America the beautiful

Growing up, America came to us piecemeal. America was scratchy vinyl crackling in our tiny Bombay two-bedroom. Papa liked Frank Sinatra and Ma liked Don McLean. America was cowboy movies and “Friends” reruns. A montage of NYC skyscapes and Clint Eastwood. In the late ’90s, Papa did a program at Carnegie Mellon and brought back a blonde doll. America smelled like strawberries and said, “I love you,” with a lisp and a Texan accent. I named her Bouncy and ignored the inconspicuous label in the seat of her pants that read “made in China”.

Papa also brought stories. Stories about a magical land where strangers stopped in the street to say good morning. A land where, if you worked hard enough, you could be and do and love whoever and whatever you wanted to. A land of golden opportunity, he said, where it didn’t matter what you looked like, or where you came from, or how you prayed. All that mattered was what you did. In essence, a land that India had tried and failed to be for the better half of a century. So, I kept watching “Friends” reruns, and I decided that I would go to America. I would go to America, and when I was done figuring out precisely what I wanted to do, I would do it unabashedly.

Then, one quiet night, three months before my 10th birthday, my 13-year-old brother exploded out of our Chennai living room, frantic.

“Ma!” I remember his voice cracking. “Someone’s attacking America!”

I didn’t know what the World Trade Center was, nor did I really care. But I could tell something sacred was broken. Something untouchable had, by a grotesque turn of events, been touched. Instead of “Friends” reruns and golden opportunity, America was now “visa restrictions” and “ethnic profiling.” Instead of Sinatra and McLean, all we heard were “randomized security check” horror stories.

They said that America was different now. America was scared. America had trusted and loved the world, but the world had stabbed America in the heart, so now America would be careful whom she chose to trust and love. It mattered what you looked like, they said. It mattered where you came from. It mattered how you prayed. So, 10 years later, when I stepped off a plane and into the immigration line at JFK, I was nervous. I sandpapered my accent to seem as un-foreign as possible. I nodded and laughed when people made cultural references that I didn’t understand. I did everything within my power to blend right in. I wasn’t risking my American ideal for anything, so I played the ideal American.

Then I came to Columbia.

Here, instead of suspicion, my accent elicits curiosity. Instead of having to hide where I’m from and how—or whether—I pray, I’m respected, engaged, and often approached by strangers to talk about precisely those things. Instead of being hindered by being “different,” I am constantly forced to re-evaluate what the “norm” is. At Columbia, I found the America that Bouncy was from, not the America that the news channels warned me about as a nine-year-old. At Columbia, I found an America in which being “made in China” doesn’t preclude anyone from being anything that they choose to be.

So, yes. Columbia is, indeed, an American university. Columbia is a trusting, loving, American university­, one that gives the rest of America an ideal to learn from. Columbia is an American university because, here, strangers stop each other just to say good morning. Columbia is an American university because, here, if you work hard enough, you can be and do and love whoever and whatever you want to. Columbia is an American university because, here, it doesn’t matter what you look like, or where you come from, or how you pray. All that matters is what you do. Columbia is an American university because, here, when you’re done figuring out precisely what you want to do, you can do it.

Unabashedly.

The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in creative writing.