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Boston Globe

I don't know if I'm proud to be an American. But I am grateful.

When I was 4 years old, the night before my ballet recital, my dad panicked when he realized I needed to wear makeup and have my hair in a high bun. We drove to a Walmart near my town in Western Massachusetts, and my dad began methodically analyzing the makeup offerings. A sales associate spotted him trying to make sense of the difference between concealer, foundation, and powder — and which products were appropriate for his preschooler. Advertisement She knelt beside me, glanced at my dad studying a bottle of foundation, and said, 'Why don't we start with something simple — maybe blush.' Then she handed him a compact and added, 'This one won't look too grown-up.' Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Something similar happened when I was 8 and needed jeans, when I was 12 and shopping for my first blazer, and again when I was 17 and buying a prom dress. Each time, a patient sales associate helped my dad and me navigate the world of women's clothing without asking invasive questions or looking at me with pity. No one ever asked why I wasn't there with my mother. In India — the country my family comes from and a place I love deeply — it wouldn't have been this easy. A father walking into the girl's underwear section of a store with his young daughter would almost be taboo. Here, my dad has purchased underwear for me many times without a cashier batting an eye. Advertisement In much of the world, including Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, being raised by a single father comes with whispers, sideways glances, and assumptions about brokenness. In the United States, the only time I've been made to feel 'less than' was by the Indian immigrant mother of a high school classmate. Had I been born in India, I would have been so focused on proving to people that I am not broken that I might never have had the freedom to be myself. But here, in the United States, being raised by a single dad has not defined me. Neither has my Indian heritage. The fact that I proudly celebrate Diwali and Holi and love to eat Indian food has never made me feel different. When I was in preschool, my dad and I brought in Indian sweets and coloring sheets of diyas to explain what Diwali is. Most of my friends and teachers had never heard of it before, but they were excited to learn about my heritage. When the holiday came around again the following year, my preschool teachers greeted me with a 'Happy Diwali.' In high school, my friends — both Indian and non-Indian — and I would cook and eat Indian food together. We even started making a fusion dish — a pizza with a curry for sauce and spiced potatoes and pickled gooseberry for toppings. Advertisement Having others celebrate my heritage partly fueled my desire to learn more about it in college. For the first time, I signed up for a Hindi class and started attending weekly 'aarti,' a worship ceremony. This isn't to say people never make assumptions about me. People see that I am of Indian heritage and assume that I am premed and a math whiz. (Blood scares me, and I got a B in high school calculus.) Of course, there is still much progress to be made in overcoming stereotypes and biases, but neither being raised by a single dad nor being Indian has limited who I can be. Instead, my life has been far more defined by perhaps the most American concept of all: opportunity. My dad immigrated to Canada at the age of 16 in 1984 to attend high school and moved to the United States for college. He studied math, computer science, and German, and then worked in financial services. Next he decided to become an entrepreneur and pursued ventures in business analytics, macroeconomic research, and now AI. My dad has always made a point of exposing me to people with nonlinear career paths — those who decided in their 30s to attend medical school, left finance to work in early childhood education, or became entrepreneurs. We'd often watch 'Shark Tank' together, and every time someone started a business after an unexpected path, he'd pause the show and say, 'That's what makes this country great.' In many other countries, such as Japan, Germany, and India, switching paths isn't so easy. In India, for example, students choose a track in high school that locks in their future options. If you study commerce (economics, accounting, etc.), you can't apply to medical school. Meanwhile, I know people here who majored in economics and later became surgeons. Advertisement I love the United States because it lets people become who they want to be — regardless of their background, family, culture, or career. Not everyone has equal footing, but the majority get some chance. That is rare in most other countries. Yet my pride is tempered by the reality that America is making choices that threaten this ideal. Just this year, immigrants have been increasingly demonized, access to education for international students and domestic students with disabilities has been undermined, and research funding has been slashed. On top of all that, voting rights are being rolled back under the guise of security and freedom of speech is under attack. Despite these troubling trends, I still believe in the promise of this nation. This country's greatest strength is its capacity to elevate individuals irrespective of their background. From Alexander Hamilton, an orphaned immigrant, to Barack Obama, the son of a single mother, to JD Vance, raised by his grandmother in the Midwest, to Donald Trump, born into wealth in Queens — few places enable such different journeys to lead to the same summit. That, more than anything, is why I am grateful to be an American.