Brown Girl Magazine
  • Home
  • Trending
    • In the News
    • Feminism
    • Politics
  • Entertainment
    • Bollywood
    • East-Meets-West
    • Filmy Buzz
    • Music
    • Cinema
    • BG Poetry
    • Good Reads
  • Culture
    • Social Activism
    • Breaking Taboos
    • Colonial Effects
    • Humanities
    • Identity
    • Indo-Caribbean
    • Tradition
  • Lifestyle
    • Beauty Buzz
    • Fashion
    • Foodie
    • Career
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    • Women’s Health
    • Clean Eats
    • Fitness 101
  • Relationships
    • Dating
    • Love
    • Parenting
    • Marriage
    • Sexuality
  • Community
    • BG Youth
    • Black Lives Matter
    • USA
    • United Kingdom
    • Canada
    • South Asia
    • Spotlight
  • Brown Boy
  • Listen
shop
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Trending
    • In the News
    • Feminism
    • Politics
  • Entertainment
    • Bollywood
    • East-Meets-West
    • Filmy Buzz
    • Music
    • Cinema
    • BG Poetry
    • Good Reads
  • Culture
    • Social Activism
    • Breaking Taboos
    • Colonial Effects
    • Humanities
    • Identity
    • Indo-Caribbean
    • Tradition
  • Lifestyle
    • Beauty Buzz
    • Fashion
    • Foodie
    • Career
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    • Women’s Health
    • Clean Eats
    • Fitness 101
  • Relationships
    • Dating
    • Love
    • Parenting
    • Marriage
    • Sexuality
  • Community
    • BG Youth
    • Black Lives Matter
    • USA
    • United Kingdom
    • Canada
    • South Asia
    • Spotlight
  • Brown Boy
  • Listen
shop
No Result
View All Result
Brown Girl Magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home Community Highlight

What Diwali Means to Young South Asian Americans Celebrating Away from Home

Brown Girl Magazine by Brown Girl Magazine
August 12, 2022
in Community Highlight, Culture
0 0
0
What Diwali Means to Young South Asian Americans Celebrating Away from Home
0
SHARES
1
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

by Sravya Tadepalli 

“Is Sravya coming home for Diwali?” my mom’s friend asked her.

“No,” my mom had replied, a little taken aback. “She didn’t consider Diwali to be a holiday you ‘come home’ for, like Thanksgiving or Christmas.”

The truth is, we haven’t really celebrated Diwali in my family since I was in middle school. Even when we were young, we never did more than fireworks and pakoras. My parents were just not into celebrating holidays.

Diwali is supposed to be a holiday celebrating the return of Lord Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana to Ayodhya after fourteen years of exile. But although that’s how I grew up understanding it, I’m not sure that’s how I understand it today.

In this Brown Girl News episode, I visit a college Diwali celebration and talk to students about what Diwali means to them. They cited the time spent with friends, new beginnings, and closeness with heritage. But I think I resonated most with the insight provided by Deepika, who said celebrating Diwali in college serves as a reminder of her ethnicity, heritage, and identity.

More than anything, religion and cultural holidays serve to help us identify and have a sense of belonging. Being Indian-American, we can never completely fit into either Indian or American society. Indians see us as Americans and Americans see us as Indians. Religion and religious/cultural holidays transcend national boundaries and borders to create political identities that help us to connect and find belonging where belonging is inherently unnatural.

To me, Diwali is more fun in college than it ever was at home. College is where I can spend time with so many other young South Asian-Americans who relate to me on the South Asian-American identity level. I can talk to my Indian-American college friends about being Indian and American and both and Hindu without discomfort. To me, Diwali is about belonging. Finding that space in between two cultures where everything fits just right.


sravya tadepalliSravya Tadepalli is a student at the University of Oregon studying political science and journalism. She is a proud Indian-American-Oregonian and grew up in a small town in the southern Willamette Valley. Sravya is passionate about theater, racial issues, and politics. She is also particularly interested in figuring out policy solutions to problems of social justice and political partisanship.

Recent Posts

  • Sun and Skincare: South Asian Beauty Influencers Share Their Summer Season Must-Haves
  • Kayan Opens up About her Music Artistry
  • Decoding Dopamine Dressing This Summer
  • In Conversation With Ashok Amritraj: Celebrating his 40-Year Legacy
  • Enduring the Fight for Freedom

Recent Comments

  1. Op-Ed: Rihanna, Savage X Fenty, and the Continued Misuse and Disrespect of Hinduism on Dark Goddesses and me: Religious Colorism in Hindu India
  2. Celebrating International Mother Language Day and Multilingualism on On Language and Home: Revisiting Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘In Other Words’
  3. What International Mother Language Day Means to British Bangladeshis on Celebrating International Mother Language Day with Self Reflection and Reclaiming One’s Bangladeshi Identity
  4. Book Review: Understanding Public Health on Deeper Level with 'Health Care of a Thousand Slights' by Anjana Sreedhar on Pursuing Inspiration: Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Health Care, and Self-Care
  5. Book Review: ‘ZOM-FAM’ by Kama La Mackerel on Grazing Over Pages of Identities Unmilked: ‘The Cowherd’s Son’
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Youtube Envelope

About

Founded as an online publication in 2008, Brown Girl Magazine is a multimedia company based in New York City with global reach dedicated to South Asian self-expression, cultural anchoring, and dialogue.
Through diverse, multimedia content and community building, we empower and engage those who identify as a part of the South Asian diaspora with a hyphenated identity.

Subscribe To The Spark

A curated newsletter full of dinner-table worthy topics, thought provoking stories, promo codes and the spiciest memes straight to your inbox.

Categories

  • Entertainment
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Health
  • Relationships
  • Community
  • Brown Boy

©Copyright Brown Girl Magazine Inc.

  • Company
  • About
  • Contact
  • Join
  • Advertise
  • Sponsored Content
  • Privacy Policy
  • Term of use
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Trending
    • In the News
    • Feminism
    • Politics
  • Entertainment
    • Bollywood
    • East-Meets-West
    • Filmy Buzz
    • Music
    • Cinema
    • BG Poetry
    • Good Reads
  • Culture
    • Social Activism
    • Breaking Taboos
    • Colonial Effects
    • Humanities
    • Identity
    • Indo-Caribbean
    • Tradition
  • Lifestyle
    • Beauty Buzz
    • Fashion
    • Foodie
    • Career
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    • Women’s Health
    • Clean Eats
    • Fitness 101
  • Relationships
    • Dating
    • Love
    • Parenting
    • Marriage
    • Sexuality
  • Community
    • BG Youth
    • Black Lives Matter
    • USA
    • United Kingdom
    • Canada
    • South Asia
    • Spotlight
  • Brown Boy
  • Listen

© 2023 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?
Go to mobile version