The True Feelings Of A Technical Immigrant

Raise your hand if you ever followed through on a New Year’s Resolution. Yeah no one, same here. No one follows through on their resolutions, at least not all of them.Trust me, this is fact; it’s in all the rom-coms I watch. (Okay, there like 10% of you reading this and thinking I followed through on ALL the resolutions, and all I have to say to you is: LIAR). New Year’s Resolutions (NYRs for short because typing the whole thing is really tiring) are great. Don’t get me wrong, have them, make like 10000000 resolutions, but when the end of the year rolls around, don’t get disheartened when you realize you’ve only accomplished one or two of those resolutions. In the spirit of the New Year, I thought I’d share my resolutions of 2015. Don’t Procrastinate: I am a known procrastinator. Ask anyone around me: due tomorrow means do tomorrow. I told myself that 2015 would be the year I got my shit together. And boy did that not work out. I’m pretty sure it was like three or so weeks i

Loving yourself: it’s a very simple idea. It may be only two words, but it’s the hardest battle you’ll ever fight. There’s no set way. There’s no IKEA instructions. Everyone’s got their own way of figuring it out. It’s extremely important to live a happy, successful life- to love yourself and everything about who you are. Loving your life is extremely important. But what is your life? What should you love? And what should you change? Love the people around you. Let’s face it- we’re stuck with our family. There’s no choice, so if we’re stuck, we might as well love them. Just because your parents don’t “understand” you, or your siblings tease you, or your cousins leave you out because you’re the youngest, doesn’t mean you should not love them. Love them with your entire heart. Love them until you feel they’re apart of you, because when they become a part of you, you start to love yourself. In that love, learn to respect them, because our elders have a lot to teach and advise us abo

I signed up on a website called twinstrangers.com. The website is based off the theory that there are 7 faces in the world, you have 6 other people who look exactly like you. It sounds weird, but there may be some truth to it. (I got this website through Buzzfeed.) So I decided why not, I’ve always wanted a twin. So I started. The website works through a series of filters such as face shape (heart,round, oval etc) and the same with other prominent features of your face (eyebrows, nose, and lips). Then it takes these filters and matches it with other people (in my case women) who have these same filters. You then go through and decide if twin or stranger. Pretty simple, right? So I decided to give it a go. The first couple of pictures didn’t look too much like me, maybe the same nose or the same eyes. Some looked like they could be me, but I wasn’t sure. I decided to go sit in front of the mirror and compare myself to them. I started to compare chin shape, did her eyes crinkle when sm

Let's talk stereotypes, racism, and growing up brown. Stereotypes. When I was little my family sat around the TV and watched the Simpsons together. You know the show with the weird yellow characters? That show was the first time I saw another brown person on TV. You know who I'm talking about; you can already hear his famous line now. "Thank you, come again". Apu. Apu with his doting Indian wife and multiple children. Apu who owns the local supermarket and lives in a cheap apartment building. Apu was the only other brown person on television at the time, and here is the foundation for brown stereotypes. Apu's accent became the "Indian Accent," and it really isn't a flattering nor accurate accent. Do you know why? Because Apu is voiced by Hank Azaria, born Henry Albert Azaria in Queens. He's literally the epitome of whiteness (I am not saying "white" is bad, I'm just saying this guy is white, not brown, hence an inaccurate re

There's a difference between pretty and beautiful. Pretty is wearing make-up, dressing nice, looking good. Pretty is what everyone else sees you as. Beautiful is much, much more. Everyone is beautiful. It doesn't matter what size, skin tone, height you are; it’s who you are that matters. Your contagious smile is beautiful, the way you light up the room is beautiful, your actions are beautiful. There's a problem that I'd like to discuss. There's a pandemic. It's serious. It's affecting everyone. It starts small, and it grows in your mind. At first, you don't realize it, but slowly, as it sets in, you'll begin to see it. Yet, it'll be too late when you realize it for what it truly is. You won't call out for help. You'll think you can handle it, but then, you're sitting by the toilet heaving up your dinner. You think no one will notice when you pass up eating your favorite lunch. Before you know it, you're part of the affected.

