American Born Confused Sikh

Is America Really the Land of the Free? For an immigrant coming to the United States of America from an underdeveloped country, yes, it is indeed the land of the free! My parents were two of those many of thousands of people that migrated to America every year. They obtained financial opportunities and freedoms in America that were not available in their homeland of India at that time. They made many sacrifices and tough decisions so that themselves and their future children could live with more freedom. Because of them, I was born and raised in the beautiful country of America and I have had a life full of freedom that I may not have had if my parents did not move. But, did I really have that much freedom? After all, what is freedom? If you ask an American, we will probably read you the first ten amendments from the Constitution. Although, we would probably have to google most of them because the general public only remembers the first two (myself included!) By memory, we will tel...

What are you? Who are you? Where are you from?  These questions of identity are things that all people and especially children of immigrants are always having to answer and question and redefine over and over and over again. How do we fill out those forms? What boxes do we check off? How do we explain ourselves to our white counterparts? Do we go by our nationality? Our parent's nationality? Our grandparent's nationality? Do we go by our religion? Do we go by our race? Are they all the same? Are they all different? Are race and ethnicity and nationality intertwined with each other? Or is race, ethnicity, and nationality completely separate from each other?  So, I was born and raised in America. But my parents were born and raised in India. So am I an American or an Indian? The country of India would like to claim me as an NRI (non resident Indian.) But if I have to go by my parent's nationality, does that mean that my parents have to go by their parent's nationalit...