Dude, You're Wrinkling My Brain

I sometimes forget that I'm a child of the East and a woman of the West.

I only notice how different I must seem to others when I travel out of town or meet someone new. And that's because of the questions, which is probably why I am so wary of meeting new people. I don't have to answer the questions if I avoid being introduced to you.

Me, India 2011, hands have henna and bangles. I was at Fatehpur Sikri

We try not to label people, that's what we say to kids. But we're humans, and we can't help it. We need to label things. Labels comfort us.

I'm kind of proud of how difficult I've made it for people.

When strangers first see me, they think one thing, and that one thing gets thrown out the window when I start talking.

I don't speak the way they expect me to speak. They expected something else based entirely on how I look.

I think I make them feel uncomfortably annoyed and maybe mentally irritated. They can't explain me. People wrinkle their foreheads when they see me for the first time. I've learned to delight in seeing that befuddled expression.

I imagine their brain centers are freaking out and a computerized voice is shrieking the warning: "ALERT! ALERT! DOES NOT COMPUTE. SUBJECT DOES NOT FIT INTO DEFAULT CATEGORIES. AWAITING ORDERS."

You see, they don't want to know who I am as much as what I am.It's not that I look weird (hell, maybe it is). It's because they have to put all their biases and prejudices on hold until they are certain what race I fall under.

Being the genetic hybrid that I am, I fit the look of several different ethnicities (is that a word? eh, now it is).

My left eye is distinctly Asian, but the right isn't as hooded. I have the moon-shaped face common in China, but I don't have the nose. If I turn a certain way, you could see the similarity I have with my Indian mother. But turned another way and I'm obviously somewhere exotic. Filipino? Or maybe Hispanic? No, Mexican? Portuguese? Hawaiian?

My vernacular doesn't help them. It probably confuses them more. They tried to teach me in ESL class but I got impatient with my R exercise (you know, rolling your Rs like a Spaniard?). I was 9 when I was able to speak English fluently, and that was all thanks to hours of Nickelodeon and reading a lot of books.

We moved South and I didnt have ESL anymore (I think GA school system was a downgrade compared to NJ).

So now, I speak strangely. The way I speak English is not the way I was supposed to speak it. It's a combination of street and old English. My mixed family exposed me to foreign and urban lingo all the time. The diction bank in my mind is run by a valley girl who uses SAT words randomly.

It's possible that I would utter the following sentence.

"Dudes, y'all might wanna cease your ratchet ass jabbering and be like the precedent of the change you like wanna see, na mean?"

LOL. I've seen their eyes. I know I'm wrinkling their brains. And tickles me pink.