Growing up on Staten Island, I felt as if I was living in a bubble, isolated from the diverse ethnicities and cultures, such as Hip-Hop culture, which was only a ferry ride away. However, this bubble enabled me to appreciate my culture and identity more. I am ethnically Pakistani, but I identify as Desi American: a group of people with South Asian origins, including Indo-Caribbean countries like India, Pakistan, Guyana, and others. This community was the first to introduce me to Bollywood dancing and offered me the beauty of interdependence through my dance community.Dance and music are two significant ways to connect with people from multiple cultures. People do not need to understand the language of the lyrics to feel the beat or dance in rhythm. Thus, a dance community will help foster an artistic flow of nonverbal communication. Dancing has always played a substantial part in my life: a way to have fun with my cousins while performing choreographed dances at weddings, to represent my culture at school through a Desi Dance Club, and to alleviate my anxiety and stress. Using dance as a mindful meditation technique allowed me to escape my everyday worries and use the endorphin release to create a healthier life. Being a New Yorker, living in a place known as a “salad bowl,” where different cultures maintain separate identities while merging into a single whole, I have been exposed to a great number of them. However, I fought to represent my heritage and stand out in this vibrant mix. The racist representation of desi dances in American media has always been people folding their hands and shaking their heads left and right. Knowing there was more to Bollywood dance than that, I would change the channel to Bollywood movies. My culture is still finding its place in New York, but with American shows like Never Have I Ever airing on Netflix, my culture is becoming more mainstream.  

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.