What does it mean to be an American?

What does it mean be an Indian American/South Asian American?

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  I'm half-Indian (my dad was born in Lucknow) and half-Pakistani. I grew up mainly caucusing with the Pakistani-Americans, but I do have a large amount of Indian friends and acquaintances and that's really because of religion.  I'm apart of the first generation in my family to grow up entirely in the US so my answer might not be relevant for the younger second-generation that's probably now getting its start. The US is the only country I've lived in. I have lived in Florida, Kansas, California and Virginia. My dad also lived in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in the 1970s but that was before I was born. I was born in the mid-1980s. My first cousins live entirely in the US, some were born here and others were born abroad and later immigrated. Thanks to 23andMe I  found out that some of my distant relatives have immigrated from India to the US in the 1950s/1960s. So uniquely as a South Asian Muslim-origin male (the females usually will have additional/different things to say) from my life experience. Usually parents give their sons more leeway and freedom than their daughters. *Note that these things usually fall into a few buckets Restrictions imposed by culture/religion or just parents who are immigrants trying to figure stuff out. (-) Additional things you had to deal with or were obligated to deal with. (+) A lot of this depends on *where* you grew up. South Asians are not evenly distributed across the country. For example an Indian kid growing up in the NYC Metro area or the SF Bay Area will have a different experience than an Indian kid growing up in Wichita. I counted 18 South Asians in my HS class of 646, which seems to be slightly less than 3% and means that my HS class was more South Asian than the country as a whole which is slightly higher than 1%. Larger percentages usually allow for cliques to form. Things also depend upon *when* you grew up. Older people who were born in the 1960s or 1970s and came of age much earlier than I did, likely had a far different experience with less South Asians around and having things like less Indian stores or Indian restaurants. Also making international phone calls was expensive so you had situations where people did snail mail to their relatives or had limited conversations. What I'v seen: Extra-strict about grades. Dating culture and parents was awkward, especially the topic of school dances. Often times rebelling against parent's culture. I noticed my White friend's had pets growing up but this was far less common amongst South Asian kids. Growing up bilingual, learning Urdu/Hindi and English at the same time. Other kids would have learned Punjabi or Bengali or a South Indian language. Satellite TV began taking off in the late-90s/early-2000s so people can easily have news and content from back home now. Before this... my parents views and perspective about things were frozen in the 1970s. Having dietary restrictions and food restrictions was usually the sole barrier between me and other kids in elementary school. Pepperoni pizza is a popular kids food, but pork is a no-no. Growing up with a community and ending up with a second group of friends/acquaintances/contacts (the first one would be school) that you share a similar ethnic background with. We had dinner parties once per month or slightly more frequently in my hometown. I never grew close to any of my parent's friend's kids... But there is pressure however that we do grow close with one another. With this said, it'd be interesting to see what percentage of South Asian Americans rely on their community as their main source of friends and contacts. Parents encouraging kids to be doctors. I noticed a gap in understanding between me and my relatives abroad. They don't really see me and others in the US as "Americans of South Asian origin" but rather "South Asians who live in the US" and there is some friction on this point. The ABCD/FOB thing has roots in this. You're apart of a really tiny minority.