I Am An American, Not

In Traditional Hindu Families Like Ours, Men Provided And Women Were Provided For. My Father Was A Patriarch And I A Pliant Daughter. The Neighborhood I'd Grown Up In Was Homogeneously Hindu, Bengali-speaking, And Middle-class. I Didn't Expect Myself To Ever Disobey Or Disappoint My Father By Setting My Own Goals And Taking Charge Of My Future.

My Life Has Gotten A Little More Complicated Than My Ability To Describe It. That Used To Be The Definition Of Madness, Now It's Just Continuous Overload.

Ancestral Habits Of Mind Can Be Constricting; They Also Confer One's Individuality.

In Other Words, My Literary Agenda Begins By Acknowledging That America Has Transformed Me. It Does Not End Until I Show How I (and The Hundreds Of Thousands Like Me) Have Transformed America.

What Was The Function Of Poetry If Not To Improve The Petty, Cautious Minds Of Evasive Children?