Colorful Palate: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience 9781531504595

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Colorful Palate

COLORFUL PALATE A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience Raj Tawney

AN IMPRINT OF FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS N E W Y O R K 2023

Copyright © 2023 Raj Tawney All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Visit us online at www.fordhampress.com/empire-state-editions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available online at https://catalog.loc .gov. Printed in the United States of America 25 24 23 First edition

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PROLOGUE

Have you ever seen color? I’m not just talking about skin tone. How about the food on your plate? Or the clothing you choose to wear each day? Do you ever consider the combinations of tones and tinges surrounding you, adjusting your viewpoint ever so slightly? When you look at another person, do you see their heritage(s) on their sleeves? Can you conclude another’s story at first glance? Our country isn’t simply black or white—it’s bright and bold and blended, a continually stirring, ever-evolving melting pot, a crosspollination of cultures, a sprouting of new generations composed of genomes and DNA deriving from around the globe. Each of us decides how we see, hear, smell, taste, feel, and embrace American life, through our own distinctive lenses. I was fortunate to be born into a family consisting of three vastly different ethnic origins—Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian—each complete with their own mouthwatering cuisine, long-standing traditions and values, historical legacies, personal plights, arduous odysseys, acts of rebellion, and impassioned feelings of both pride and shame. When I was a boy, however, I had a tough time figuring out who I was and where I fit in. As the latest U.S. Census data reveals a steadily evolving multiracial population, I believe many citizens who identify as “more than one race” feel misplaced within a society that promotes and demands definitive categorization. For a child coming of age in the 1990s, in the mostly white suburbs just outside of New York City, I had no idea I didn’t fit in until it was pointed

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out to me—at school by teachers and students, during social gatherings my parents dragged me to, and around kids my own age, all of whom looked nothing like me. My olive skin, bushy eyebrows, curly dark hair, and “foreign” name made me an easy target for teasing, bullying, and prejudices. I worked tirelessly not to let the perspectives of others define me. In fact, I grew defiant toward conventionality en route to exploring and understanding my own unique identity through my teenage years and into adulthood. From my attire to the music I listened to and created, to the misfits I hung around with, to whichever ethnic group I opted to reject or embrace at a given stage. In my own mind, I was a radical, but in actuality, I was completely lost. I was no vanguard, however, nor the first to break free from expectations and societal norms. My grandma Elsie and mom, Loretta, paved their own roads by marrying outside of their ethnic groups, ignoring their families’ wishes to squeeze inside of boxes and brackets created for them. I owe my noncompliance, as well as my love for food, to these two women. I absorbed their individual, interweaving journeys through intimate stories shared in the kitchen, as I played sous-chef to their culinary wizardry, these masters of wondrous cuisines that not only spanned continents but also came with their own personal histories attached, from succulent tandoori chicken to delectable arroz con habichuelas to scrumptious spaghetti and meatballs. And, beyond. Every lovingly prepared morsel became part of me. Over the hundreds of meals I helped prepare, then devoured, I discovered that cooking is only an accompaniment to life’s greater expeditions. Whether marinating meat or molding mounds of raw ingredients, I’d often ask how these collations came to be. More often than not, I was met with windows into the past, firsthand accounts about where these recipes derived from, how they were formed and for whom they were being made. The ability to create delicious fare for my family wasn’t just a duty for the grand ladies who had raised me; they were survival tactics for navigating new and unknown cultures, not always willing to accept them at first or even a hundredth glance. Never deterred, they tried mightily to fit in. My dad, Roop, and brother, Ravi, also assisted in my development. In our contemporary civilization, where imperfection in males is deliberately sought out—especially those living in racially and ethnically gray areas, where they’d rather us not be seen or heard from at all—these two each made their way in life and compromised for no one, sometimes frustratingly so. However beautiful or flawed a man is perceived on a given day,

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true strength remains invisible and is built over time. What I’ve gained from them isn’t necessarily tangible, but their vigor lives inside of me. Only now, as I look back on those formative years, can I see how defining those seemingly small moments were to my own sense of realization and belonging. And I’m still trying to figure it out to this day. So, what am I? A magnificent concoction conceived at a pivotal period in late-twentieth-century America. This is my tale of the mixed experience, one of millions that rarely get told, undefined by a single group or birthright, and unapologetic about its lack of classification. This is Colorful Palate.

Colorful Palate

Chapter 1

I knew there was something different about me when I was five years old. Half a decade on Earth. I couldn’t yet tie my shoes or spell my name, but it was already clear that I wasn’t like the other children on the playground, in my classes, on my neighborhood block, at social gatherings I was lugged to by my parents, or even as I ventured out further into the great wide world. I learned early on that, aside from my older brother, I was alone. I looked like nobody else, my name was unusual, and my multiple cultural backgrounds were too varied to fit inside one box. An outsider already, I’d spent decades searching for crumbs left by others in an effort to understand who the hell I am. As an individual, a son, a brother, a friend, a husband, an American, a human being on this planet. At the tender age of five, I was just beginning to formulate my identity. I wasn’t smitten with video games or sports or other frivolous activities that distracted most of the other children I knew. I preferred to generate my own fun using my brain and two hands, digging holes, teleporting to unknown lands underneath tablecloths, making cities out of cardboard boxes, re-characterizing all of my action figures and giving them new identities and backstories. I wasn’t interested in preconceived creations designed by other people. I wanted to breathe life and meaning into inanimate objects. I liked the idea of control, shaping and molding an original personality out of the teddy bear on my bed, a rock in our back yard or the mop in our closet. Maybe it was an innate instinct passed down to me from my parents. After all, they had created me. They’d decided to defy

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the conventionality taught to them by previous generations and introduce a new breed to a world that may not have been ready to accept and embrace it outright. When an Indian immigrant from Mumbai married a Puerto Rican and Italian American woman from the Bronx in 1981, how the hell did they think they’d be received? With open arms and minds? Love between two people is powerful, but not everyone can accept an unfamiliar mixture. The great experiment that is the United States has not been without its growing pains. I can forgive my mother and father their love-stricken hearts and subsequent wedlock. I can try to look past their families’ inability to accept their concocted kids. I can ignore ignorant individuals I’ve encountered—those small-minded simpletons who can’t see beyond stereotypes and status quos, as stupidity and stubbornness have no color barriers, age limits or IQ cut-offs. But as a little boy, I knew somehow that I was entering a world that wouldn’t easily digest me, that couldn’t possibly see life through my eyes, full of a rainbow of colors, flavors, aromas, faces, and perspectives. I had no choice but to either champion my individuality or assimilate, hoping no one would notice my apparent differences. I took the more arduous path. I was looking forward to my very first day of kindergarten. I’d done the hard work of making it through pre-school, a small building in the center of the enormous parking lot of Suffolk Community College, where my mom was studying to become a registered nurse. She’d decided on this professional path a few years earlier, after spending a year rushing me to and from the hospital where most of our time was spent in the ER and pediatrics ward. At one year old, I contracted malaria following my first and only trip to India. Mom had been to her husband’s homeland a handful of times by then, even before my older brother, Ravi, was born, when she was an ambitious secretary in the travel agency business right out of high school. Her dreams of working in Manhattan, among the important people in fancy dresses and suits, as well as exploring the world, had paid off early on. Vigorously saving most of her paychecks and pouncing on discounts her office received, she managed to visit dozens of countries before turning twenty. Her own mother had left the tri-state area only once, in 1969, when she took my mom and her sister Lizzie to San Juan. Although never boastful, Mom was worldly and curious about cultures beyond her own. When she married Dad at twenty-two, they’d planned to journey around the world together, and for a while they did, but that stopped after they had Ravi and me. Our arrival earned Mom a couple more trips to his motherland so

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that his parents could meet their grandchildren and the American girl they wished he hadn’t married. Upon leaving for that final venture, I was too young to receive vaccinations, leaving my infantile self with no protection except a mosquito net at night. Once we returned to the States, I began developing rapid, high fevers. After several months of being poked, prodded, and tested without any detection of malaria actually appearing in my bloodwork, the woman who gave me life was close to losing her second child. The nurses who looked after me kept her spirits up, through their strength and kindness. They covered her in blankets as she fell asleep next to my crib at night and paid extra attention to my well-being. When my dad’s cousin—a doctor in Nevada who’d earned his stripes by treating malaria patients in small, remote villages back in Southeast Asia—finally convinced local doctors to treat me for the disease, I started to feel better. The whole experience must have put a strain on my parents’ union, but, more important, it instilled a desire in my mom to care for others in need. She’d study at night and drop me off at the pre-school parking lot during the day while she attended classes. The campus sat on the border of two Long Island towns, where an invisible line of segregation existed between the predominantly middle-class White residents of Commack and the largely working-class Black and Hispanic residents of Brentwood. My family lived in Commack, having moved out of Elmhurst, Queens, only a few years earlier because my mom couldn’t stand the gangs and drugs. Luckily, in only one year, their tiny two-bedroom house had soared in value, thanks to hungry developers, and they sold it for double the price they’d paid. My parents moved us out to a safe suburb in the dead center of Suffolk County, so their children wouldn’t have to be raised amid violence and crime. In the days leading up to that first day of school, I decided I’d make a strong first impression. I’d seen my dad leave the house each morning in clothes vastly different from the t-shirts and jogging pants he sported on weekends. On weekdays, he looked dashing in the few suits he owned. I loved watching him get ready for work. He was an industrial engineer for a heating equipment company in Long Island City. It wasn’t a glamorous job. He wasn’t gyrating in the streets as his Bollywood idol, Shammi Kapoor, did during dance sequences, but he dressed as if he had the right to. Before changing out of his pajamas, he’d stare at himself in the mirror for a few minutes, as if trying to shake off the early-morning grogginess. Lathering his cheeks and neck with shaving cream, he’d stand at the bathroom sink, scraping the white foam from his light-brown skin, taking slurps

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of light-brown coffee from his white mug in between every few razor blade strokes. The distinct differences in colors—from cream against skin, to liquid floating in ceramic—stood out to me. The crisp, clean dress shirts he unwrapped from plastic, that my mother brought to and from the Koreanowned dry cleaner up the street every other week, never seemed to lose the presence of permanently stained yellow armpits. They smelled like the inside of a moldy laundromat, a scent I liked. After a few pats and dabs of aftershave lotion and cologne, he slipped on his suit jacket while a loose tie waited to be knotted. In planning for my first-day outfit, I went shopping with my family to search for attire that would offer a strong impression, the same way Dad’s ensembles reflected his perceived confidence. We headed out to the Long Island Arena, a sprawling flea market that was home to a canyon of independent booths offering virtually anything, from boom boxes to microwaves to the latest knockoff or handmade fashions—all at bargain prices. Long Island Arena had once stood proudly, originally built as a premier venue for locals, hosting concerts and sporting events and home to now-defunct hockey and basketball teams: the Long Island Ducks and the New York Nets. From that stage, John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to a packed house in 1960 during his run for the presidency. This stadium was a piece of mid-century history, but by 1992 it had transformed into a decaying reminder of former glory days, before the Ducks and the Nets left town, along with America’s high hopes for President Kennedy. The building’s outward appearance was tired, old, and dilapidated, its faded banana-yellow paint peeling off its exterior and exposing a brownish rust. Inside, however, its stadium floor had found new life as an open ground for a sea of vendors selling merchandise in a bustling atmosphere that looked like a mix between the New York Stock Exchange and the Fulton Fish Market. But instead of a bullshit and seafood stench, the aromas of fake leather and cheap perfume coated the air, floating high into the rafters. Walking up and down the flea market floors with my mom and dad and Ravi, I spotted something hanging from a booth high above. I’ll never forget that jacket: blue denim with bedazzled plastic beads circling a handdrawn painting of Barney the Dinosaur—the star of my favorite TV show. It was beautiful. The sparkling chrome beads accentuating Barney’s jolly, rotund, purple body spoke to me, as if wearing it could give me the kind of confidence and swagger that he himself evoked on his program. I envisioned sporting the coat on that very first day of grade school and how my soon-to-be friends would admire me with it on.

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It was a little out of our price range, but that only encouraged Dad to haggle down the man in the booth. He fancied himself a gifted negotiator, like a village street merchant or a used-car salesman, and never gave in until he’d paid a reduced price. After some back-and-forth, Dad counted the cash and placed it in the hand of the vendor, who then took a long, pointy pole with a hook on the end and brought it down. I couldn’t believe the jacket was mine. Kindergarten was mine to conquer. I was feeling jittery on the evening before Day 1 of my new journey. I couldn’t sleep that night, wondering about the new children I’d meet. What would they look like? What would their interests be? What games did they like to play? What TV shows did they watch? That morning, Mom prepared my lunch while Dad and I dressed together. I tried to emulate his mannerisms in the bathroom and slip on my clothes the way he did. Before stepping outside to an overcast morning, I put on my new outer layer as he threw on his raincoat, grabbed my hand, and walked me to the bus stop. He took his video camera with him, hoisting it on one shoulder, to capture the cherished moment. As we walked down the block to the corner to greet my fellow bus riders and their accompanying parents, nobody went out of their way to greet us. They weren’t mean or angry—they just seemed unenthused by our presence. In fact, the other few boys and girls and their parents clearly knew one another. I found it odd. Granted, my family had been in the neighborhood for only a few years, but I was surprised to have never met these folks, who supposedly lived down the street and around the corner. Though our arrival at the corner had been met awkwardly, I tried not to feel discouraged before I even got on the bus. “Hi! I’m Rajiv!” I cheerfully announced to the crowded corner of children and adults. Barely a reaction squeaked out of anyone aside from a few faint, obligatory salutations. Even the parents were lukewarm, carrying on their cackling and coffee Thermos slugging. My dad didn’t seem too fazed by the lack of neighborly reception. He simply gave a quick wave with one hand as he kept the videotape rolling with the other. When the bus finally pulled up, I kissed Dad on the cheek and proceeded up those gigantic, dark steps, turning the corner to a long stretch of shabby brown benches that seated couplings of noisy, uncontrollable kids. The bus driver didn’t seem to mind her riders’ jumping up and down repeatedly, making funny faces with their hands and mouths and throwing

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paper airplanes. I’d made it only halfway down the aisle when one kid shouted from behind me, “Barney is for wussies!” while another stood up, stared directly into my eyes, and queried: “Your hair. Why is it so black and poofy?” then proceeded to pat the top of my head. I felt my face burning with embarrassment as I ran to the back to find a seat. When we finally pulled up to the school, multiple buses opened their doors simultaneously, disgorging a collective mass of children, flooding through the entranceway. I felt like I’d finally made it to the big leagues. After wandering around the halls for a bit, I found my classroom crowded with newcomers claiming their seats. I found one toward the back, in front of a few boys who already seemed to be bonding, laughing and telling jokes. When I turned to look behind me, I saw them pointing at my jacket. “You like Barney?!” one boy said while uncontrollably chuckling. “What a loser!” remarked another. “Barney is for babies,” chimed in a third. I quickly learned that my beloved dinosaur was already passé and I was too old to be wearing his face on my back, which was now a target for insults. My teacher, Ms. Hauser, a gentle, fair-skinned woman in her mid-sixties, approached the front of the room to introduce herself and take attendance, calling out each pupil’s name. “Scott . . . ?” “Lindsey . . . ?’ “Matt . . . ?” “Jessica . . . ?” “Joe . . . ?” With each name spoken aloud, all heads turned in unison, following the sound of “Here!” as each student responded to his or her designation. Then, Ms. Hauser paused, her face crinkling then tilting toward her shoulder as she turned her clipboard on its side as if that would better help her comprehension. “Rah . . . heev?” she queried, as if struggling to pronounce the funnysounding word. She repeated the word a few times, slightly modifying her pronunciation with each attempt. “Rah . . . iv?” “Rah . . . ive?” “Rah . . . give?” Nobody hollered or raised their hand. A few even began to chuckle.

