Page 31 - Provoke Mag Vol6

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to America as students or on H1-B work visas, which require a university degree and place of residency.
An invitation to opportunity and potential wealth comes with perhaps arrogance of entitlement despite the background of humble beginnings when not mind- ful of your surroundings. History has told the story in comparison in attitudes to the child that is raised with everything with zero discipline will very possi- bly squander the riches given. The child that works for provision acquires the training to become successful. The child that dreams of one day having arrangement creates the roadmap to developing discipline in living and obtaining a successful life.
Our understanding and lack of knowledge of what we perceive as cultural norms dictate the category we place the child. History would have us discriminate the difference within each child based on their color and perhaps their socioeconomic status. This type of thinking is full of judgment, based on stereotypes, and is wrong. When this is the case, all youth suffer from this type of narrow mindedness as they grow up with backward thinking and develop a hatefulness amongst their peers that become a burden later to be unlearned. What happens when the combination of multiple cul- tures merge? Purvi Parakh shares her personal story of triumph in discovering who she became on her journey as a woman dropping the expectations of an Indian woman living in America. Lifting the weight of bondage placed on her by ancestry uncovered the greatest gift anyone could ever have, freedom. Telling the story of what it is to be apart of the Indian culture words such as strict, conservative, and sheer lack of the feminine beauty threaded the seams of her quilt connecting her 8-year-old mind to her new home, in a new country with diverse belief systems. The thoughts of the elders are not as readily pliable as the thoughts of the mind of an 8-year-old. Across the world in a new discovery of cultural norms, expectations, social dis- plays of nuisance enslaved her to what was expected and what she would become.
Fast forward, getting through grade school, years of college, surviving familial expectations of what it is to be successful. With the degrees, fancy clothes, tons of makeup, six-figure management position, and the hus- band. According to the All-American Standards, she made it. The price of maintaining it was not one she is willing to pay. In achieving the American Dream, she discovered it’s all superficial. Fake smiles, shallow relationships, overweight, and unhappy people are not what she envisions as a success for her life. If climbing
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