Adjusting to the South

This week we wanted to talk about how it is like to live in the South.

I've been living in the suburbs of Atlanta for the past 8 years. I moved to Atlanta from India. When my grandfather found out that we were moving to the southern part of the United States, he quickly mentioned the history of racism and prejudice against minorities in the South. At first, I didn't believe my grandfather. Then I came to Atlanta in September of 2002, a year after the tragic incident in New York.

On my second day of school in America, I went to P.E. class. I changed in the locker room and as we were walking to the field, a kid starts yelling from behind me. "Why are you here? We don't need y'all over here! Go back to where you came from!" I thought it would be a white kid. It wasn't; he was African American. I wasn't very happy with the comments. Later I thought to myself; maybe he thinks that I'm getting it easy whereas his ancestors had to go through a lot of struggles for their freedom. Maybe that's why he was so upset. These kind of thoughts raced through my head day and night for the first few months.

I was not used to seeing so much diversity in one place. In India, 97% of the people living there are of Indo-Aryan or Dravidian ethnicity (CIA). People looked at me like I was weird. I definitely dressed differently back then; tucked-in dress shirts, turtle necks, overalls, and everything. This was middle school and nobody dressed like that. My science teacher, who was white, always gave me complements about me wearing my overalls. I always wanted to know why they amused her and later I realized that some people in the South wear them. Slowly, I started getting accustomed to the culture of the American South.

It took me almost two years to get to the point where people didn't think I was different from them. I learned to see the interesting aspects of the South. I gained a liking for Southern food and some of the activities that Southern people enjoy, like watching and playing football. After living in Snellville, I've also picked up a faintly Southern accent.

It was hard to get over the diversity issue at first, but now I'm used to it and I like seeing people from different backgrounds here. After living in the South for almost 8 years, I feel as though I'm a Southerner. It took a little adjustment, but now I can't see myself living anywhere else.

Here is a link to the CIA World Factbook.

-Rajeev