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After a minute or so, she finally arrived at two syllables that sounded closer to my designation. “Rah . . . jiv?” I took a chance and raised my hand, panicking that it might actually have been my name she’d been trying to vocalize. “Ah, so it’s you,” she said, staring at me perplexed, in an almost accusatory tone. “I thought it was Spanish,” she continued, muttering to herself loudly. I guess she wasn’t as gentle as I’d thought. Half the class was giggling now, gawking and pointing in my direction. I couldn’t tell if they found their new teacher amusing or if I was some sort of a freak to them. She didn’t seem to have any trouble spouting off the rest of the students’ names. What was so puzzling about mine? I shrunk down into my seat, praying I wouldn’t be noticed for the rest of the day. A few hours later, a man and a woman walked into our classroom, asking to speak with our teacher. After a hushed exchange, Ms. Hauser called on me to stand up and go with them to another room. “These folks would like to ask you some questions, Rah-jiv,” she said, politely grinning. What choice did I have? It was my first day in a new and unknown environment. I stood up and walked over to the strangers, hoping my peers wouldn’t notice how uncomfortable I felt inside. The two mysterious grown-ups escorted me down the hall. I felt terrified. Were they kicking me out already? Did they think I was too young? I shouldn’t have worn that damn Barney jacket. Or maybe my hair was too dark? Something didn’t feel right. How could I have screwed up on my first day? I was brought into a small room. Colorful maps of the globe covered the walls alongside charts laying out the alphabet as well as funny-looking symbols I hadn’t before seen. They sat me down at the end of a rectangular table; the adults took the seats across from me, in tiny chairs far too small for their posteriors. One adult placed their hands together in a neat pile and asked, “Hi, Rah-eev. Do you speak English?” in a careful, condescending tone. Like I was a baby. Did I speak English? What the hell else did I speak? Granted, my dad spoke a different language in our household that I later found out was Hindi. My mom spoke both Spanish and Italian, but only rarely as she wasn’t confident speaking either language around my brother and me. However, one language both of my parents spoke almost all of the time was English. Good ole American English, just as our forefathers had intended. So, why was I now being asked if I spoke it? Shouldn’t the school have

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known I spoke it before I even entered? And what was the point of preschool? I couldn’t follow their reasoning, so I said the first logical answer that came to mind. “Yes.” “Good, good. What else can you say?” “Um . . . I don’t know,” I responded nervously. “That’s good, that’s good,” the polite interrogator remarked. The second inquisitor chimed in. “So, tell us, where do you come from?” “New York,” I said confidently, my back rising into the upright position. I certainly knew that answer to that question, although they didn’t appear satisfied by my response. “No, where is your family from?” “Um, Queens?” They both jotted down notes and whispered between themselves. “Okay, son, you can go back to class now.” I was confused by their line of questioning. Why had I been singled out? I headed back to class and tried to forget about it, focusing on surviving the rest of the day instead. Back home at last, I felt cranky. My expectations of kindergarten had been shot down along with my self-esteem and passion for Barney. I threw my new getup into the back of the closet, vowing to never wear that jacket or watch that dumb dinosaur ever again. If I wanted to avoid ridicule, I needed to let go of everything that made me stand out, even if I didn’t understand why. “What’s the matter, Papa?” Mom said to me as I slammed the closet door shut. Papa means “little potato” in Spanish. “I don’t want to talk about it!” I hollered back. I ran to the den and threw myself on the couch, pouting, my arms folded. Ravi was watching MTV. Although he was four years older than I, he was probably still too young for its music videos, but he kept it on low volume while Mom was in the kitchen cooking dinner. I sat there for a while feeling bad about myself when a floral-scented aroma started to float in from the kitchen, only a few steps away. I knew the basmati rice was boiling if it had made its way to my nostrils. I got up and casually followed the smell until I reached my mother’s back; she was busy chopping onions and ginger. I tugged on a crease in her nightgown, the one she’d wear around the house when she knew she wasn’t going anywhere for the rest of the day. She turned her head around while continuing to shave down a chunk of ginger root.

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“Want to help me marinate the chicken?” she asked. My role as her assistant not only was a duty I took seriously, but it also relaxed me. “Wash up first.” She already had the mixing bowl ready for me, as if she knew I’d find my way to her side just in time. A variety of spices had already been dashed inside by the tips of her hands: garam masala, coriander, turmeric, chili powder, pepper, salt. She tossed in a handful of the shredded ginger, then took a giant tablespoon of plain yogurt, letting the dollop drop in, and mixed rapidly using the same implement until the composition turned pink. “OK, honey, it’s your turn. Get in there.” I picked up tiny chunks of raw chicken she’d already cut, large enough to fill up my small hand, and dunked them into the bowl, swiveling them around until they were fully coated. After each dip, I placed each piece onto a baking pan. I found the process pleasurable, like making mud pies in the back yard, repeating the steps and filling the entire sheet with pink lumps waiting to bake and transform into red, tender, juicy nuggets, served beside a bed of fluffy rice. As the minutes passed, my day’s woes were dissipating, at least temporarily. “Mama, where did you learn to make these?” I asked her while we sat at the kitchen table, waiting for the chicken to come out of the oven. She leaned back and stared toward the ceiling, as if she was reaching far back in her memory bank. “Oh, well, this one I got from a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook about fifteen years ago.” “Who?” “She was an actress in India, then came here to show people like me how to make her food. The dishes she grew up with, the ones Daddy did, too.” “Oh . . . but aren’t we Indian?” I asked her, finding myself lost by her explanation. “Well, Papa, you and your brother are, but I’m not.” “You’re not?” I was really gone now. “No, Papa. Your nani is Puerto Rican and Anthony Papa was Italian. So, that makes me half-and-half.” My grandpa was also a papa, but a bigger one. “Like the milk?” “Yes, sort of,” she chuckled. “And your daddy is like coffee. Put it all together and you get one flavorful cup.” She looked into my eyes and began stroking my curly, dark-brown hair. “That’s you,” she said to me. “The perfect blend.”

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Loretta’s Tandoori Chicken You can use either boneless chicken breast or thighs or random parts. Boneless thighs have more flavor for having been on the bone, so I highly recommend them, but it’s a matter of preference. Best served with basmati or jasmine rice.

▪ Cut 1½ to 2 pounds of raw chicken pieces and slice them into cube sizes (about 1 to 2 inches each).

▪ Cut one lemon in half and squeeze over chicken (if using chicken ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

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on bone, score each piece with a small slit of the knife and squeeze juice inside the nooks and crannies). Add one teaspoon of dry cumin seeds into a dry, hot pan and roast until you can smell the aroma. Once they are roasted, place cumin seeds into a coffee grinder and grind until they turn to powder. Grate 1 inch of fresh ginger. Smash 4 to 5 cloves of fresh garlic. Rough-chop 1 small yellow onion. Add cumin powder, ginger, garlic, and onion into a food processor along with 1 cup of plain yogurt, half-teaspoons of salt and pepper (cayenne if you’d like it spicy), half-teaspoon of garam masala, half-teaspoon of ground coriander, quarter-teaspoon of turmeric powder, and 10 to 12 drops of red food coloring, then blend it. Once everything is blended, place raw chicken into a mixing bowl (don’t use metal) and pour marinade on top, then toss with your hands. For best flavor, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge to marinate for 3 to 6 hours, or even overnight. However, if you’re pressed for time, transfer the chicken into a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the strength of your oven. When you’re finished, transfer the chicken to a serving platter.

To garnish:

▪ Slice red onions into half-moons and spread them over the chicken. ▪ Squeeze half a lemon over the chicken. ▪ Dust chaat masala powder mix (optional) for a tangier flavor (smells like rotten eggs but tastes great).

▪ For extra flavor and color, chop cilantro and sprinkle all about.

Chapter 2

Saturday Long Island and the Bronx may as well have been two different nations— an entire landmass away from the small, suburban world I knew. Every weekend, Ravi and I jumped into our mom’s rusty old Buick Regal, and the three of us journeyed over the Whitestone Bridge to visit my grandma Elsie. At nine and five years old, we had no choice in how we spent our leisure time. We did as our mother said, no matter how much we pouted or stamped our feet; Saturday mornings meant prime-time cartoon watching. Sometimes she’d have to bribe us with a special visit to McDonald’s before we got on the highway. Although I loved visiting my grandma, I also loved lying on my den floor watching TV even more. Once we were aboard the S.S. Regal, Mom was our captain, navigating through treacherous terrains as we moved from home on Long Island through the Cross Island Parkway and the Cross Bronx Expressway—three gifts from Robert Moses, who believed all citizens should live divided by massive highway systems. Before entering the Bronx, we had to cross the gargantuan Throgs Neck Bridge, seemingly floating on its own, high above Long Island Sound. The idea of driving over assembled iron and steel, completely suspended in the air, scared the living crap out of me. I’d duck under the back seat each time we drove over the bridge. Mom would prep me like a pilot readying passengers for takeoff: “Okay, Papa, here we go,” she’d warn me each time we entered the on ramp, my body clenching

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as I anticipated the car diving right off the edge and into the dark-blue waters. Somehow, we always reached my grandma’s apartment unscathed and without seaweed protruding from our exhaust pipe. Elsie lived on the ground level of a split beneath her landlord, Tony, a quiet old Italian man who liked his privacy. She had lived alone since 1987, when my grandpa Anthony died from liver cancer. She was the first of eight siblings raised in a tiny tenement, with aunts, uncles, and cousins all living within a few blocks’ radius and always around, so the last thing she wanted now was to share a bathroom, bed, or even the remote control. Even with us. I certainly didn’t blame her, but I missed her presence during the week. I looked forward to those visits as we stepped out of the car. She’d be standing on the curb, waiting to squeeze the life out of her grandsons. I ate up her affection as quickly as her rigatoni and meatballs. Nani was a second mother to me and Ravi. She’d lived in the Bronx her entire life and claimed she had no interest in leaving, although the city’s constant energy was clearly beginning to wear on her. She was still working her teller job at the local EAB Bank, now in her third decade, and groaned about it nearly every time we saw her. “I hate that effin’ place,” she’d tell us again and again. I couldn’t figure out why she disliked it so much. Then again, all the adults in my world seemed to loathe their jobs. My dad came home to us exhausted each night, with only the promise of a beer can and Married . . . with Children to look forward to. And my mom was consistently in tears when she had to leave for the hospital and her overnight nursing shifts. In my first decade of life, I got the message that being a member of the workforce meant feeling great pain and suffering on a daily basis. Once we arrived at my grandma’s home, while Ravi and I propped ourselves directly in front of the TV to catch the rest of our cartoon block of scheduling, my mom and grandma usually sat only steps away in the kitchen, catching up over a pot of coffee. Whenever I picked myself up to use the bathroom or sneak a chocolate from the pantry, I’d overhear Nani griping about the calamities from her work week, though she’d never let her mood linger for too long, especially in front of Ravi and me. For her, “the boys” were her escape from a reality she could do without. I loved everything about the version she gave me: her smoky, velvety voice; the complete, half-circle smile she beamed toward me at first sight; her frizzy, light-brown hair standing tall and robust, thanks to the curlers she rolled them in each week; the mouth-watering meals she’d whip up for us; and the insatiable appetite she had for all foods fatty and greasy. I adored her gentle teddy bear hugs, wrapping her arms completely around the circumference of my body, placing her lips profoundly on one side of my chubby

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cheeks. My nani was a lifeforce, an infectious presence, a genuinely innocent soul, but a tough broad to boot. There was something mighty about her. She required nothing from anyone in her life; she gave and gave to us, asking nothing in return but our love and respect. Though we called her “Nani,” an endearing term for “grandma” in Indian culture, Elsie wasn’t my dad’s mother. In our household, cultural terms and phrases cross-pollinated—bits of Hindi, Spanish, Italian, and English meeting and intersecting under one roof, like an international gate at an airport terminal. Elsie was Puerto Rican, although her fair skin and light hair didn’t give the Hispanic impression like other, browner families around the Bronx, including some of my cousins. Being a Puerto Rican in the Bronx certainly wasn’t uncommon, but my grandma didn’t flaunt her culture around town. It just wasn’t her thing. There weren’t any dead giveaways in her home either, not like her sisters’ where you may see a can of Café Bustelo sitting next to the coffee pot, or green, unripe plantains sitting on the kitchen table, or Tito Puente LPs playing on the hi-fi all day. In fact, the first time I heard my grandma speak Spanish was when she laughed at Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy and repeated some of the lines he’d delivered in his native tongue. She and I watched that show over and over again until I could recite the jokes and plot points from every episode. As much as I adored the show, it wasn’t as special without her in the room next to me. To her, Lucy captured a romantic time in American culture, as well as Elsie’s own life, a period of her youth that she appeared to cling to ever more tightly in her later years. I loved when she told me stories of having seen this classic program when it had first aired in the early 1950s, and how she’d huddled, each week, into a neighbor’s crowded apartment—the only one who owned a television set—feeling overwhelmed when Lucy and Ricky appeared inside that magical box to light up her life. She told me how startling it had been for viewers to see Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz on screen together, kissing and hugging, considering that Ball was white and Arnaz a Cuban. Nobody in the ’50s, she’d explain, could even comprehend the logic behind an interracial marriage, let alone accept it. And yet, they captured the adoration of nearly the entire country, and subsequently, the public welcomed them without any reservations. Perhaps because Lucy and Desi’s love wasn’t fictional. “We weren’t that different from those two, you know,” she said to me late one Saturday afternoon while my mom and brother were out shopping at Woolworth’s down the block. We were watching as Lucy was meeting Ricky’s mother for the first time and nervously fumbling over herself.

