off with her head!!

    Growing up as the daughter of immigrants in the States, it was always reiterated to me that failure was not an option. So when I inevitably failed early on in life, what happened next?

    A lot of the time growing up, I would watch Indian girls in media who had the same upbringing as me, and I would feel an almost embarrassing amount of jealousy because I could never be them. I always struggled with math. I had the hardest time making meaningful friendships. I never seemed to succeed at the level they did. I wanted nothing more than to be the smart Indian nerd that everyone stereotyped us to be.

And so I tried to become her.

    I signed up for every advanced and AP class I could in middle and high school (rest assured, I could barely pass them). I did dual enrollment for the last two years of high school, taking about 50 college credits with me (I failed Gen Chem 2). I signed up for countless internships, research opportunities, and summer programs (I never got into any of them). And, perhaps the biggest failure of all, I didn’t get into my dream schools in California. UCSC, UCD, UCM, UCR, and SJSU don’t count.

    I’m saying all of this not to throw myself a pity party, but to say that it is, in fact, possible to be a failure, even when you look like me or grew up like me. Even in the ridiculously expensive suburbs of the Bay Area in NorCal. Even when everyone around you seems to have this very specific idea of what you’re supposed to become.

    I remember the first time I watched *Mean Girls* (the newer movie, yes, I know it’s trash) and saw Avantika play Karen. It was the first time I can remember seeing an Indian girl play a funny, carefree, genuinely dumb character. And I loved it.

    I want more representation like that because, honestly, it’s just the truth.  Not all of us can be ivy league grads curing world hunger, some of us have to hold it down in georgia state university. 

And some of us are going to be perfectly okay there.