So who gets to belong in today’s American South? It’s a question we need to answer

“I’m not even going to try this name. It’s spelled A-D-I-T-I?”

I was on a Zoom meeting with 30 of my peers, waiting to be introduced, and I could feel my face get hot.

I felt both minimized and embarrassed, as if the facilitator’s lack of willingness to try to pronounce my name was somehow a problem I had caused.

With that feeling of discomfort in my mind, I had to quickly react.

After I unmuted, I ended up asking the facilitator to practice saying my name with me before the meeting continued.

Painful memories

It has taken years to get to this point.

During these moments, I think about how unfeeling kids at school would purposely mangle my name, distorting it constantly without consequence.

I reflect on how badly, as a 10-year-old, I wanted to change my name to Samantha like my favorite American Girl doll — and how I unsuccessfully begged my parents for months to agree to a name change.

I think about all of the times that adults I have met in my personal and professional lives have teased me for having a name that sounds like “oddity” — and have given me unsolicited advice to only go by my first name or drop my maiden name.

And it is these moments that remind me how much South Carolina has helped me discover pride in being a brown/South Asian woman with a “difficult” name.

Where do i fit in?

In a largely Black and white landscape I have always struggled to figure out where I fit in and how I should define myself.

Am I Asian American or South Asian? Or both?

Am I “brown,” or is this phrase typically used to describe the growing Latinx community in our state?

Am I a person of color, or is that term colloquially reserved for the Black community?

Even with all of these questions, it’s a uniquely exciting time to be brown in today’s American South.

More work to do

As South Asian representation on the national and state political stage has increased, I find people reckoning with us, the “other.”

We are a group that is too small of a population to count in the data that is collected — e.g. the U.S. Census, voting trends, polls, etc. — across South Carolina. Yet we are also a group that is too distinct culturally, religiously and politically to be ignored.

And in return I find my otherness, whether it is my name or the color of my skin, has in most settings slowly but surely become a source of honor.

It has become a way to tell the story of who I am.

While the majority of conversations that I have engaged in about my identity have come from a place of genuine curiosity and enthusiasm, there is more that can be done to help bring us a sense of belonging in the state we call our home.

Understand the impact

We have to understand the profound impact that seemingly harmless jokes about our names have on our identity as perpetual immigrants, and therefore outsiders.

We have to recognize that while South Asians cannot speak to the historic impact of slavery, they can certainly relate to experiences of racism and discrimination in schools, communities and the workplace as non-Black people of color.

Most importantly we must shed our stereotypes about South Asians.

For every brown doctor, there is a brown artist.

For every brown person who attends church, there are several brown people who attend temple or the mosque.

For every brown person who immigrated here, there are brown people who have never known anything outside of the United States.

A simple question

I recently started reading “A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South.”

The editor of the compilation, Cinelle Barnes, asks this important question:

“Who is allowed to belong in the American South?”

That is a question I pose to all of you.

Who gets to belong?

If we as South Carolinians are known for our hospitality, our history and our diversity of communities and cultures, can we truly ensure that brown people living and working in our state feel that they belong?

Is it possible to see people like me welcomed as one of our own and not something new or exotic? Is there space to build new communities and networks for us to be included and accepted?

I think so.

And it starts with simply asking this:

“I want to get it right. How can I pronounce your name, Aditi?”

Aditi Srivastav Bussells is a public health researcher and advocate who lives in Columbia with her husband and two dogs. She received her PhD from the University of South Carolina. Follow her on Twitter @aditisrivastav.

This story was originally published October 23, 2020 at 12:38 PM with the headline "So who gets to belong in today’s American South? It’s a question we need to answer."