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“What do you mean?” I asked her, turning my head back behind me while lying belly-down on the carpet floor in front of the TV, cheeks in palms. “Except it all happened here, in the Bronx, before your mama was even born,” she continued. “What did?” I queried curiously. “Anthony Papa and me. We were sort of like them. Lucy and Ricky.” She got up from her comfortable, shabby, skylight-blue recliner, walked over to the TV cabinet, and picked up a photo frame from her display of old black-and-white portraits, one of the few I’d seen of my grandparents that rested among the many still memories now living behind enclosed glaring glass and metal. She stared and pulled it closer to her face, as if to intensively examine the images. Then she flipped around toward me. It was a photo of her wedding day from 1957, she told me. “See us,” she said, tilting her head down toward the frame. “We were so young. Too young, probably. Only twenty-two.” “You were pretty, Nani,” I remarked. “Nah,” she insisted. “He was the good-looking one.” My grandfather Anthony had indeed been a handsome man. He looked like a movie star, of the Marlon Brando or James Dean caliber, a midcentury matinee idol in plainsman’s clothing. My grandma was beautiful, too, although she never believed it, regularly referring to herself as “ugly.” “They weren’t sure we should go through with it,” she said. “It was a lot different in those days, long before your mama got married in that Hindu temple.” I didn’t quite understand where her mind was leading to, but I lay quietly on the floor and listened as she tried to gather her thoughts. She’d think out loud often, as if her insides were teleporting back in time while her body remained stationary. She had a keen recall, though she frequently complained about how forgetful she was and how she might have Alzheimer’s disease. Until the day she died, she never suffered from any noticeable memory loss. She placed the framed photo back in the cabinet and walked past me toward the kitchen, the TV still blaring. “Come on, baby, let’s make some dinner before Mama and Ravi get in.” I loved helping my grandma cook. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing in her tiny, narrow kitchen at every moment, from drizzling oil into a heated pan to sprinkling a pinch of salt into the pot of boiling water. There were no measuring spoons or cookbooks. “It’s all about the

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feel,” she’d tell me time and again. Her hands did the thinking, a muscle memory of recipes she’d been keeping since she was a teenager, cooking for their family of ten. She’d grab any cooking utensil without pause as they lived in the same drawer or ceramic holder for decades. Her main implement, a wooden spatula with a crack running down the center, was used to stir sauces inside one of the many aluminum pots and pans that sat in a cramped cupboard underneath the kitchen sink. As the old cookware began transforming our raw offerings into edible meals, the smoke and steam rose from each burner station, coating the faded white wallpaper that was partly stained with years of oil and grease, and peeling along its linings. Each time, as we worked side-by-side in the kitchen, my grandma shared stories of her youth. She’d chop the onions and regale me with glimpses of her life while I peeled the garlic cloves and endlessly asked follow-up questions. I could listen to her speak for hours and never get bored, my imagination coming alive at each anecdote. This day, we were making her meatballs, famous among family members as well as among the kids in our neighborhood on Long Island, no matter their cultural backgrounds, usually escaping the blandness of their own parents’ cooking. Occasionally, when my grandma came to stay with us for a weekend visit, she’d make enough meatballs and rigatoni to “feed an army.” At our house, dishes from India, Puerto Rico, or Italy could pop up on the dinner table. Ravi and I loved having guests over and observing their responses toward my mom’s and my grandma’s cooking. Indian food was the most challenging with its reddish, brownish, and greenish curries, omitting odors some friends described as a “sweaty armpit,” not easy for kids who’d never before seen or tasted the fare. Some were brave enough to take a bite of my mom’s chicken curry and even took a liking to its new flavors—cardamom, coriander, turmeric, and cumin—while others just snacked on the roti flatbread my mom rolled to accompany the meals. My grandma’s attempt at chana masala, which she learned from my mom, was less spicy and intimidating by appearance. When it was placed over a bed of fluffy white basmati rice, our friends gobbled it up. Puerto Rican meals usually consisted of white rice, kidney or black beans in a Sazón-induced tomato sauce, accompanied by plátanos maduros and a side of juicy sliced pork. My mom and grandma both cooked it well, but my grandma’s version seemed to always have more grease and fat flooded around the plate, as her generous use of all ingredients seemed overwhelming—no wonder it was all so tasty.

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At least once on either a Saturday or Sunday, however, Italian food was a must, a tradition passed down from the days when she would be a guest at and later a host for Anthony’s family. For Italians, the weekend meant not only a time of rest, relaxation, and family but, most important, of food. Elsie’s meatballs were one of her staples—perfectly rounded by the shape of her aging hands; juicy, hardy, robust, soaking in a homemade tomato sauce—or “gravy” as she called it—for hours until she served them over a bed of pasta using a deep soup ladle complete with a long neck that would extend far into her tall cafeteria-sized pot. On this particular day, she asked if I would help her sculpt the meatballs. I was honored by her invitation. I’d certainly had my share of experience shaping and crafting mush into ball form, from snowballs to Play-Doh to the mud in my back yard. “Now, watch me,” she said as she cracked two raw eggs with her left hand into a shallow ceramic cereal bowl, while simultaneously pouring whole milk with her right hand, then whipping the dairy mixture into a thick consistency. She then dipped her entire hand into the styrofoam packaging containing raw chopped beef, and without pause, dunked it into the bowl containing yellow slime, then rolled the chunk of meat onto a paper plate covered in a seasoned breadcrumb mixture she’d bought from the local bodega. She rotated the wet mound all across the mixture with her palm until a perfectly round circumference was formed, then quickly dropped it into the hot pre-oiled pan, all while staring directly at me, within inches of my eyelashes, droplets of oil sparking up from the heat like reverse raindrops. “It’s your turn,” she said, taking one step to her left, clearly welcoming my full entrance into her assembly line. “Come on, baby. We gotta do it while the pan’s hot.” I took a deep breath, quickly stuck my entire fiveyear-old hand into the cold, slimy ground beef, grabbed as much meat as my little fist could clench, then dunked it into the gooey, milky egg matter. I picked it up and felt its dead, soggy weight in my grasp. “Good, now add the breadcrumbs,” she encouraged me. I threw the ball onto the plate and began rolling. I needed my other hand to help guide the process, but I saw the meat absorb the breadcrumbs and watched it grow, becoming a prouder version of itself. “Great, baby,” she said, “I’ll take it from here. The pan is too hot.” She picked up my ball with her thumb, index finger, and middle finger, quickly flicking it onto the pan as it sizzled to welcome the newcomer. I had done it. I was overwhelmed with pride over my first meatball. More followed as we took turns, until the entire pan was full and crackling.

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“How did you learn to make meatballs, Nani?” I asked as I watched her turn them with her spatula, nudging them around until they browned all over. “I learned for Anthony Papa. His mother expected me to know.” “Why?” “Because I wouldn’t have been a good wife if I didn’t.” “Why?” “Because that’s what his mother cooked, and so I had to know it, too. Especially me.” “Why?” I persisted, hungry with curiosity. “Because they look at you differently when you’re not one of them, baby. But I showed them. I won them over. They all loved my meatballs. The more they ate, the less they cared.” I didn’t quite understand what she meant about caring or not caring. Over many more weekends and meal preparations, I’d start to piece together my grandma’s life through the glimpses she’d offer me over hot burners, forming a variety of food out of raw mush. I’d hear about life during the Great Depression—an era that seemed to exist only in old movies or modern movies made to look like old movies. My vision of the 1930s and ’40s had a lot of gray color tones everywhere, dirt and rubbish and soot all over the streets and buildings, people dressed sophisticatedly, even though they were struggling and hurting financially. In Elsie’s case, she really was poor. Dirt poor. Most weeks, her family was only one day away from standing on the breadline along with their neighbors. For some time, she, her parents, and her siblings split a loaf of bread and a stick of butter for dinner each night. She described feeling hungry for most of her childhood. I figured that was why her appetite seemed endless in her later years. Mine would be, too. Even in her elder years, when she wasn’t spreading it on her morning toast, she’d cut slices of whole butter and pop them into her mouth. That love of bread and butter never left her palate. She craved them like she would her cups of coffee, moaning with satisfaction each time, savoring the flavors. Elsie’s grandparents arrived in New York by way of the island of Puerto Rico during the turn of the twentieth century. They were deeply devout Pentecostal Christians. From their perspective, anything and everything was a sin, but she didn’t subscribe to their brand of religious fanaticism and scare tactics. My grandma was more of a cautious freethinker. Never a rebel, though a desire to rebel against family traditions lingered inside of her. Family members who embraced the sect felt that all aspects of American culture were immoral, including Elsie’s love of television and movies.

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I was captivated as she recounted her dreams of becoming a showgirl and felt her sadness when she’d describe how her mother shot down those dreams by criticizing her physical appearance, making her feel unpretty. She never knew if her mother really meant it or just wanted to keep her humble, but it affected the way she saw herself for the rest of her life. Looking at those old photos of Elsie in her twenties, I couldn’t understand why my great-grandmother had so cruelly lied. All week long, I thought about and eagerly anticipated our conversations in that tiny kitchen, where my grandma’s washing machine sat next to her stove top, where the aromas of simmering tomato sauce mixed with the scent of pine-fresh liquid detergent drifting out of the rumbling old appliance, wafting through our limited ventilation. While the meatballs were cooking, my grandma hung clothes to dry outside on the laundry line. She’d pull the wired-contraption above her head that extended from her kitchen window to a telephone line outside in her limited backyard space, where a little patch of grass lay, clipping each blouse, skirt, pants, underwear, and pair of socks with wooden clothespins she’d grab from a basket sitting on the windowsill. In those moments, when ingredients became palatable and clothes were made clean, she reflected and brought her memories to life. How she’d taken on the responsibility of supporting her family while she was still in high school, working to contribute income because her father could no longer work after he lost his leg to diabetes. Especially as I grew older, I could only imagine the pressure she had felt to not only raise her siblings but also support them financially. I was certain she’d done it without complaint. The option to attend college hadn’t even existed in her future, or for her siblings. For the boys, finding a dependable job and a sturdy woman with whom to raise a family was most crucial in their becoming full-time men. For the young women, marriage and reproduction were the only goals they should expect and achieve. Her one bright spot, however, had been Anthony, a neighborhood kid she’d known since she was very young. They’d grown up on the same block and their families were friendly. Her parents always thought Anthony was rich because they lived in a house rather than the tenement apartment her family rented. Rumors circulated about them having Mafia ties back in their home country of Italy. Anthony’s father was an acquaintance of Frank Costello (he once gave Anthony and his sisters free hot dogs upon bumping into them at Nathan’s, out of “respect” to their father), and nobody actually knew how he earned his income. But he died suddenly

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when Anthony was only sixteen years old. Very quickly, the money began to disappear, and Anthony had to step up to become the man of his house, though he didn’t steadily provide as Elsie did for hers; he’d be a truck driver one week, a telephone bookie the next. During their teenage years, my grandma found his wild, unpredictable personality attractive, however reckless he may have been. “He was a street kid,” she recalled. “Always running with deadbeats, causing trouble, scheming. I didn’t ask how he got his money and he never told me. But he always looked out for me. Not that I needed him to. I felt special around him, though. I felt different. He was the first person who ever made me feel that way.” In those days, she told me, the Italians ranked among the same lower- to middle-class tier of American society as the Irish and Jews, followed by the Puerto Ricans. Lower still were the Blacks. There were unspoken lines of segregation in the Bronx. Behind the train tracks was where the Black families lived; her family and Anthony’s lived right before the tracks. No matter which side you lived on, life was tough. There was no salvation for anyone there. My grandparents’ childhood friendship blossomed into romance once they entered high school. They remained sweethearts into their twenties, becoming engaged by twenty-one. Neither family had openly opposed their puppy love, but a joint future was a much different prospect to consider. Marriage didn’t just mean two people joining together in wedlock. It was the fusing of families and cultures. Marriage meant the ultimate cookbook, for the purposes of combining blood and genes and family trees in order to create an entirely new concoction. In the ’50s, ethnic integration wasn’t popular, nor was it accepted within their individual communities, but Elsie and Anthony didn’t care what their families thought, even as they faced some backlash. “I hope their babies don’t turn out Black,” muttered Anthony’s aunt to another relative during a celebratory joint-family gathering to announce their engagement. Elsie had overheard the comment and didn’t know what to make of it. She didn’t tell Anthony about that or the additional unkind words and looks she’d received from her family and friends alike, for marrying an Italian man. They didn’t sway or even make her question her decision. She proceeded to plan their wedding day with whatever little money she’d saved from working extra shifts at JCPenney; neither family had any money to spare. Or maybe they just didn’t want to support their union. It’s difficult to know for sure.

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As the wedding drew closer, Elsie managed to piecemeal her arrangements together on a limited budget. In the days preceding, she still didn’t have a dress to wear. Luckily, Anthony’s brother had recently gotten married, and his wife generously gave her dress to her brother-in-law’s brideto-be. They both happened to have an 18ʺ waist; the dress fit Elsie like a glove. Anthony’s three sisters had grown fond of Elsie and showed their support as best they could, if only through kindness and acceptance. They helped my grandma find a well-regarded wedding photographer, who agreed to shoot the big day at a discount, provided they didn’t credit his name. Elsie didn’t bother questioning the odd request, although I wish she had. After paying him and the nominal church donation, she couldn’t afford a catering hall or even a wedding cake, yet their financial shortcomings didn’t dampen their spirits. Following the ceremony, they commemorated the occasion with a platter of assorted cookies bought from the local Italian bakery. The day was joyous, my grandma told me. Nobody put up a fight or openly showed disapproval. And she didn’t allow herself to succumb to outside pressures or the economic shortcomings that were present in both families. She just enjoyed herself for once, without worry. That evening was even more special. Their close friends and one sister from each side chipped in to take the new bride and groom to the Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan. Tony Bennett was on the bill that evening. It was the first and only time they’d attended, an enchanting memory that stood out in Elsie’s mind; she played it over and over, a rerun of a favorite episode of her life story. On that Saturday afternoon, as the I Love Lucy end credits rolled in the background and we waited for the meatballs to finish, she pulled out an old, ornately decorated photo album and placed it in front of me at the kitchen table. We journeyed through it, page by page, as that wedding day in 1957 came to life. My grandma had looked so elegant in her borrowed wedding dress and my grandpa looked like a bona fide movie star in his rented tuxedo, as if he were attending the Oscars. On the last page was a shot of the newlyweds at their table inside the Copacabana, taken by a cigarette girl, accompanied by a flattened matchbook taken home from the club as a souvenir. Looking back now, as we drank in the many captured images from that day, I can see why she was romantic about those memories and the period in which she’d come of age. It all seemed glamorous, even if it weren’t

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entirely the reality of their existence. Still, she looked happy, though I’d soon learn about their marriage and how rocky their relationship had grown. As Mom and Ravi walked through the door, Nani began moving the food from the pans on the stove to serving platters she’d pulled from the cabinets above her head, all within arm’s reach. “Why don’t you begin setting the table, baby?” I grabbed handfuls of forks from the drawers, juggling them with the paper towels I pulled from the holder above the kitchen sink. I walked around the small, round kitchen table, folding each torn paper towel square in front of each chair, placing one fork evenly on top, all the while thinking about my grandma’s life; those meatballs we were about to eat, that I’d helped make, seemed to hold a deeper insight into her past. I processed every bit she’d passed down to me. She had wanted me to hear those stories and details for some reason. Maybe it was her way of letting me know that she was more than just the grandma who gave hugs and cooked delectable homemade food. “Hi, we’re home,” my mom announced to the kitchen as she walked in, Ravi walking behind her. “Oh, it smells so good in here, Ma.” “Thanks, babe, Raji helped make the meatballs.” “No way!” Mom carried on. “This calls for a little celebration. Ravi, honey, put on some music while we eat.” The stereo system sat just outside of my grandma’s kitchen, at the end of her living room, so anything being played could be heard throughout the entire apartment. “What do you want to hear?” Ravi asked. “How about something sweet, honey?” Ravi grabbed any CD case that looked upbeat. He saw the face of Tony Bennett, who almost always smiled on his album covers, and popped a disc into the automatic player. The song “Because of You” came blaring out of the stereo, loudly. “Shut it off, shut it off, shut it off!” Nani stammered agitatedly, yelling over the song. “What’s wrong, Nani?” Ravi yelled back, frantically searching for the stop button. “I can’t listen to that one.” “Why?” I asked, looking upward toward my grandma. “It’s just too much, baby,” she said, throwing her hand to her forehead, then staring downward toward the floor. I was confused; we were all silent for a few seconds. “Ravi, put on some bossa nova instead,” directed my mom.

