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The Clashing of Cultures

In “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?”, Geeta Kothari writes of her Indian family adapting to the American society. While she is an American, she struggles to decide what culture she wants to identify with: American or Indian. Rather than choosing between the two, she finds a comfortable balance maintaining her Indian roots as well as indulging in her American life.

Kothari’s article portrays the assimilation that people of ethnic backgrounds come across. What does it mean to assimilate and grow up in America? It means to be constantly facing the clashes of different cultures and deciding how to define oneself as a person.

The clashing of cultures is apparent when Kothari used food as a way to show her audience how her Indian culture is different from the American culture. “Although she had never been able to tolerate the smell of fish, my mother buys the tuna, hoping to satisfy my longing for American food. Indians, of course, do not each such things.” (Kothari, 21). Kothari used food as the metaphor to point out the contrast between Indians and Americans. Indians eat food that usually consists of the sophisticated uses of spiced and herbs, and is influenced by the practice of vegetarianism. On the other hand, Americans eat a cuisine that is milder and contains more meat dishes compared to the Indian cuisine. It is different in taste, smell, appearance, as well as texture.

Kothari’s “longing for American food” is evidence that she wanted to blend in with the American culture. This is further emphasized when she went on and explained that she “want[ed] to eat what the kids at school [ate]: bologna, hot dogs, salami – foods [her] parents find repugnant because they contain pork and meat byproducts.” (Kothari, 21). She knew that if she adapted to the American lifestyle, or in this case, ate American food, she wouldn’t seem so much like a foreigner amongst her peers. Kothari understood that if she wanted to be accepted as an American, she would have to eat like an American.

At the same time, Kothari did acknowledge that she is in fact of an ethnic descent. She describes a scene where her mother talked about her native land as a “safe place”. Kothari’s relatives in India are accustomed to Indian food because it was what they grew up with. However, when Kothari ate an authentic Indian meal produced by her uncle’s diner, she couldn’t handle the heat of the spicy foods and later on, threw it all up the next day because it had made her stomach upset. Kothari expressed that she was dismayed that she wasn’t able to digest the Indian food because in India, she wanted to be accepted by her family. She was afraid of being singled out as the “foreigner” in the country that her ethnic background resided in. “I cry over the frustration of being single out, not from the pain my mother assumes I’m feeling as she holds my hair back from my face… At that moment, more than anything, I want to be like my cousins.” (Kothari, 24). She was ashamed that she wasn’t presenting herself as an authentic Indian. She was disappointed in herself that she couldn’t blend in like her cousins. Kothari wanted to show that she belonged to her Indian heritage despite the fact that she grew up in America.

Because Kothari was exposed to these clashing of cultures (life around her peers and life around her family), she had to decide for herself whether she wanted to be an American or an Indian. She wanted an identity that she could categorize herself as. She didn’t want to appear as a stray from either cultures: she wanted to fit into both.

Though Kothari did assimilate to the American culture, she managed to maintain her Indian culture as well.

Now I worry that this antipathy toward dal signals something deeper, that

somehow I am not my parents’ daughter, not Indian, and because I cannot bear the

touch and smell of raw meat, though I can it cooked (charred, dry, and

overdone). I am not American either. (Kothari, 29).

It would mean becoming, decidedly, definitely, American – unafraid of meat in

all its forms, able to consume large quantities of protein at any given meal.

My willingness to toss a living being into boiling water and then get past its

ugly appearance to the rich meat inside must mean to my mother that I am somehow

someone she is not. … But I haven’t eaten lobster for years. In my kitchen

cupboards, there is a thirteen pound bag of basmati rice… I am my parents’

daughter. (Kothari, 30).

Towards the end of her article, Kothari says with conviction that she is not just solely Indian but is also not solely American. She declared herself as an Indian-American. Kothari incorporated both American food and Indian food into her lifestyle. Though she did grow up in America and ate American food, she knew that she needed to preserve her Indian roots. Kothari thought this to be important because Indian food was one of the things that tied the relationship between herself, her parents, and her family members. She saw Indian food as a reminder of her childhood with her parents and a bond with her ethnic culture.

America is made up of cultural diversity and various backgrounds. It is rapidly shedding its “white America” image and emerging as a melting-pot of different cultures. As more and more people move into the United States of America, different people of different ethnic backgrounds find themselves facing the challenge of assimilating to the American culture, keeping the traditions of their ancestral heritage, or maybe finding a medium in both. Children of ethnic descent growing up in an American society encounter the question of personal identity: which culture do they belong in?