As many of you may know, AP exams are going on, and I’ve just completed a whole week of extremely stressful testing. The only reason I probably did not have a complete mental breakdown was because of coffee and my mom but mostly because of my mom. For the past week, I would come home from hours of testing to cramming for the next test, complete mental exhaustion as well as physical, and the only thing that kept me going was my mother and her magical hug. Thank you, mom. Thank you for your comforting and securing hug. Without it, I think I’d be broken. Recently, my mom told me something that I thought was funny at the time, but looking back on it, its probably the best thing anyone has ever done for me. My mom told me on the nights of my exam, she would wake up in the early morning completely stressing for my exam. Just that one little act made me realize how important my mom is. It makes me realize how many things she’s probably done that go unnoticed and unthanked. Our mothers st

The longest battle, the hardest war, the most trying debate, the worst competition: whatever adjectives and nouns you use, it all revolves around the argument of: Parents vs. Kids (mostly teenagers). Disclaimer: I love and respect both of my parents immensely. Parents and their children seem to butt heads more times than infinite, especially at the ages 13-19. Being in the prime age of 17, I feel myself to be fully qualified to discuss the battle of Parent vs. Kid. At this point in life, we begin to argue and disagree with our parents for several reasons. (1) We're annoying brats. (yeah I admit it, I can be an annoying brat) (2) Mainstream media has taught us that this is what you need to do (EVERY DISNEY SHOW EVER). Finally, (3) We're beginning to form our own opinions and thoughts. We no longer free ride off of our parents. Here's where the real problem lies. Our opinions and thoughts are formed from our surroundings. We form ideas from the things that impact us

Location: St. Paul-Minnesota International Airport Date: Sunday March 22, 2015 Time: 7:18PM Emotional Status: All the emotions One thing technical immigrants are really good at is fitting 365 days of love and togetherness in just a few short days. Days with family are extremely predictable. Day one: Meeting everyone, happiness all around, and lots of hugs. Day two: waking up in the excitement of being together, starting the day of events; then, the next couple days are the same- loud, chaotic, and a little overwhelming. The last day, the most dreaded day, is always full of sadness (at least for me, some people are probably super happy). I have a very tough time leaving my family, especially the older members. The older family members are some of the best people to be with. They teach the best life lessons, the best advice, and give the best hugs. It's hard to apart from all of this. Sitting in the airport, I'm reminded of the first time I went "home". It

Familia. In the western culture, family is a few choice people: siblings and parents while extended family consists of grandparents and first cousins; then, there are the distant relatives: second cousins who are once, twice, thrice removed. However, in eastern culture, family is all of the above. It's very simple. Your cousins are your siblings, and there is no differentiating between first and second cousins. They are equally loved and respected. Family is very important in this culture. For example, many families live together or close by. In America, it is strange for a child to live in their parents home past 18, but in my family, it is only logical. Here, many parents are put into assisted living homes whereas in many other cultures, parents live with their children. For technical immigrants, this is one aspect of our parents’ culture that we take-with some modifications ofcourse. We live with our parents, and we promise to take care of them when they need it. I

T echnically, I'm an immigrant. I say technically because I never truly migrated; I was held in someone’s arms who did migrate. Technically, I'm an immigrant. I'm not the only one out there. Actually, there are a lot of us whose parents migrated from their mother country to this new fast paced, modern one. Us technical immigrants live a very confusing life- a life pulled into two. WARNING: Cliche stories and ideas but mostly true. Language. Most of us are at least bilingual; some people even spoke another language before English, and though it's great that we can switch languages halfway through a sentence, we're also made fun of. No, not by the native-English speakers, by the people "back home". Over time, living in our new country, we've developed an accent (an accent which I am proud of) that impairs us from pronouncing certain words right. Not on purpose but because we were never taught how to form those sounds. Let's say we can get the