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The evening moved on, as did my grandma’s desire to revisit her past, the portions that were bearable, at least for that day.

Sunday Waking up in that Bronx apartment was like being lovingly wrapped in the coziest cocoon, even as sleeping on the living room fold-out couch bed could feel like lying on top of a wall insulation with a metal rod positioned underneath, pressing against the center of your spinal cord. The discomfort didn’t faze us. Ravi and I filled the bed with extra blankets and pillows from my grandma’s hall closet, turning the world’s most uncomfortable sleeping apparatus into an enormous cotton cloud. That morning, I rose before Ravi, roused by the smell of fresh coffee brewing in the kitchen. Nani was still in her nightgown, sitting in her recliner next to our couch bed, trying quietly to crunch down on a burnt piece of toast soaked in her beloved butter, which glistened off its charred surface. The TV was usually on low volume, so she wouldn’t wake us. Her morning go-to sitcom, The Honeymooners, wasn’t at all quiet; Ralph Kramden’s scream could be heard even on Level 1, just one down-arrow before Mute. I sat up and stretched my arms to the ceiling, trying not to rattle Ravi, and rubbed my eyes as the new daylight began to spread across my face. Nani noticed me and smiled, whispering, “Good morning,” before lifting her cup to take a sip of the steaming hot coffee. Mom was still sleeping in the bedroom, in the queen-sized bed my grandma refused to part with following Anthony Papa’s death. Maybe she liked the feeling of stretching out for the first time in her life, not having to share a bed with anyone else; not her husband or siblings. But she didn’t get rid of my grandpa’s clothes either, even years after he’d been gone. His shirts and coats still hung in her bedroom closet, his pants in their chest of drawers, and even his knockoff Rolex watch sat on his nightstand, as if he were coming back to slip it back on. I never asked her why his belongings hadn’t been donated or thrown out, or why her bed looked so enormous for one person. She certainly didn’t seem to mind my mom’s company during our sleepover visits; there was plenty of room for both women to slumber in comfort. Oddly, my grandma always slept oppositely from the headboard, even when she was by herself. Sometimes, when I’d wake up to use the bathroom, I’d see my mom’s head alongside my grandma’s bare feet. That morning, I slinked out of bed and crawled quietly along the living room carpet over to her recliner, and sat by her knee. “You want some orange juice, baby?” she said, looking down at me and stroking the top

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of my head as I watched Alice put Ralph in his place once again. “Sure,” I replied with a gleaming smile, tilting my head toward her chin, knowing that breakfast would shortly accompany that sweet juice. Something about my grandma’s presence and the promise of food made for the safest, most homey combination. “We better wake up the others and get the day started. We have to head to Lizzie’s before noon,” she crankily remarked, as if she were reminded she had a chore to complete. My aunt Lizzie, or titi Lizzie, as we’d sometimes call her, was my grandma’s youngest sister. She lived in the South Bronx with her three children and a husband who rarely left his bedroom. Lizzie didn’t seem to have had as difficult an upbringing as my grandma had; however, her life hadn’t turned out as sturdy as her eldest sister’s. She and her family resided in the most dangerous neighborhood in the entire city and depended on food stamps for daily survival. She was close in age to my mom, yet arguably spoiled by her lack of responsibility, being the baby of the family. I’d learn all about Lizzie’s hardships in those mornings leading up to our occasional obligatory visits, where Sunday afternoons dragged on before we headed back to Long Island in the evenings. It’s not that I didn’t love my titi Lizzie and my cousins. They were just different from anyone else in my orbit, a little wilder and rambunctious, and almost without restraint, and my cousins enjoyed teasing me endlessly—a common theme in my life. My transparent sensitivity was bait for any kid looking to pick on someone, and family members were no exception. Before we headed out, Nani had a cup of coffee and a small pitcher of milk sitting on the kitchen table, ready for Mom to receive her first dose, while a glass of sunny-colored OJ waited for Ravi, next to my half-gulped helping. My grandma wasted no time in cracking eight eggs into an oily pan along with a dousing of milk straight from the carton’s spout, whisking them as they cooked to produce the fluffiest omelet. She took four pieces of rye bread out of a bag she’d pulled from the refrigerator and stuck them into the toaster, one at a time. I just sat in my chair, watching her as she pivoted from the stove to the sink to the fridge and back to the stove, continuing to stir each time with her wooden spatula whenever she passed over the pan. The rays of sunlight were now spotlighting her movement, like a modern dancer performing on stage. “Come on, kids! Breakfast!” she called out to the entire apartment, signaling that the sleeping portion of our visit had come to an end. If she’d had a bell, she would have hit it with her spoon. Mom and Ravi dragged themselves up and into the kitchen, their crankiness quickly dissipating, likely from the smell of coffee and eggs. They

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joined me at the table as my grandma served each of us our share of the giant omelet from a stack of white ceramic plates she had balancing on an adjoining burner that was turned off. My mom slugged down her coffee so quickly that she got up to pour herself another cup while my grandma was still serving us. “So, when are we heading to Titi Lizzie’s, Ma?” Mom said as she leaned against the washing machine next to the shelf holding the coffee pot. “Twenty minutes. I want to get in and out before it gets dark outside.” My mom took a swig of her second cup of coffee and nodded like a soldier acknowledging a routine operation. Ravi and I, of course, had no say in the matter, so we just began devouring our cuts of the omelet. I covered mine in ketchup, mashing the eggs further with the butt of my fork to create a saucier texture, took a handful and packed the red and yellow colors together until they formed a ball, then popped it into my mouth. Ravi turned his head toward me in disgust. “Ew, that’s gross,” he commented. I laughed as I kept rolling. A half-hour later, we jumped into the Buick and headed toward the South Bronx, an area mentioned on the local news only for robberies, murders, and buildings’ being burned to the ground. As we drove down Pelham Parkway for twenty minutes, crossing over the railroad tracks, there were complete apartment buildings blown out, only their frames left standing, like ancient ruins from a previous existence. As we drove down each street, the colors of the people turned from white to brown and black; the storefronts looked dirtier and more ramshackle; police patrol cars lingered every few blocks; groups of men hung about in front of bodegas, some of them rolling dice with cash sticking out of their hands. When we pulled up in front of Aunt Lizzie’s apartment building, there were men hanging outside, near the entranceway, making my grandma and mom visibly unsettled as they parked a few feet away. “Got your purse?” my grandma said to my mom. “Yeah, you got yours?” Nani nodded. Ravi and I sat in the backseat, feeling tense, like we were entering a war zone or a highly contaminated area. “They’ll probably steal the caps again,” Grandma noted. By now, we’d been accustomed to our hubcaps’ being stolen after each visit, so much so that my grandma bought us plastic substitutes from Target for 15 bucks, which they’d also end up stealing, but at least they were easier to replace. Grandma led the charge from the car into the building. “Okay, ready?” she asked all of us. “Yeah,” we unenthusiastically responded. “Ravi, you

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take my hand. Raji, you take your mama’s.” We all hopped out at once and shuffled as quickly as we could to get inside. The men, mostly in hooded sweatshirts, were standing outside, next to the building’s entranceway, drinking out of glass bottles covered by brown paper bags, a boom box sitting beside their feet on the sidewalk, blasting a variety of rap and salsa songs. They were laughing and shouting loudly like a bunch of schoolchildren in a playground. “Don’t make eye contact,” my mom said to me as we walked, my hand strongly in her grasp. I tried to keep my head down but kept glancing their way, curious about the men’s activity. One stared directly at me but said nothing. We made it to the front doors of Lizzie’s building; my grandma pushed a loud buzzer at the front of the double doors and we waited a few seconds, my legs shaking, before the doors buzzed back at us and allowed us to enter through a dark, cavernous lobby. Graffiti covered the walls; garbage and debris lay along the floors. The smell of urine was difficult to ignore as we climbed the three flights of stairs to Lizzie’s apartment. When we arrived at my aunt’s door at last, Nani banged on the heavy metal door to announce our arrival. The sound of multiple locks from the other side clinked and clanked and shifted before the door was finally pulled open. Lizzie was standing in her muumuu, welcoming us with her hugs and wet kisses, speaking Spanish rapidly to my grandma and mom and kneeling down to squeeze my cheek. Her light skin tone was similar to my grandma’s, yet she seemed less put-together, her tangled hair pulled back, sweat beading down her pleasantly plump face. The smells of her apartment were much different, too—a mixture of body odor, mildew, and bananas. Her home was much smaller, and cramped, in fact, and her messy parlor was covered in piles of clothes and open food containers. There was the general disorder of the furniture—a far departure from the tidy, cleanliving space my grandma kept. The entire apartment was dim throughout, as if lightbulbs hadn’t yet reached the South Bronx’s hardware stores. “Come in, come in,” Lizzie insisted, in her thick Puerto Rican–Bronx accent. She walked us over to her living room table, situated between her couch and her kitchen area. All of her living spaces seemed to merge into one room, with two small bedrooms and a bathroom in the distance, down the hallway. “Sit, sit, I’m making tostones.” The women took their seats at the kitchen table and gabbed, catching up with Lizzie as she walked over to her stove, simultaneously chatting while peeling and chopping plantains and flattening each slice with her palm. She finely chopped cloves of garlic and sprinkled the bits over the slices, along with generous pinches of salt, before picking them up with her hands and placing them into a hot pan

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holding a pool of oil for frying. Everything in Lizzie’s apartment felt and looked oily and greasy, she included. “Kids! Where are you?” she yelled out. One by one, Lizzie’s children walked out of the bedrooms to greet us with casual hugs and kisses. All three were in the same age range as Ravi and I, yet they seemed to live a vastly dissimilar life, in a harder and faster urban environment. They plopped themselves down on the couch in front of the TV and we followed in kind. For years, I had the feeling that they viewed our visits as a public service, the well-to-do suburbanites coming to look in on their less fortunate family members. Of course, we were far from wealthy, barely passing as middle-class, but my cousins seemed to view us as having more advantages than they did, as if we had our shit together a little more, pitying them as a result. Perhaps they knew something I didn’t. Ravi and I sat on the couch with them and watched music videos on MTV. Heavy D came on the screen and all three cousins began laughing. “Hey, that kind of looks like Raji,” remarked one. Heavy D was a lightskinned Black rapper with curly hair. I was a little chubby, but then again, so was Ravi. Yet somehow, I was always the butt of their jokes. “That doesn’t look like me!” I pleaded. “Yes, it does!” Karen hit back. “Heavy D! Heavy D!” the three began chanting. I was wounded, as if something were wrong with me. I often felt that way when kids made fun of me, as if the factory that assembled me had had a fork jammed in their assembly line and the giant tube at the end of the conveyor belt had spit out a defective product, yet it was boxed up anyway, along with the other perfect toys, and sold at Toys “R” Us at a discounted rate in the bargain bin. I ran over to my mom and grandma at the kitchen table, where another pot of coffee was being slugged down by all three ladies. As I went to sit in the chair between them, I noticed my grandma handing Lizzie an unsealed blank envelope. “Here, this one should tide you over for a little while,” my grandma said, reassuringly, as if this weren’t the first time. I stared at the envelope in Lizzie’s hand as she smiled at my grandma, then smiled down at me. “Can I get you some tostones, Papi?” “Okay,” I said timidly, unsure if I actually desired Lizzie’s cooking but never turning down an opportunity to eat. She passed me a square napkin with two tostones on top, hot from the pan. They’d already soaked through the napkin, making it translucent, before they landed on the table. I took a bite. The garlic and salt were

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overpowering atop the fried plantain wedge, drowning out any original flavor the fruit may have had before being coated and manipulated by Lizzie’s generosity. It certainly didn’t taste like the ones my grandma prepared, but still she’d perfected her own iteration. Finally, after a few hours, we said our goodbyes to Lizzie and my cousins, another visit in the books. The tostones had made me sleepy and ready for a nap on the car ride back to suburbia. We walked past the men hanging outside, still swigging from their bottles in brown bags and popping cassette tapes into the blaring boom box, yelling louder at one another than before. We kept our heads down, once again, and made it back to the hubcap-less car, then headed toward my grandma’s place to drop her off before making the long voyage home to Long Island. We drove back down Pelham Parkway, the streets becoming cleaner and faces turning whiter as we entered my grandma’s block. I felt as if we were returning from an alternate universe, slightly upside down from the stable land I was accustomed to. As we pulled up to her building, my grandma leaned her head back to get our kisses on her cheek; Ravi and I both shifted forward to plant our pecks. Mom then followed suit from her driver’s side. “Have a nice week, kids, I’ll see you next week. Love you,” she said smiling as she stepped out of the car. On the drive back, over the bridge and along the expressways, I felt drowsy and thoughtful as I watched the sun setting behind the tall rectangular buildings, then the triangular houses with all of their surrounding trees. Each time the big orange orb disappeared behind the topography, I waited for it to reappear, sinking lower and lower at each glance, until it completely disappeared.

Elsie’s Meatballs Depending on your preference, you can use a variety of ground meats (beef, chicken, turkey), but the most traditional way is a trio of ground beef, pork, and veal, which you can find in your local butcher shop or grocery store. You can even ask the folks behind the counter to make it for you. Best served over a bed of pasta with fresh, grated Parmesan or Romano cheese sprinkled on top. This dish requires two parts: making the meatballs and the gravy (aka sauce). To make the meatballs:

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▪ Dump 2 pounds of raw meat into a mixing bowl. ▪ Crack 2 whole eggs on top of the meat. ▪ Add about a third of a cup of milk (whatever you have on hand, doesn’t matter).

▪ Add three-quarters of a cup of Italian-flavored breadcrumbs (you can buy in the Bread section).

▪ Add a couple of pinches of salt and ground pepper. ▪ Gently mix together with your hands until it feels moist and solid but not overmixed because that will make the meat too tough. ▪ Pull out a clump and roll a ball in your hands or on a flat surface. ▪ Place balls into a pan already heated with an inch of vegetable oil inside. ▪ Lightly fry all sides of the balls until they have a nice, golden-brown crust on all sides. To make the gravy:

▪ Add 3 to 4 tablespoons of olive oil inside a deep soup pot or Dutch oven and heat on low.

▪ Crush 5 to 6 garlic cloves and add to oil, but make sure they don’t burn or else they’ll turn bitter.

▪ Add 2 cans of Crushed San Marzano Tomatoes (they’re the best Italian tomatoes around) and lightly sauté.

▪ Add 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped Italian flat-leaf or curly parsley. ▪ Add about a teaspoon of dry basil and a half-teaspoon of dry oregano to the sauce. ▪ Using a strainer spoon, lift meatballs from the pan and place them directly into the sauce. ▪ Add a couple of more pinches of salt and ground pepper. You can also add red chili flakes if you like. ▪ Let it all simmer on low for about an hour.

