cheaply for many American retailers.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools