American friends, please!

I really miss having more American friends. My group of friends is mostly Indian, with a few other international students. I love them and it's generally fine, but frankly it gets really tiring being the only person like me all the time. I guess I'm learning a tiny sliver of what it's like to be a minority person in a predominantly white environment. If you're a non-white American, you will probably laugh at this blog entry: my frustrations are ones you've probably dealt with throughout your life. For me, this has been an interesting and somewhat difficult process, being a minority!

There's many pieces to it, and every piece is little on its own. In order to eat dinner with my Indian friends, I have to eat around 9 pm. They often speak in Hindi; they try to speak in English when I'm around, but I still listen to an awful lot of conversation that I can't understand. I often have to defend American ways of doing things, like dating, modern medicine, kids not living with their parents after college/after marriage, women working, why charity is important, to name a few. Julie (American roommate) and I still flinch when we see dishes rinsed (no soap used) and put away as "clean". Indians speak English with an intonation that can come across to myself and other Americans as argumentative/yelling, so even a minor discussion can seem like a fight; Julie and I have tried to adjust to this, but it's so different from what we're used to that no matter how often they tell us, it's almost impossible to not get frustrated in discussions where we feel we're getting yelled at.

None of these things is too much on its own. On top of that, at school I'm with almost all Americans, and I have Julie, Steve and Jeff, and a few other American friends. So I keep telling myself it shouldn't be a big deal. Even so, it gets really tiring. All the little things add up to a lot of exhaustion, constantly adapting/defending/changing what I do in my group of friends. More often than I like to admit I end up feeling strange, out of place, or put down. Pretty often the American way of life is belittled, mocked, or put down, and it's hard to separate people's opinions about me from people's opinions about my culture. I appreciate the humility that comes from hearing outside perspectives on American ways, particularly since America tends to be a very prideful nation. But almost like backlash, I see the tables turn as non-Americans will put down almost any part of American life simply because it is "American" (and Americans are ignorant, stupid, narrow thinking, or selfish).

No matter how much I change or how much my friends love me, I remain an outsider among them. So long as I am the only American, there is no need for them to accommodate my preferences or ways of life. And I often really feel my uniqueness, different-ness, American-ness, and something along the lines of loneliness (not exactly lonely because my friends are my friends, but more like loneliness in feeling different, no matter what I do).

I now more than ever prefer a group that is a mix of lots of types of people. Then no one viewpoint, idea, or way of doing things can take over or be seen as "right". Then everyone is in the minority, so people can't feel strange/alone/attacked by a majority group. If everyone is out of place, everyone learns and everyone has to adapt. If we are all outsiders, then in a way none of us are outsiders. That's my ideal social world, strange as it may be.