Chapter 3

I’ll never forget when I discovered there was more than one outsider living under my roof: the night before my dad dragged my mom, Ravi, and me to the house of yet another of his friends. “Indian parties,” as Ravi and I referred to them, were becoming a routine; we attended one almost every weekend. At the ages of thirteen and nine years old, we would have much rather hung out with our neighbors down the street than attend a curated function of families we loathed. These chums of my dad’s were not the average immigrants who’d started out in Queens with him back in the ’70s, working tirelessly to achieve middle-class status, settling in modest homes throughout Long Island’s suburban sprawl. By the early ’90s, Dad found himself mingling among the upper crust: doctors and business leaders who’d arrived here with money in their pockets. An elite sect who rose steadily in greater American society, modeling themselves after Anglo-Saxons, complete with mini-mansions and country club memberships, yet still keeping the colorful and bejeweled aesthetics of their culture intact. Many of them purchased properties in historically revered Gold Coast neighborhoods like Syosset, Woodbury, and Roslyn, decorating their interiors with a mixture of Westernized modern accents and traditional flair from their homeland, mini–Taj Mahals designed by Ralph Lauren. Similar to their weddings—equipped with servants, hundreds of guests in attendance, and extra atmospheric opulence—the parties at their houses boasted Gilded Age–era gluttony, hosted for the purposes of showing off wealth and stature.

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My dad was nowhere near the income bracket of his newly acquired acquaintances, but he was handsome and charming, an infectiously affable man, a holding-court type who lived for being accepted and beloved by his comrades of all classes. He’d been athletic since his youth; he’d been a regional ping-pong champion in India, a cricket player during his undergrad days in London, and a recreational tennis player. He purchased a racquet in the late ’80s and taught himself the game through pickup matches at public parks before joining health clubs in search of wider competition. He acquired playmates, some of the most affluent Desis in the tri-state area, captivated by his vigor and charm. They began inviting him to social gatherings; however, his wife and kids didn’t seem to supply the fit and fabulous presence they’d come to expect from “Roopie,” as they referred to him. In most instances, after their front doors opened, Roopie was usually ten steps ahead of us, handing out heroic hugs to the hosts while we three stood behind the threshold, feeling shy and awkward, like a bunch of culturally fetishizing party-crashers. My mom worked overtime dressing and acting the part of an Indian wife, trying her best to assimilate into her husband’s world. At first, she enjoyed learning and engaging with his traditions. When they began dating in 1979, she embraced all aspects of his culture—from learning to cook the dishes of his homeland to getting fitted in traditional sarees to traveling with him to the subcontinent often as a newlywed—not always being well received by certain family members, including her mother-in-law. Although her interest began by her own volition, once their relationship evolved into marriage she continued pushing herself to gain acceptance in his community. The more dishes she taught herself to cook and the more appearances she made, the more she felt like an outsider, often being ridiculed by other wives who spoke Hindi around her while taking subtle jabs in English any chance they got—critiquing her contributive dish of chicken curry or commenting on her noticeable weight gain after giving birth. Their goal seemed to ensure she wouldn’t fit into their scene. Mom, just as sensitive as I was, found herself on the receiving end of bullies and internalized her pain. By the time I was old enough to witness it, there were so many emotional scars, too many for me to ever see her truly enjoy herself around my dad in public. On this particular evening before another shindig, twenty-four hours until another soirée, Mom finally lost the control and composure she’d held together for so long. Our entire house was dark that night, as if the electricity had gone bust. She often preferred keeping the lights off in all of the rooms, even after the sun went down. Our two-floor house wasn’t

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large by any means; a burglar would definitely trip over a couch, coffee table, or ottoman à la Dick Van Dyke, landing clumsily on their ass. Sometimes, when I’d step outside of my bedroom—which I preferred brightly lit, using desk lamps to spotlight my action figures moving about the imaginary worlds I created for them, under blankets and sheets—I’d enter a pitch-dark hallway, my fingertips sliding along the walls until I reached the staircase rail. Most evenings, I’d head downstairs to the den to find my mom sitting alone in the corner of our sectional couch, only the glow of the TV lighting her position. I’d run to sit beside her and dine out on a variety of sitcoms: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls, The Nanny, Frasier. Humor seemed to comfort her. She built up an entire collection of recorded episodes on VHS cassettes, labeled with a marker, popping them into the VCR whenever she needed to escape from the stresses of her job or her daily woes. That night, however, I heard something different from a studio audience in the far distance. Music was playing on our stereo, but it wasn’t the typical upbeat, foot-tapping rhythms of Gloria Estefan or Barry Manilow that she’d usually spin around dinnertime, when she’d karaoke in the kitchen. This time, as I walked down the staircase, gliding my loose grip along the rail, Madonna’s “This Used to Be My Playground” was echoing against the walls, a sad, melancholy song I’d first heard recently when we’d rented A League of Their Own from Blockbuster. That movie left an impression on her; she was still crying as the credits rolled. It moved her, but not for the reasons I’d thought at the time. I walked halfway down the stairs to the sobbing coming from the living room. My mother lay across the couch, in the shadows, only the moonlight dimly shining through the window above, highlighting her face in an indigo hue. She wept intensely, the saddest person I’d ever seen. “Mama, are you okay?” I shouted to her over the music as I sat on a step, looking on from afar. “Yes, Papa, I’m fine. Please go back upstairs,” she requested, tears flooding the tone of her voice, conveying a longing to be alone in that moment. Not moving, I sat there in the center of the staircase, watching her and listening to her sorrow. I couldn’t figure out why she was so upset but was too afraid to ask what was troubling her. This woman, who had a warm, bubbly personality, who loved to laugh and tell stories, and who stood tall whenever she needed to be our mom and take care of her children, looked feeble now, as if she were incapable of helping herself. I felt deeply saddened by the sight, absorbing her heartache as if it were my own, without a clue as to the reason for her suffering.

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After a few minutes, I climbed back up to my room, putting myself to bed—a task regularly performed by either Mom or Dad, depending on the day. I lay awake, waiting for my dad to get home. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday, he’d play ping-pong in the basement or garage of one of his less-fancy pals, drinking beers and ordering takeout, a ritual they were all committed to, an outlet for the husbands to momentarily step away from their lives. When I finally heard his car pull up around 9 p.m., I jumped out of bed and listened by my door to hear how my parents would engage with each other as he walked in. The front door opened, then shut. I heard some chatter but struggled to make out their words. Mom was speaking more now, blubbering less. The music had been turned off and there was a profound silence between the walls. I sat on the floor, pressing my ear against the crack of my door. “Do we have to go . . .” I heard her utter faintly, but still, no further words from her spouse. After ten minutes, I heard my dad’s heavy feet trekking up the stairs. I quietly crept back under the covers and pretended I was asleep. Seconds later, my door opened and his footsteps came closer until I felt his lips kiss my forehead. I smelled the beer on his breath and felt the stubble on his chin pressing against mine. He fixed my blanket, then walked out. This wasn’t the first time I’d pretended to be sleeping. I adored his company but didn’t care much for him when he drank. He wasn’t cruel, but he was noticeably quiet after hours of alcohol swimming through his bloodstream, like a philosopher deep in thought, unable to hear the outside world. He was a vastly different person from the man who’d joyfully taught me tennis or taken me to wrestling matches whenever the WWF was in town, hoisting me on his shoulders among the screaming fans as he too cheered along in his high-pitched hoot. His lust for life was contagious, but when he was angry or tired at the end of a night that had involved boozing, his brain couldn’t be reached. He was simply checked out. Years later, I’d notice myself acting the same way after a few drinks, trying to snap myself out of an introspective state. The next evening, we set out to a town I hadn’t heard of, some fancy name with a “-ville” or “-port” appended to it. The ride over was uncomfortably silent in the front half of the car. Mom sat quietly in her culturally appropriate garb, her head fixed straightforward, the bangles on her wrists jingling and jangling from the car’s movement. Dad put on Bollywood soundtrack music while we drove. He’d purchased bootleg compilation CDs in Queens from local convenience store owners who ripped and burned music from imported films, distributing the discs on their shelves, which seemingly no cop cared to address when they’d stop in for one of

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their courtesy coffees. I couldn’t stand the sound of it: same beats and rhythms, annoying male and female singers, redundant lyrics of unrequited love and angst. I felt as if I’d heard the same ten songs over and over again wherever I went. The car stereo may have revved up my dad for hobnobbing, but Ravi and I were in no mood to mingle. We didn’t care for most of the snobby kids who seemed to own every toy and gadget, earning straight A’s in school en route to their predestined career paths as doctors and bankers, who made us feel like we didn’t exist in their exclusively brown world. We usually made our own fun, shooting hoops on their driveways (most had one and they were lit for nighttime play). Or when we were feeling extra bored, we’d sneak up to the homeowner’s bedroom to rummage through their drawers, finding their stashes of condoms and filling them up with water. When we finally arrived, Dad parked a block away. He didn’t want his 1994 fading maroon Chevrolet Lumina close to the luxury vehicles that lined the streets. As usual, he walked a good ten to fifteen steps ahead of us, nervously shaping his hair and fixing his outfit as he strutted. Mom held my hand, carrying the extra cloth from her saree with the other while my brother dawdled a few feet behind us. She looked beautiful in her purple two-piece outfit with gold trim around the neck and sleeves. As we reached the door, before we even had a chance to ring the bell, we were greeted by an Indian woman in a white linen saree. “Roopie!” she said, throwing her arms around him as if she’d found her long-lost brother or lover. “Hari om! Hari om!” my dad announced loudly to the room. “You look beautiful, Roopie!” the woman declared, carrying on about his appearance. My mom, Ravi, and I stood behind him, quietly, forced grins on our faces. “Hello, Loretta,” the woman said to my mom, clearly unenthused by her presence, “. . . and boys,” she added. I guess the welcoming committee had used up all of their spirit and had nothing left in the tank to offer us. My dad strolled farther into the household, handing out salutations to a progression of middle-aged brown faces. On her own, my mom tried her best to be pleasant, to say hello to the other families gathering in the foyer as party-goers spilled out into the many other rooms, which all looked the same, complete with couches and dining room tables. She turned her head around to give her boys a quick nod that signified “Go wander, have fun,” and so we did, setting out to find the snacks, tracking down servants in their white shirts and black bow ties, holding trays of kabobs and samosas

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(fried pastry stuffed with potatoes and peas). We stumbled onto a kid we’d met before and exchanged basic pleasantries, giving ourselves an initial fighting chance to be convivial. We didn’t know his name and by now were too ashamed to ask. He was a dorky, skinny brown boy with bifocals, sporting a Polo shirt and white slacks like he’d just stepped off his yacht. “You guys see the Knicks in the playoffs last night?” the kid asked. “Yeah, it was awesome. We stayed up late watching it,” Ravi responded enthusiastically. “My dad and I were there, at the Garden. Third row, center,” he said smugly. “Oh, yeah? That’s so cool!” Ravi did his best to show his support. I, on the other hand, was barely acknowledged. Usually the youngest and least cool of the bunch, I tried my best to seem interested, but my eyes tended to gaze around the room, observing the adults’ bantering as they sipped cocktails and selectively chose their appetizers from the roving servers, like picky food critics. I had a taste for surveying the moves and mannerisms of others, feeling like a mini-sociologist wherever I went, developing characters and backstories out of strangers as if they were action figures in my toy box. I found it difficult, however, to concentrate during this kid’s jabbering. “You ever been to a game?” he asked, carrying on as if basketball tickets were unobtainable gold. “Sure, we have!” I shouted, my hands flailing around in defense. And it’s true, we had been to the Garden to see the Knicks. Dad had gotten us bleacher seats for a Knicks vs. Clippers game during the regular season. Who cares if it wasn’t the playoffs? I loved sitting high atop that gigantic arena, near its ceiling, dressed in our Knicks jerseys, eating hot dogs, humming to the sounds of the organist, imitating the announcer each time a player scored. We didn’t need to see our reflections in the hardwood to enjoy the game. “Oh, okay, cool,” the kid replied tepidly, clearly turned off by my outburst. He gazed around the room, as if searching for a reason to walk away, until he spotted another kid and did just that without even a goodbye. I looked around for my mom, who was doing her best to be social, a glass of white wine in hand, smiling as the women chatted beside her but not really including her in their huddled circle. She appeared to be pushing herself to stay present but I saw her eyes drifting, the same way I imagined I acted whenever I sat at the cafeteria lunch table at school, finding a spot on the end of a bench alongside some Gap Kids who barely acknowledged my presence, allowing me to scarf down my sandwich without hassle while they shot the shit among one another. My mother stood there, looking

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like an odd-man-out around people who seemed completely within their comfort zones, with no intention of welcoming her into their orbit. At that moment, I understood the anxiety she may have been feeling last night. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed her before. As the evening finally dwindled, three-fourths of my family was ready to head home. My dad, on the other hand, took an extra twenty minutes to bid each guest adieu to ensure he would receive an invitation to the next get-together. He walked over to each husband and wife, hugging and bullshitting with them as if their approval mattered. Ravi and I had wasted most of the night watching the owner’s kid and his cohorts play N64 in the basement, never offering us a turn. I got lost and popped in on Mom; she was leaning against the wall in the foyer, feigning interest in the catty women lingering by the front door, gossiping about guests who’d already headed out. She looked restless. Dad was still making his rounds, drink in hand. By the time we finally exited, we three stood at the edge of the driveway while my dad pulled up like a delivery man, scooping us up and speeding off, obviously hoping nobody had noticed the condition of our vehicle. The ride home was quiet, my ears ringing from hours of excessive drivel, my head leaning toward the window until it thumped against the glass from exhaustion. I was down for the count. The next morning, I woke up to the distinct smell of rotten eggs, the kind of stench that made a group of kids scatter if someone had thrown a stink bomb at their feet. As soon as I opened my door, I could hear the seeds crackling as they were dropped in the pan. Mom was making her lolis, a thin, hand-rolled flatbread she prepared only occasionally, serving them next to two sunny-side up eggs and homemade savory yogurt. This combination was her own breakfast creation that I treasured whenever she was in the mood to make them, reserved exclusively for Saturday mornings when she wasn’t pushing us out of the house for school and had more time to create in the kitchen. She’d learned how to make lolis from her mother-in-law, the only kindhearted tip she ever gave my mom. My dad’s mother, Gopi, hadn’t been thrilled about her son’s marrying an American and was highly critical of her daughter-in-law—from critiquing her appearance to judging her parenting habits. His father, Gokal, however, was a kind, sweet man who loved my mom. They lived in Mumbai and had visited only twice, when I was a baby. I wish I’d gotten the chance to know them better. However the recipe was given, Mom considered the lolis a gift that she now hand-made for her family. Outside of that single bread recipe, she taught herself how to cook

