How Lucky We Are to Stand on the Shoulders of our Fathers
Driving through the cornfields of Iowa on a long road trip back to California hit me in an unexpected way. I had briefly thought about how the first place my father lived after coming to the US from India was Davenport, Iowa and that we’d be driving through it on our way back west. I didn’t think much about Iowa when I was a kid, I was just happy my father had chosen to settle down in Oregon instead.
But the moment our tires hit those long lean roads in Iowa, I was fascinated. My dad had been to this place so foreign to me. And come from another country oceans away. He arrived in Davenport, Iowa wearing a turban in the 70’s. I, like the rest of the country in the summer months of 2020, had been seized by Trump mania and not in a good way. After just having come from Northern Michigan whose beauty was juxtaposed with gaudily large Trump signs proclaiming he was their savior, I was shaken. California was the warm, soft bubble of acceptance I was used to, where people felt joy in diversity. Riding bikes around the stunning lakes in Michigan had inspired me yet their beauty wasn’t enough to displace the eerie feeling that around any corner, someone would hate me just for having brown skin.
And here, 50 years ago, to think my father had come, wide-eyed and hopeful to a land that may not have been happy to have him. And he had made a life here. He walked down the street in a turban and went to the grocery store and taught at the college, all while sticking out like a sore thumb. I found myself wondering how he felt in those moments as we drove through. Did people stare? Did he feel safe? Was the racism overt? Or did they hide behind fake smiles and say things behind his back? Did he ever fear for his life?
I found myself thinking about the immense amount of personal courage it would take to uproot your whole life, move to a completely different country half way across the globe and try to start a life in a place where people didn’t respect your education, your accent or the color of your skin. And to persevere. To be at the bottom of the totem pole, working odd jobs, when you were a bona fide doctor in your country, now, just trying to get through school again. I have been wildly unsettled by the blatant and sometimes violent incidents of racism in this country, boiling over in 2020 and 2021 and the thought of being somewhere very white in the 70’s wearing a turban, did something to me.
It made me think about how valiant and noble that quest was, how courageous someone would have to be to walk with their head held high, how much my father had to have gone through and sacrificed for us. How I’m only here because he did that. Because he had the courage to come here and fight through the discomfort. I found myself wondering what he thought as he lived his days out on that land, if there were allies and friends. I wondered if he was lonely or hopeful or happy in what he had chosen. If he dreamed of what his future would look like. If he had any glimpse into the kind of freedom he would be giving us and what it would mean to us so much later.
It was dark when we actually passed through Davenport and I all but missed it. But the feeling clung to me. The wonder. I felt his presence there, his dreams, his hopes, his questions. I wondered what drove him to keep going. To have the will and the strong belief in self to make it through.
I found myself full of gratitude. Realizing I didn’t even know the extent to which my life had been built off the shoulders of his hard work, off the barrier-breaking efforts of a man determined to change his destiny.
I thought of all the things I’d been feeling apprehensive about, living in the US in 2020. I don’t even wear a turban. My modern clothes perhaps shield me a few percentage points. But I am wearing my brown skin and I can’t take it off. A skin I love and think is beautiful. But the clear marker of difference, one so many stereotypes have been fueled by. One that makes people think they know me.
And ever since the day Trump got elected in 2016, I wandered into public spaces, wondering how many people were on my side. I encountered a new feeling of sadness, of disappointment in the lack of progress in this society, of an audacious disbelief in the strength of a made up system against brown and black people that has no basis in truth. These feelings shook me. And made me love the ones who have struggled against this unjust system stronger and harder.
After graduating in Iowa, my father attended the Naturopathic and Chiropractic colleges in Portland, later teaching at both and serving as the Chairman of the board at the former. He became a well-respected doctor, helping many people with what ailed them, even helping those that couldn’t afford it. He fell in love with a beautiful white woman, got married and had a family with three children whom he labeled his three jewels. He planted and nurtured an abundant garden and handed out the biggest zucchinis on the block to all of his neighbors. He was generous and thoughtful and unfailingly bent toward the light.
When Obama won in 2008, it was one of only three times I saw my father cry. I know Obama wasn’t perfect but it was a symbolic victory for all who experienced discrimination and ill acceptance. It was an affirmation, that we all belong. My father had arrived with a dream and a strength that few have and became a beautiful beacon of perseverance and integrity, highly revered in the community. And it had all started here in this small city nestled amidst miles of golden-hued stalks and bloomed into a prismatic legacy.
