Of Identity

Madihah Akhter - Overseas Officer

As one girl uses her pale yellow dupatta to dry her face, more tears spill from the corners of her big, brown eyes. I’m sure she was hoping they would go unnoticed, but the memory of her dead father was too much to bear. She cried silently in the corner of the conference room for 15 minutes before she was able to pull herself together.

I don’t exactly remember what I was doing when I was 11, but my more accurate guesses would fall along the lines of going to school, attending birthday parties on the weekends, and going to summer camp in the mountains to hike and swim. I had the fortune to go to school regularly and without fear of retribution. It was at that exact moment, on the first day of the retreat, I knew these girls would teach me infinitely more than I could ever learn in any university classroom or from any book. It had started no more than a few hours before I witnessed this 12-year old’s tears and I was already feeling humbled and unexpectedly fulfilled.

The day was August 14th and humbled though I was, I also felt genuinely scared about that evening. Following introductions, I would be expected to define what patriotism meant to me. How do I explain in words to these girls that I am a Pakistani-American? Bring born and raised in America has made me an American by default, although I prefer daal chawal to pizza or burgers. I, too, have wept in confusion at who I was and who I was expected to be. Pakistani expectations weighed heavily on my American shoulders.

On the night of August 14th, my answer would have been ‘pass.’ I was scared to share my background with the girls, horrified they would giggle amongst themselves in their rooms at night at my accented Urdu and incorrectly conjugated verbs. In retrospect, my answer should have been that I am Pakistani, just like they are. My mannerisms and colloquialisms may be American but I have always embraced the Pakistani in me- food, culture, music, language and religion. I’ve accepted the good with the bad and the easy along with the difficult.

Patriotism to me cannot be thought of specifically in regards to the US or Pakistan. Instead, I murkily define patriotism as taking pride in where you come from. I will proudly wear a shalwar kameez, criticize corrupt Pakistani politicians and pop a few of the world’s most calorically dense desserts, gulab jaamin, in my mouth after breaking my roza. I will also proudly defend the superb public education I received in the States from first grade through college, criticize the American government’s foreign relation policies and go to the drive thru for some fries to complement the gulab jaamin. My Urdu is a combination of what I’ve learned from my family and what I’ve learned formally in my Urdu class in college. I have yet to decide whether to lament over not being able to bribe cops in the US.

In short, I have learned to love the healthy medium I bridged between the Pakistani and American in me. My love for this bridge has allowed me to come to Islamabad and participate in the Swat Valley Girls Retreat with an open mind and, more importantly, with an open heart. The supposed dichotomy I felt all my life allowed me to discover the dichotomy within these young girls. The same eyes that shed tears for beloved, lost family members also sparkle with laughter and excitement as they watch a hilarious play or peer curiously out from under a dupatta at the good looking musicians invited to play guitar in celebration of Pakistan’s independence day. Their eyes bring me comfort as they speak of strength, sadness, resilience and patriotic pride.