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all other Indian dishes, largely from an old Madhur Jaffrey book she’d found in a secondhand book store. To push herself even further, she’d ask restaurant owners in Jackson Heights if she could observe their chefs in the kitchen, jotting down pages of notes and testing recipes in my grandma’s kitchen until she was ready to present the results to her husband. Still, these lolis were special; a childhood favorite of my dad’s, they were sacred under our roof. I ran downstairs to find my nani sitting at our kitchen table, grating vegetables as my mom stood behind her by the sink, scooping flour out of a jar. The two women were already on their second pot of coffee, heavily involved in a conversation, recapping the events of the previous night as I was still rubbing my eyes. “. . . and that’s when she implied I was fat,” Mom frustratedly said to Nani. “Frig them,” my grandma abruptly responded, tossing one hand aimlessly in the air, shaking her head before taking a sip from her cup. “They don’t know you. They don’t know anything about you.” “What else am I supposed to do, Ma? They don’t see me as one of their own.” “I don’t know, but you don’t need to take that crap.” Grandma’s advice didn’t involve a long, drawn-out speech with lofty alternatives; it was simple and straight to the point. Just then, they noticed me standing at the edge of the entranceway. “Hi, baby,” said my grandma. “Come join us.” “Good morning, sleepy head, want to help me make breakfast? Daddy will be home soon.” Every Saturday he woke up at the crack of dawn to play indoor tennis, returning home around 9 a.m., in time for breakfast. I wasn’t sure why Mom was rushing to make him breakfast; she hadn’t seemed too pleased with him for the past couple of days, and last night’s behavior had only solidified her general malaise. Nani was helping prepare the ingredients for the lolis, using a cheese grater to shave down carrots, onions, and radishes, tossing them into a large mixing bowl resting beside her. Mom walked over and added atta, whole wheat Indian-made flour she purchased from an Indian grocery that had recently opened four towns away. She added dashes of salt and pepper, then a tablespoon of oil. “Okay, Papa, get in there,” the head chef called to me. I stepped up to the bowl, filled with all of its raw materials, and began pressing my hands into the disorganized mound, kneading until it transformed into a firm consistency. Mom grabbed one handful at a time,

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placing it on the countertop and rolling it with the old wooden rolling pin she’d had since before I was born; it was so smooth from years of rolling, it felt like it had a glazed finish. She took the near–perfectly rounded flat dough and laid it into the hot pan next to her, already bubbling from oil heating. As she nurtured the forming bread with a spatula, she squeezed more oil around the rim of the pan using a repurposed deli mustard bottle she’d filled up. The added oil made for a richer, crispier texture. Once it was cooked, she assembled a pile on a cooling plate, looking like a stack of flat pancakes. On another burner, she dry-roasted cumin seeds until they started popping up in the air, then ran them through a handheld electric coffee grinder that crushed them into a powdery substance. Using her fingers, she threw a few dashes of the powder into a bowl of plain yogurt and took a handful of grated cucumber that my grandma had shredded on the cutting board as she sat and sipped her mud. Taking dashes of sea salt and chaat masala, the culprits behind that rotten-egg smell, she used a dinner spoon to quickly mix the contents of the bowl to create an accompanying yogurt sauce. Before we were ready to eat, Mom cracked two shells with the back of her cutting knife to make perfectly symmetrical sunny-side-up eggs, which would soon be soaked up by the lolis. As the eggs were sizzling, my dad entered through the front door as if my mom had known the exact moment to crack the shells. “Roop, breakfast is ready!” she yelled out to him as he was taking off his sneakers. “No thanks, not hungry,” he murmured back, then walked upstairs and turned on the shower. Mom, Grandma, and I just stood there in the kitchen, hot food waiting to be eaten. We all kind of shrugged, looking down at the floor. “Come on, let’s eat while it’s hot,” my grandma declared.

Loretta’s Lolis For this bread, you’ll need to purchase atta (Indian whole wheat flour). Best served with sunny-side up eggs and raita (homemade yogurt with grated cucumber, ground roasted cumin seeds, chaat masala and dash of salt mixed together).

▪ Add 2 cups of atta to a mixing bowl. ▪ Add a half-teaspoon of salt. ▪ Grate 1 small yellow onion.

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Grate 2 or 3 small red radishes. Grate 1 peeled carrot. Add all of your grated vegetables to the bowl. Add a teaspoon of vegetable oil. Mix together with your hands to make a stiff dough. Squeeze a drop of oil onto your palms and rub your hands together. This will make it easier to form a ball. Grab a chunk of dough in one hand and begin rolling a ball with both greased palms. Place the ball on the counter or cutting board. Keep a small mound of untouched atta on the side. Using a rolling pin, flatten the ball and roll it out to a 6ʺ flat round. Lift up the flat dough and dip each side into the dry atta, then slap the flat dough between your hands (like a pizza dough) to shake off the loose flour. This will keep it from burning in the pan. Heat a frying pan and squirt about a teaspoon of vegetable oil into the pan, spreading a thin coat all around the surface. Drop the raw flatbread into the pan while drizzling more vegetable oil around the edges of the dough until it starts to sizzle. Each side will take about a minute or two. Once little brown spots appear, lift the finished bread and transfer to a plate. Layer each flatbread on top of each other like a pancake stack.

Chapter 4

By the time I reached middle school in the late ’90s, my tastes and interests had drastically changed. I no longer cared about playing with action figures or exploring imaginary worlds in the woods behind my back yard. I was growing bored of home cooking, having discovered fast food joints, begging my mom to take me to Pizza Hut on Friday nights instead of indulging in her homemade aloo gobi with chapatis. I’d grown accustomed to foods that many friends, neighbors, schoolmates, and local residents had never even tried before and maybe never would, but the dishes of my family were becoming dull to me. In fact, I was bored with everything I’d grown up around and was hungry for more, not just in my stomach but inside of my soul. The more time I spent in school and hanging around with kids in my neighborhood, the further I wanted to distance myself from anything that made me feel ethnic. I wanted to look and feel American. At twelve years old, the only thing I cared about was fitting in and being cool, even if I had to convince myself; I had a gut feeling I’d never be viewed as such by my peers. I started to care overwhelmingly about the clothes I wore, but nothing seemed to fit me well, in both style and size. My increasing interest in junk food was making my young body rounder and flabbier, and my descent into puberty was encouraging my eyebrows to grow thicker and at an alarming rate. My armpits began to emit odors that seemed to disgust any passersby who caught a whiff. With all of the adolescent transformation, I was painfully learning just how different I was.

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I was able to see it now, consciously comparing myself with other boys my age as well as the faces and physiques I saw daily on TV. Most of my classmates didn’t outwardly appear to struggle in their searches for fashionable affiliation. The new obsession was Friends: six white, good-looking twenty-somethings living a fabulous fucking life in New York City—a supposed reality I’d never actually witnessed first-hand, though we were only a short drive or train ride from where the show took place. At school, most of the yuppies-in-training practiced sporting preppychic, just like their favorite characters, clearing off the shelves at the local Gap and Old Navy and even copying the actors’ hairstyles. The guys requested Caesar cuts from their barbers, with a flip in the front, then lathered in gel. The girls demanded long, pin-straight hair and dyed every other strand in contrasting streaks. My hair and figure offered no resemblances to Ross, Joey, or Chandler. And no Rachels, Phoebes, or Monicas were turning their heads in my direction. I didn’t feel envious of my classmates’ newfound panache since I didn’t watch the stupid sitcom or idolize its milquetoast stars, but whenever some schmuck would pass me in the hallway, stick their thumb and pointer at me in a pistol position and query, “How you doin’?” I’d use one finger to answer them directly to their face. There was nobody in popular culture I admired and related to. I was much more intrigued by my brother, Ravi, and his friends, now halfway through high school, spending most of their time playing video games, eating burgers, and blasting loud music in his bedroom, his walls covered in posters of basketball players, like Allen Iverson and Kevin Garnett, and musicians, like Tupac Shakur and The Offspring. Ravi never seemed as concerned as I was about the unique identity we shared. I guess he didn’t think as deeply about his place in the world, or maybe he was just trying to survive teenagehood in his own way, drowning out his frustration through over-stimulating entertainment. One day, however, after school, he came home upset. A classmate had approached him at lunch and said, “Yo, smell yourself.” His puberty was catching up to him, and as any “ethnic” kid knows, bad odor creates an easy target. He never went into any further detail about it, but I know it upset him. His bedroom was his sanctuary. He and his friends hung out behind his closed door for hours each afternoon. Thanks to those clowns, I was growing desensitized to profanity and lyrical content far too mature for my age. Whenever he’d allow me entrance to sit in with him and his cohorts,

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our two half-Black neighbors Kellen and Jordan, and Anthony, his Korean American friend (who’d later become a brilliant chef but first honed his skills by practicing recipes on us), they’d blast rap and rock continually, popping in one CD after another, the noise level so blaring that you couldn’t hear the person next to you speak. The songs were raucous and aggressive, similar to the tunes I’d hear outside of my titi Lizzie’s apartment building in the South Bronx, where the men who drank and rolled dice hung around all day. The portable stereo that sat on the nightstand next to Ravi’s bed was accompanied by a giant booklet of discs carrying a range of selections, from DMX and Rage Against the Machine to Nas and Green Day to Pearl Jam and Big Pun. Whichever the song, I had no idea what was being said, aside from the consistency of the word “Fuck,” but I quickly internalized their anger and frustration as my own. They were certainly pissed off at or with something; I couldn’t figure out who or why, but then, I didn’t really care. I could feel their raw emotion pulsating from the vibrating speakers as if it were my own energy being unleashed, like a soda bottle shaken up before the opening of its cap. The more tracks we listened to, the more I personally felt like a carbonated beverage needing desperately to explode. My teenage angst was budding at an accelerating speed. Since I sucked at video games, and Ravi barely let me play anyway, I preferred to stare at the CD cases that stood neatly stacked in a plastic tower in one corner of his room, pulling out one at a time. I analyzed the covers, the faces on them, the colorful and sloppy duds they wore, the lack of fucks they seemed to give just by their dreaded facial expressions. These artists definitely weren’t hanging out at Hollywood parties with Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry; I imagined them jamming out in a basement somewhere, then smashing neighbors’ mailboxes just for recreational enjoyment—those scenarios thrilled me as I saw myself in their bastardom. I wasn’t a destructive youth by any means, but I felt I related much more strongly to troubled heretics than bourgeois conformists—at least, that’s how I categorized them in my head. On one of our bi-annual weekend visits to the mall with my mom, grandma, and Ravi, to shop for new clothes, I asked if I could venture off on my own. I knew I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for in Sears or Macy’s. “Please, Mom, can I just walk around for a while?” I pleaded. “Yeah, I’m bailing, too,” Ravi chimed in. “Okay, fine, meet us at the food court in one hour,” Mom said defeatedly.

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She pulled out two $50 bills from her purse and dangled them above our heads, as if she were about to award us golden tickets to our temporary independence. “Remember, you need at least two pairs of jeans, underwear, socks, and a few shirts,” she explained, shaking her fist at us while still holding the cash, refusing to hand it over without laying out the stipulations. “This needs to last you for the year.” “Yeah, got it,” I said, an attitudinal agitation in my tone that only a young teenage son could give his mother. Whether I actually believed I’d follow her demands or not, I instantly forgot my objective once I set out with the scratch in my pocket. Stipends in hand, Ravi and I ventured off, heading in opposite directions. I was exploring in hopes of finding pieces of myself that expressed my new stylistic direction, and I imagined it was the same for my brother. Walking around a shopping mall with a boatload of money to spend, I finally knew what a wealthy person felt like on a daily basis. I could buy practically anything I desired. Dipping in and out of boutiques and clothing stores, I searched for attire that was not only reflective of my new cultural interests in euphonious anarchy and potential property damage but that would help me stand out as I attempted to tightrope along the cutting edge of badassery. I walked in and out of American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, Aeropostale, H&M—none of them suited the vision I had in mind, consisting of oversized t-shirts and sports team jerseys, bomber jackets, baggy jeans, baseball caps, and basketball sneakers. The models in their wall ads, like their employees, appeared to wear uniforms that provoked the same gentle sensibility: tight plaid buttoned shirts, jeans with intentional rips and tears, and an abundance of pullover sweaters. I felt unworthy simply standing inside their branded spaces, surrounded by an army of Ashton Kutchers and Sarah Michelle Gellars. I was too large to fit into their unusually tight rags, nor did I represent the ideal American look—at least, that’s what the pretty advertisements insinuated. Besides, I wasn’t interested in dressing like the porcelain gangs from 90210 or 7th Heaven. After some wandering, I finally stumbled upon Lenny’s Threads, an independently owned clothing store featuring the kind of “urban” brands that rappers wore, like FUBU, Enyce, Southpole, Rocawear, Mecca, and Phat Farm. Operated by two unassuming Pakistani men in polos and slacks, who didn’t seem to give a shit about the clothing they were hawking except for its trendy value, the tiny retail store offered a window into a street style

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not readily available in the other stores catering to suburban life. I was enamored by the colors and designs I’d seen only on album covers sported by my favorite lyricists, like Wu-Tang Clan and Def Squad. I spotted a red-and-black FUBU baseball jersey I had seen LL Cool J recently wear in a music video. I had to have it; it would be my first step toward piecing together my new image. It cost $35, more than half of my clothing budget. While I knew my mom would be upset about such a frivolous purchase, at that moment I didn’t care. After the one hour I’d spent gloriously on my own, I arrived at the food court with one impractical item, and I was thrilled. I pulled the jersey from the bag to show my mom and grandma and held it up against my chest. “What’s that?” Nani asked. “My new look. You like it?” “It’s okay,” Mom said, clearly struggling to feign enthusiasm. “F-U-B-U? What does that mean?” queried my grandma. “For Us, By Us,” I responded. I knew that only because I’d just heard LL Cool J rap it in one of his songs. “Who’s ‘us’?” Grandma pressed. “I don’t know! Does it matter?” I started to get agitated. “So, what else did you get?” Mom asked. “That’s it.” “That’s it? Are you kidding me? What else are you going to wear?” “I don’t know . . . I’ll figure it out!” Ravi joined us, carrying a few bags. “At least there’s more than one thing there,” my mother said, pointing at Ravi’s findings without even knowing what was inside. “Do you have the rest of the money, Raji? I’ll use it for lunch then.” I emptied the $38 and change, after taxes, into my mom’s hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll get something nice.” “Why?” I whined. “I want to get Taco Bell.” “We’re going to Kiran Palace. Their lunch buffet is until three.” “More Indian?” asked Ravi. He was never as big a fan of curry as I was. Even at home, whenever Mom cooked it for dinner, he’d opt for a can of Chef Boyardee. “You guys always used to love the buffet. Come on, you’ll find something.” Twenty minutes down the road, we arrived at a strip mall. At first sight, you wouldn’t even know there was an Indian buffet at the center, stuffed between an Irish pub and a Chinese laundromat. When you entered the little sliver that was Kiran Palace, it was like walking into a Hindu shrine

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built hundreds of years ago, equipped with gold-accented molding along the ceilings and brass statues of gods sitting on windowsills and floor corners. The scent of incense drifted into my nostrils while sitar music played over the loudspeakers. Arriving there, I always felt like it was like being teleported to ancient Delhi, or that I’d died and this was one of three potential afterlives. We took our seats at a round table as a basket of garlic naan was placed at the center. “Let’s get to it,” Mom declared. She and my grandma were aficionados when it came to buffeting. They frequented every one within a twentyfive-mile radius at least once a week, from a Sizzler two towns over to the Good Taste Chinese’s lunch special in Mayfair Shopping Center on Jericho Turnpike. For these two ladies, buffets weren’t just an opportunity to not cook; they represented an adventure to taste any and every dish available, maybe discovering something delicious to try cooking at home. Strolling along the line, gazing at each copper serving tray holding a heap of texture and hue, glistening meat or vegetables lying on a bed or floating to the surface, aromas shifting in front of my face as my feet moved sideways toward the right, I couldn’t help losing myself in its process. And yet, though I did still enjoy eating Indian food, I was still fixated on Taco Bell. But rather than refuse to partake or run out of the door, I decided to get creative and compile my own version using the elements bestowed before me. I rested one full triangular-shaped naan on my plate, just like a taco. Starting with forage, I added lettuce and tomato on top as a foundation. Rather than beans, I took a generous scoop of chana masala (chickpea curry), the same kind my mom cooked every Wednesday night at home, and the only Indian dish my grandma had proudly learned to cook (deliciously), and distributed it across the cold vegetables. Next came a few chunks of boneless chicken tikka, accompanied by sautéed onions. To top it off, I drizzled a little raita yogurt, then green chutney using the tips of their ladles. Back at our table, I delicately folded the naan in half and shoved the bow of my mash-up into my mouth, generating a spice-induced super-flavor my taste buds had never before encountered. “Papa, you’re making a mess of yourself,” commented Mom, as she, Nani, and Ravi looked on, neatly eating their helpings with forks. I wasn’t trying to curry favor with them. In fact, I laughed as curry squeezed out from the other end, some residue leaking along the side of my arm. I knew I was being absurd, a slob, a partial embarrassment, but I didn’t care. “Oh, Raji,” my grandma chuckled. “Where do you think you are?”

