The Reason I Jump
write-alike by Gayatri

The Reason I Jump write-alike by Gayatri

My identity is a liminal space. I’m a liminal person. I fall through the cracks.

I am Asian-American. Capital letters included.

My father likes to emphasize that we are Americans. “I saw another Bengali yesterday,” I’ll say, in passing to my mother. He’ll pause from where he’s grinding his coffee and correct me. “They’re American.”

It used to bother me. It wouldn’t really make sense for me to say “I saw another American yesterday,” because you see Americans everywhere when you live in America.

But I think I understand now.

We are all liminal people, my family and I. My parents moved to America before I was born, as young grad students, ready to take on the world. They made a family here. They’ve lived longer here than they have in their birth country.

My father emphasizes the American part of his Asian-American-ness. It’s the only way he’s found to bridge the chasm between his two countries.

I’ve made a home for myself at the bottom. I don’t fit here. I don’t fit there.

But neither does anyone else.

My home is the people I love, with the liminal people who’ve raised me. We’ve made a culture of our own, one that’s borrowed and patched together in places, but fits around our shoulders like a weighted blanket. Maybe I don’t fit anywhere. But the chasm suits me. I am the hyphen between my culture and my home.

I belong where I choose to.