“You don’t look like you belong here. Where are you from?”
The taste of the soup, the ice cream, the parmesan, the salads, faded away. That question, however, was the only thing I remembered.
“The vendors must have already been set up! Get out of the shower!” My mom yelled, in a rush to leave.
“The fair is going to last all day! We can go whenever we want!”, I yelled as I ran outside and joined Sara, my sister, on the couch. They ignored that, obviously.
“Mrs. Khan called. We’ll be heading to the carnival, and Miriam will meet us there. You guys have till five to roam around. Take twenty bucks on your way out, and at five, I’ll be at the entrance to pick you guys up.”
The Khans were Muslim and us, Hindus. The tension between India and Pakistan makes me wonder as to how do I still have Pakistani friends. My parents are very ‘chill’. They never selected friends based on the color of their skin, or any differences the society enforced that way.
As soon as I got out of the car, Miriam hugged me. She was a tall hijabi girl with green eyes. I was terrified of those eyes. I once ran away from her because they remind me of the eyes of cats on Halloween.
We waved our parents goodbye and rushed to the vendor closest to the entrance.
“Grandma’s Salads? Here, let me pay for you, okay?”
Miriam was an only child and thought of me as her sister.
“Nah, I’m good,” I replied. I got the caesar salad. The lettuce, the croutons, the eggs, the garlic, and the melting parmesan! Boy, I fell in love. All of the ingredients were so different: the colors, tastes, and origins, yet so crucial in making the perfect salad, kind of like America, you know?
My eyes then danced towards something right under the Ferris wheel.
‘Traditional Native American Art SOLD Here’
Native art at an Italian fair? That was interesting. Miriam and Tan went to look for the merry-go-round. I’m pretty sure Miriam is too tall for it, but I didn’t say that then. I love food, and so I walked up to this flashy vendor where bold letters read:
‘Borscht’
‘STROGANOFF’
‘Potato Okroshka’
I don’t travel much, but I knew that THAT was definitely not Italian.
“SIA!”, Sara yelled out my name so loud that everyone began staring at us. The sad look on their face gave it away: they had been rejected at the merry-go-round.
“What’s that?” Miriam asked as she took a bite of the okroshka.
“It’s Russian cuisine,” I answered.
“Where are you guys from?” A lady asked as she squinted at us, sipping her Mountain Dew.
“Princeton.”
“No, where are you from-from? Like, I am native to Connecticut, where are you from?”
“Parents, Georgia. Us, New Jersey.”
“No, you don’t look like you belong here. This is an Italian fair.”
I knew exactly what she meant. Belong. That word gave it away. Miriam wore a hijab and my sister and I, clearly brown, but really? “Belong”?
“We’re South Asian,” I said abruptly.
“What are you doing here?” She continued, oblivious to my distaste of her questions.
“Hey! Just leave them alone! Come over here, guys. Get your soups!” A man jumped to our defense. I knew exactly where she was getting at. I didn’t make much of it. Then, a very kind family escorted us to the ice cream truck.
“Is Italy a part of America?”, Ara asked as she licked her bubblegum popsicle.
“What? No, it is in Europe!” I exclaimed.
“Then how do they belong here and not us?”
No comments:
Post a Comment