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Honestly, in that very moment, I didn’t know anymore, but it was delicious. On Monday, I walked into school proudly wearing my FUBU baseball jersey, knowing my school chums would have no idea what it represented to me and why I was wearing it. I hung out in the hallway a while, by my locker, hoping one of them would walk by and notice it. The one boy who finally did, Tyler, was an obnoxious prick who’d been teasing me relentlessly since third grade, when he’d started referring to me as Yokozuna, a Samoan American wrestler who fought in the WWF as a Japanese sumo, begging me not to sit on him. Tyler had never not been an asshole to me. I’m not sure why he’d selected me as his verbal pin cushion. He was a loudmouthed troublemaker, who I’d later find out was losing his mom to cancer and must have needed someone to direct his anger toward. I guess he liked the way I reacted to his insults, in full defense and irritation. Whenever he’d throw oral jabs my way, I’d agitatedly respond with a hearty “Shut up!” He’d just laugh at my rebuttals and keep pounding away. He walked closer toward my locker; I tried my best not to make eye contact, pretending to read my textbook. Then suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. “FUBU?!” he shouted. “You think you’re Black now?” He began laughing uncontrollably, drawing attention among students within our proximity. I was mad, not because I regretted my purchase decision but because I was being laughed at for wearing something perceived as relegated to only one race. I couldn’t fully understand what FUBU represented in the eyes of others. Maybe it was only for Black people, but did fashion hold exclusivity based on race? I did the only thing that came to mind. I kicked Tyler so fucking hard in the back of his kneecap that he stumbled. A nearby teacher grabbed me by the back of my new jersey. “Hey, you apologize to him right now!” “Fuck him,” I replied, made furious by her insistence. “That’s it; you’re coming with me.” She pulled me by my collar and marched me down to the guidance counselor’s office. Once we had arrived, she presented me in front of the office secretary: “This young man instigated a fight in the hallway.” “No, he started it!” I proclaimed. “Take a seat. We’ll be with you shortly.” I sat there, against the wall, the second chair in a row of six, all empty except mine. I folded my arms, pouting, quiet. “The counselor will see you now.”

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I felt like I was entering the office of a governor who moonlighted as an evangelist. I’d never crossed the threshold before, nor even met the man, seeing him only from afar, addressing the school from the auditorium stage, promoting ideas of tolerance and unity. He sat at his desk now, typing on his computer, distracted. “Sit down.” I plopped into his guest seat, slumping back, spreading my legs out, my posture purposely poor. “So, I’m told you hit one of your classmates.” “He started it. He made fun of my clothes.” The man stared at my outfit, crinkling his entire face together like a window shade being pulled up to reveal the outside world. “Should you be wearing that?” he asked. I looked down at it, touching the stitching’s lining of the logo with my fingertips, then looked back into his eyes. He was staring at the logo. “You know, those kinds of clothes could be mistaken as gang signs. The colors, too. Maybe you shouldn’t be wearing that kind of stuff.” “Like this one?” I pointed at my chest. “Yes, they wear those. I’ve seen them.” He had? When? Where? What did this guy do in his free time? Scout potential criminals? “Have you ever been to the Gap? They have some great clothes for young men.” I just sat there, still, silent, gazing at his maroon V-neck sweater, wondering where he’d bought it and if he’d ever stood out a day in his life.

Raj’s Indian Buffet Taco Ingredients may be subject to change depending on your preference or what’s readily available.

▪ Place 1 piece of naan on your plate. ▪ Grab a generous amount of lettuce and tomato (salad is usually available at the beginning of the buffet line) using tongs, and lay it on top of the naan. ▪ Take 1 scoop of chana masala and spread a thick layer over the lettuce and tomato. ▪ Using tongs, grab 5 to 7 chunks of chicken tikka and distribute the pieces over the chana masala. Then, pick up the glazed onion garnish and sprinkle it over the chicken.

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▪ Using a ladle, generously drizzle green chutney over the chicken. Repeat this step with raita yogurt, usually available at the same sauce station. ▪ Once back at your seat, fold the naan over the ingredients, so it evenly holds sturdily in your hand, then eat as quickly as possible.

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Chapter 5

Middle school can be a rude awakening toward how we view ourselves and one another, but it didn’t prepare me for what was next. That first week of high school—well, it reshaped my entire outlook on the world, as I imagined it had for everyone. On September 11, 2001, I was only fourteen years old, making my ascent into young manhood in a society I presumed was built upon a strong foundation of security and strength. Until I began to see it crashing down in front of my eyes. That sunny Tuesday morning, I was sitting in ninth-grade Biology, daydreaming about the Yankees cap I’d saved up for and couldn’t wait to buy after school, the traditional navy-blue design that was worn by Jay-Z and Nas in their true New Yorker spirit. Their songs embodied a great sense of pride for their city, a feeling that aspirations and ambitions could come true in the Big Apple. I became overcome with a similar sentiment whenever my grandma played her Frank Sinatra records on her home stereo and recounted how Anthony Papa had adored his songs, how they’d lifted him up, even when he was blue. Music did that for me, too. And I felt his presence in the room whenever she’d put on “Theme from New York, New York,” as if my grandpa were watching over me. Ol’ Blue Eyes, too, for that matter. I had a difficult time staying focused in class that day, as usual, trying my best to pay attention to Mrs. Scott’s droning on about evolution and natural selection. But just as she was starting to explain where the human species derived from, we were interrupted by the principal’s distorted babbling over the loudspeaker. There’d been an attack on the World Trade Center;

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teachers were directed to turn on their classroom TV sets, and we were all being asked to remain calm. It was a peculiar announcement. Nobody spoke; we just turned our heads at one other, everyone seeming baffled. I didn’t panic, however. I’d heard about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that had fallen short of the terrorists’ goals yet still had tragically taken six innocent lives. A van carrying explosives was driven into the parking garage, attempting to knock over the towers like dominoes, but the plan didn’t work; they proved to be too strong for a few assholes trying to take down our beloved city’s skyline. Although I wasn’t initially worried, the tone in our principal’s voice added a layer of concern on my teacher’s face. She grabbed the remote control from her desk drawer and switched on the small, square set suspended in the corner beneath the ceiling in the science lab. As soon as the screen came alive, we saw the Twin Towers on fire, one of them partly covered in black smoke and flames, like special effects in a movie. It was a chilling image, producing instant goosebumps all over my body. Then, minutes later, a second plane crashed into the other building, live, in front of our eyes. We all jumped in our seats. Could this have been an accident? Was Y2K arriving late and all of our air traffic control’s computers were malfunctioning? Were we being attacked by another country, on the brink of World War III? A million scenarios raced through my mind. Some teachers popped in to gander at our broadcast, as if the images were any different from those in their own rooms. They paced around, visibly distraught, like residents observing a neighbor’s house ablaze from across the street. It was the first time I saw a bunch of adults looking completely vulnerable, as if unsure of what they should do next. Mrs. Scott shooed her fellow faculty out and shut the door, picked up the remote control, and turned the TV off, then walked over to the chalkboard and continued her lesson. “Should we go home?” one student shouted nervously, the anxiousness in his voice leading me to think what he really wanted to say was: “Are they coming for us, too?” “Everything will be okay. Now, it’s said that homo sapiens derived from Africa around six million years ago, working their way through the Middle East. . . .” She didn’t seem confident as she slowly began scribbling on the board, as if convincing herself to carry onward. We were all shaken by what we’d just witnessed; very few, if any, of us kids had cell phones in 2001, so all we could do was sit there with our thoughts and anxiety.

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When the bell finally rang, we flooded into the halls. There was a presence of turmoil all around us; I wondered if more carnage was on its way. Just then, one kid yelled from a distance: “The towers fell!” Students and teachers alike began to frantically shift formation, almost scattering but with nowhere to go. I started thinking about this program I’d seen on the History Channel a few months back: how children in the 1950s used to practice air raid drills, ducking under the desks in order to protect themselves from the Communists dropping a nuclear warhead over their general location, probably decimating any living specimen within a twentymile radius. I could only imagine the unease they must have felt, practicing for an Armageddon that never arrived. Still, I started to look around for the nearest broom closet, just in case. A few jittery periods and hallway hysterias later, intelligence continued leaking, spouting from mouth to mouth, as we all tried desperately to gather accurate dispatches. “The Muslims did this!” one kid squawked as I walked by him, engaging with his friend by their lockers. “Yeah, those fucking Arabs,” his mate responded. Muslims? Arabs? What did they have to do with this? At my age, I didn’t even ponder the notion of terrorists or militant radicals. I’d just encountered three years of Global History, concluding that the Russians were the Americans’ enemy, now and forever. The only Muslims I’d ever encountered were a few quiet classmates and the halal meat vendors serving chicken and rice on Hillside Avenue in Queens (a favorite spot whenever we were in the area). I turned the corner to find my pal Andi being heckled by a few white boys. Andi was a Sikh American; he wore a turban every day of his life as per his religion and cultural tradition, which already made him an easy target for local yokels who didn’t understand why a young man would don a headpiece that wasn’t a ball cap or a football helmet. He also ate chaat for breakfast each morning, and the raw onion and chutney gave him an unfavorable breath and overall bodily scent that non-Indian kids could only connect to bad hygiene and odor—more low-hanging fruit for bullies. “Your people did it! Fucking towel head!” one dipshit belted out, pointing toward Andi’s head. I didn’t understand why they were singling him out until I peered further into the classroom they were standing outside of, its door swung open. On the TV was an image of Osama bin Laden, sitting on the floor with a mic in his hand, his words being translated to explain that he was taking credit for the plane crashes. He was wearing a white turban on top of his

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brown head. That’s the image that all of America was seeing throughout the country. I realized in that instance that Andi, and perhaps others who looked like him, didn’t stand a goddamn chance. Feelings of both relief and guilt overtook me because I knew those thugs wouldn’t torment me. My skin wasn’t brown, and I didn’t wear any strange, foreign garb, but that’s all they saw. I arrived home from school feeling disoriented. My mom and grandma were in the den watching the news. They looked dumbfounded, hypnotized by the sight of their beloved city in ruins. The video footage played on rotation in between the same rough clips of bin Laden claiming responsibility and talking heads cackling and theorizing. I felt nauseated as I stood there in the entranceway, looking over their saddened shoulders. “The Muslims did it. They’re responsible for this,” Grandma said assuredly, her eyes still glued to the screen. “How can you say that?!” I shouted back at her. “They did! Look! They attacked us!” “Not all Muslims are bad people, Nani! How can you say that?” “But they did! They’re saying they did!” “I go to school with some of them. They’re good people. How can you say they all did it?” “I’m just saying . . . .” “What the hell is wrong with you, Nani?” “Hey, don’t talk to your grandmother that way,” Mom insisted. “She’s only going by what the news is telling her. Hear her out.” “Never mind!” I screamed, so ardently that I felt my vocal cords in my ribcage. I quickly stormed out of the house, searching for fresh air. I was angry. Not just at my grandma but at myself and those ignorant, shallow kids I went to school with, who judged people on the surface; and those stupid terrorists who’d now only made things worse for how outsiders perceived Muslims and brown-skinned people altogether. Why did it matter if I didn’t share the same pigmentation as half of my own kind? Where had all of this hatred, finger-pointing, and generalizing come from? Which humans had invented the rules for this fucked-up game? I couldn’t blame my grandma; she was a pawn, just like the rest of us. We believed whatever we were told by the news, the education system, our family, friends, and neighbors. It was all so muddled and sensational, as if the truth didn’t even matter to people. Reality seemed out of reach, and I didn’t know what to think anymore. I made a dash through the woods in the back of my house, landing in the parking lot of Sports Authority, newly constructed, sitting on the ground

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of the old Long Island Arena. The sporting goods store, usually bustling, was eerily empty. I grabbed the Yankees hat I’d been longing for off of the shelf. For some strange reason, as I glided my hand along the white thread and blue felt, the “NY” logo conveyed a deeper, more complex meaning now; it was no longer merely a symbol for a baseball team or a fashionable accessory for rappers. New York was like Oz to me, the land of gargantuan dreams coming true within those canyons of steel and cement; the sense it provided of discovering how small you actually were as soon as you stepped onto its concrete surface, surrounded by millions of colorful, effervescent faces who all seemed to know where they were going, even if they’d just arrived. I started to tear up, wondering if that magical metropolis would still be standing by the time I became old enough to inhabit it, and if it would have the same glow as it once had, now that it was partly in rubble and on high alert, weary of outsiders. After returning home from purchasing the hat, I opened the front door to the sound of the news anchor’s voice still shrieking in the background in his carefully controlled, sober timbre. I wasn’t in the mood to look my grandma in the eye again. The sound of anguish in her voice still rang in my ears. I couldn’t bear it. I was still leaning in the doorway when Ravi came down the steps. “Dad should be home any minute,” he said casually, yet assuredly. “I called him on his cell.” Thankfully, our father didn’t work in the city anymore, as he had a few years earlier. He’d found a new job closer to home, a safe distance from the mayhem. When it came to serious shit, Ravi and I didn’t open up much about our emotions. We both just shrugged, gazing down at the floor, hands loosely in our pockets. “Crazy shit, man,” he noted. That was enough for me to tell he was affected. “Yeah . . . crazy.” I didn’t know what to say to him. I wasn’t sure if he’d experienced a similar day to mine, but I just couldn’t bring myself to ask him. Ravi joined my mom and grandma in the den for the continuous coverage of carnage while I stayed near the front door. I heard my dad’s car pull up, so I figured I’d stand there to greet him, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t look at him either. The effort of making eye contact was more than I could handle. I either locked up my emotions or allowed them to explode like projectile vomit. I heard Dad’s footsteps get closer. He set his briefcase down and placed both hands on my shoulders.

