Disclaimer: before you start reading any of this, I need you to know that I have had a very privileged life with a lot of support and love from my surrounding. This post isn’t about the unfortunate life of a brown girl, but about how I coped with the cultural differences, familial pressure of embodying someone I never was and mainly about how my loved ones have learnt to accept me for who I am.
We are first generation immigrants from Bangladesh. We moved to Canada when I was about 3 years old. With my parents’ courage and strength to move to a completely foreign place, also came their resilience to let their values and culture go.
Growing up, this aspect affected me immensely, because for every argument I was told that, there was a “them” and there was an “us”.
Ivy, they are “bideshi”, we are “Bengali”.
Ivy, they can go for sleepovers, Bengali girls do not sleep away from home.
Ivy, they can do an after-school science program, Bengali girls do not stay out late.
Ivy, they can go to prom, Bengali girls don't.
I was I was put on a strict regime where all my friends were able to experience normal childhood lives, and I was to embody the persona from a country I had little memory of.
As a child, there was little I could do apart from crying and being miserable. Growing into rebellious teenage-hood, things got a little different. You see, I learnt the art of lying, or so to speak. Rather than going to the mall after school, I was spending time after hours with my school friends. Going on a weekend biking trip? I’ve heard it was very educational.
Of course there were many heated arguments, and I was told no for most things. But for every argument, my boundaries loosened bit by bit. It was hard to have open and honest conversations, but it was still important for me to make my parents understand, in any way that I could, that these experience are essential for me to develop and grow as a Canadian-Bangladeshi woman. I told them that they can’t stop me from making mistakes, but they can be there to help me through them.
Slowly, my parents started understanding that these boundaries were doing more harm than good to our relationship and myself. So slowly, they started gaining trust in me, and slowly I started trusting them. I still do not live the life of the average Canadian girl. There are still many values my parents and I will never agree on.
Regardless, I find myself very grateful to have been able to fight throughout my childhood. It has made me more accepting of failure, thought me how to find a common ground, and helped me see obstacles as opportunities.