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“What a day . . . .” He deeply exhaled. “How are you?” “I’m okay, I guess.” “It’s ridiculous out there. I heard on the radio that an angry mob stomped a cashier at the 7-Eleven, just down the road. I passed by it; cop cars everywhere . . . . I don’t understand.” “Me neither,” I replied, standing there, stiff. I walked upstairs and lay on top of my bed. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Turning on the tiny TV that sat on my dresser, I found news on every channel, interrupting almost all regularly scheduled programming with harrowing visuals of the day’s tragic events. I tried not to look, twirling my new cap in my fingers, wishing I could doze off, but I couldn’t. I felt paralyzed. About an hour later, I smelled the aroma of Sázon lingering up toward my bedroom. I slowly crept downstairs, past my parents sitting in the living room as they were still recapping the day. I caught the tail end of my dad’s story, talking about a family friend he’d spoken to. “. . . He barely got out of Lower Manhattan alive . . . he had to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with hundreds of others, covered in soot.” “Oh my god, that’s horrifying. Those poor people.” They didn’t see me as I tip-toed behind them, into the kitchen, to find my grandma by the stove, stirring beans in a pan while an adjacent pot of rice was bubbling. She must have heard my soft footsteps but she didn’t turn her head. “Can you drain the rice, baby?” Her hearing was keen, though she’d sometimes act as if she were going deaf, if she felt like playing up her senior role, but not this time. Saying nothing, I walked over to the cabinet and grabbed a straining bowl and placed it in the sink. Once I poured in the rice, a cloud of steam rose before my eyes as I sat the strainer over the top. The beans had just finished cooking. I knew that my nani could tell I was in no mood to sit at the table and eat a meal as a family. She fixed me a bowl: a giant scoop of fluffy white rice smothered with red kidney beans drenched in her special tomato sauce, using the same soup ladle to handle both. It was a simple meal but one of my favorites. She handed me my dinner and a spoon. “Go on,” she said. “Go rest. It’s been a long day.” I walked back upstairs and sat on my bed, the news on low-volume now. I dug for perfectly balanced spoonfuls of rice and beans while glancing back up at the tube every few bites. Completely uncertain of what to make of the day, I pondered what tomorrow would bring, for years to come.

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Elsie’s Arroz con Habichuelas (Rice and Beans) For two to four people, depending on how hungry you are.

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Boil 2 cups of white rice. Add a little olive oil and a pinch of salt to the rice for fluffiness. Drizzle Goya olive oil into a heated pan or pot. Add a teaspoon of garlic powder or cut a clove of fresh garlic. Add 1 small can of tomato sauce (about 8 ounces) to the pot. Add 1 packet of Goya Sázon. Add 1 teaspoon of Goya Recaito to the sauce. Add a little bit of red wine vinegar. Add a spoonful of stuffed green olives with capers and pimentos, and a little of the juice from the jar for flavor. ▪ Add 1 can of red kidney beans. ▪ Stir together and let sit for 15 minutes. ▪ Add salt and black pepper to taste.

Chapter 6

As I transitioned further into teenagehood, my grandma was growing tired of her job at the bank and of life in the Bronx. More important to her, she missed us. My mom was her best friend; they spoke on the phone every single day between visits. Ravi and I were like her sons, and we seemed to be aging at an accelerated pace. Gathering only on weekends just wasn’t enough for her anymore. Though she still had no desire to live under the same roof with us, as she valued her independence, she wanted to be closer to her family at the very least. That freedom to arrive at our doorstep for dinner at a moment’s notice, or pop in for a cup of coffee, was an old-neighborhood ritual she’d longed for as family members began to pass on or move away. Those casual comings-and-goings—from apartment to apartment, stoop to stoop—had now become planned visitations and they weren’t cutting it. Adapting to the suburbs would prove more challenging than she’d realize, however. For one thing, unless you lived directly next door or within a few houses, driving a car was crucial for reaching the simplest of destinations. Also, our neighborhoods were darker and quieter than her fluorescent city blocks, perhaps even eerier to someone who wasn’t used to the manufactured desolation. Still, after spending nearly her entire existence in New York City’s northernmost borough, she was ready for a calmer, less hectic day-to-day. And she wanted to be there for my brother and me during our formative years.

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When she retired from EAB, she was given an honorable sendoff. Her co-workers threw her a going-away party, and the local paper, The Bronx Times, wrote a profile about her twenty-nine years of faithful service to her branch, as well as to the community. That article meant a lot to her; years later, I found a clipping of it pasted to the last page of a photo album she’d made chronicling her life. It was displayed prominently at the center, as if completing the final chapter to her story, even though she lived almost twenty more years after that feature was published. Moving her mid-sixties self away from everything she knew must have been difficult for her, not that my teenage self was paying much attention to her emotional state. I wish I had been. I was too concerned with my own developing angst to lend a mature ear; that was my mom’s job. Though I was present, as always, to lend a helping hand and to do as I was asked. Like carrying boxes from a car or truck. Young men usually get stuck with that task. But before any lifting took place, she needed to find a new place to settle down. As soon as her lease was up with Tony the landlord, she searched for listings near our home in Commack. As there were almost no apartment buildings in our townships, excluding an expensive gated community that consisted mostly of recent divorcées and their kids (some of whom I went to school with) costing upward of $2,000 a month, Nani searched for more modest lodgings. The only accommodations in her price range were split-levels, similar to the one she had been living in, except these available “units” were reconverted basements in the homes of people who were looking for easy, passive income. Oftentimes, they were illegal, so that the home’s owner didn’t have to pay county and state taxes. Yet, they were openly listed in the weekly Penny Saver, so how bad could they be? Within a single makeshift space, a small kitchen and bathroom were added, plus an erected dividing wall with a door to create walled-off sleeping quarters. There was also a separate entrance, usually through the back yard, down a staircase, underneath an elevated deck. After viewing a few, she settled on one in Kings Park, a neighboring town historically known for the King Parks Psychiatric Center. Built in 1885 and operated by New York state, the facility was finally shut down only a few years prior to her arrival. The enormous grounds, consisting of more than 100 buildings, now lay in decay and ruin. Its main hub, Building #93, overshadowed the town and its residents, similar to the way The Twilight Zone “Tower of Terror” does at Walt Disney World, with a seemingly permanent gray cloud hovering at all times. Tourists and locals alike became fascinated with its horror movie–like folklore—from rumors of escaped mental patients to experimental shock treatments’ being

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conducted—and it drew in visitors who wandered its abandoned halls and unkempt property, ignoring reports of the asbestos contaminating the area, preventing its demolition to this day. The creep factor was omnipresent, and it could be felt in the distance from Nani’s new basement home. Each time I visited and glanced over in the Center’s direction, I got the chills. Once all moved in, however, Grandma was quite pleased with her new quarters. She added her own modest decorating touch to create a homely environment. Old-fashioned American décor with a touch of flair: lots of sturdy, wooden furniture and her recliner on the slant to face the TV. She was now only a ten-minute drive from our house, close enough to drop in but far enough to have privacy and be on her own. And no more bridges or highways. No rush hour traffic. No constant city noise. Almost instantly clear, though, to the rest of us, no diversity to speak of—but that took time for her to realize. Even today, as of the most recent U.S. Census, the town’s residency was over 80 percent White. I could only imagine the overall culture shock she must have undergone while making the transition from city dweller to suburbanite. But maybe she had an inclination about that statistic. She could have seen this move as a chance to start over, a stranger with complete anonymity. No longer able to walk down the block for her groceries, she was now at the mercy of Key Food, the town’s single supermarket, adjacent to a TJ Maxx, the area’s only clothing store. In the Bronx, her produce came from a variety of family-owned businesses: Carmine’s Deli for cold cuts, which was originally Nancy’s Deli before Nancy passed the business along to her son; Scaglione Bakery for fresh loaves of bread; countless corner bodegas or markets for fresh fruits and vegetables; Rexall Drug Store, whose wooden floors and shelves of apothecary jars served its community’s health and hygiene needs. Shopping had been done multiple times throughout the week as one purchased only what was immediately needed. There was something personal about the people you purchased your goods from. Familiar faces to count on, who could provide small talk and a personal touch to a day. Foods were prepared in front of customers’ eyes. The smells emanating from ovens and barrels, of yeast rising at high heat or fresh fishes bringing in low tide. Half-moon blocks of various meats and cheeses hanging from strings. Pounds of coleslaw and cold pasta and potato salads sitting behind glass enclosures. All of that intimacy with the foods she interacted with was lost when she left. She’d gone from making multiple stops, using only one reusable tote bag hanging from her forearm, to pushing a gigantic shopping cart through long, descending aisles, filling it up high so she wouldn’t have

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to worry about returning anytime too soon. Loading and unloading the cumbersome plastic bags from her trunk, then putting the groceries away in her kitchen cabinets, was an exercise that took as long as it did to shop for the items. Rolling up and down those numbered lanes, searching for familiar products, must have felt hopeless. If she were looking for particular ingredients for Puerto Rican or Indian dishes, like Goya kidney beans, Sázon, or turmeric powder, she was relegated to the “Ethnic Foods” aisle, a single path of scanty offerings from a country or region unable to fit inside the mold of standard American fare. All of them shoved in together. As you moved through every few feet of shelving, you went from Asia to Greece to Latin America to Mexico to the Middle East to Jewish/kosher (is that actually a place?). Walking down that aisle felt like a ghettoized version of Epcot Center, the only hope for a Carousel of Progress the frowning, middle-aged, mullet-sporting cashier waiting to scan your items as you placed them on the conveyor belt. The few times I accompanied Grandma, I looked over my shoulders to see if anyone took notice of the products we were purchasing. No eyes turned our way. But then again, Nani always made sure to bookend her selections with a box of pasta or a loaf of Italian bread, even if she wasn’t planning to use them anytime soon. There was a feeling of discomfort at the very least to have all of her grocery items exposed, sitting out in the open for onlookers to critique. She’d prefer they assume the beans were for a fasul than for habichuelas, given the dense population of Italian Americans in the area. As I became eligible for my learner’s permit, I found myself in need of serious practice behind the wheel. I had places to go. Secretly, unbeknownst to any of the adults in my life, I had a goal in mind. I’d recently started dating an Indian American girl, Lana, who lived a few towns over. She was my first girlfriend, actually. I met her through a family friend, and to my surprise, she liked me. I hadn’t known a girl who “liked” me in that way before. The feeling was exhilarating, though I’m not sure I was ready for a full-blown relationship. She demanded my time over the phone and asked me to pick her up from school almost every day. The only problem was, I didn’t drive. During our first few months of dating, I’d beg Ravi and his friends for rides. They generously played chauffeur a day or two out of the week. Sometimes I’d barter with them, curating and burning mix CDs of downloaded songs from the Internet. They appreciated my taste in hardcore rap and distorted punk rock, plus it saved them the effort of illegally ripping the songs themselves on their home computers. After a few months of hitching rides, my anxious “Aphrodite” (we were studying Greek mythology at the time) expressed her desire for more alone time.

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My system was beginning to fail. After all, I couldn’t possibly build a romance based on making out inside of a Wendy’s while a car and driver waited for us in the parking lot. The routine was growing more stale than the soggy French fries I never got to finish. Unfortunately, no cars or parents were available after school to give me driving lessons. My dad usually worked late and my mom was either still sleeping when I got home or getting ready for another overnight nursing shift at the hospital. There was no money to pay for lessons, either. I thought about asking Nani to teach me, given her new and abundant free time. She was over at our house almost every day, usually taking the pressure off of Mom by preparing dinner. She liked feeling needed by us, too. And she was a damn good driver, too. I suppose she had to be, living all of those years in the city, where conquering gridlock and parallel parking were vital to one’s survival. One night, while helping the two ladies make their weekly chana masala, a simple chickpea curry, one of the few Indian dishes my grandma learned to cook from Mom, I asked Nani if she’d teach me to drive. I was in the middle of chopping a white onion. I figured the tears draining from my eye ducts might help earn some pity points. Before she could even respond, Mom chimed in. “Why are you so eager to drive?” “Well . . . you know . . . because . . .” I stuttered trying to get out a reasonable excuse while struggling to keep my hands on the cutting knife. “Because . . . I want to hang with friends.” “What friends?” she persisted. “You have your bike.” “He wants some freedom, Loretta,” Nani insisted. “I understand. He’s young. He’s growing up.” I smirked at the onion, not yet lifting my head, containing my excitement as best I could. “Besides, he can drive me around some days. We can run errands together, see a movie every now and then.” I raised my head slightly, glancing over at Nani. “Uh, sure, sure. Movies, errands, absolutely,” I responded, rushing to comply, once again bartering. Although I cherished the time I spent with my grandma, the truth is, I was yearning for more freedom, but I felt guilty expressing my need to detach. “We can start after dinner. There’s still some light outside.” After I finished cleaning the dishes, my grandma and I got into her silver compact Toyota Prism, the inferior sibling to the Corolla, and I sat behind the driver’s wheel for the first time. Well, it wasn’t exactly my first time. My dad had let me drive on the Long Island Expressway once but that had been a frightening disaster. I’d gone only a quarter-mile at 20 mph

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before drivers began honking and I veered us to the side of the highway for safety. This time we were on a quiet street in front of our house. “Ten and two,” Nani explained, placing her hands on an invisible steering wheel in front of her. “Hold it like this.” I followed her lead. “Good, now turn the key and put the car into ‘Drive.’ ” I lit the ignition and the engine fired up. It growled like a hungry lion— what a rush! I nervously pressed the intimidating button-release on the stick and moved it from “P” to “D.” I was thrilled as we felt the tires slowly rolling, pulling us along with them. “There we go. You got it, baby.” Her encouragement was invaluable in those little moments. Her confidence in me would help me roll forward again and again over the years. Weeks into our afternoon lessons, I was feeling like a professional, ready to take the car out for a spin on my own. Up until now, we’d driven around town, along main roads, and a little bit on the parkway. I was aching to see Lana and pick her up, just the two of us for once. We were approaching 5 p.m. and almost done for the day. “Good job today, baby. We better get inside and start dinner. We’re having chana masala. Will you be my onion cutter tonight?” “Actually, I was wondering if I could go for a drive by myself . . . .” Before she could respond, I continued on to reassure her. “. . . you know, just around the block, maybe a little bit down Jericho Turnpike.” She said nothing at first, just staring straight ahead. Then, she turned her head toward me and looked directly into my eyes. “Okay, that’s fine. I think you’ve earned it. But don’t be too long. You don’t even have your permit yet.” “Yep, yep, totally, I won’t be long.” I was lying to her; I couldn’t help it. My teenage hormones were raging inside. Blame biology, not me. Plus, she’d just permitted an unlicensed minor to operate a vehicle, whether she was aware of it or not (not that I’d ever rat her out, nor she me). She stepped out of the car, took a few steps, then looked back. “Dinner will be ready in a half-hour.” “Okay! I’ll be there!” I said as my foot leaned on the gas pedal, leaving her on the curb. As soon as she was out of sight of my rear view, I called my belle from my cell phone, then made the twenty-minute drive to pick her up. I drove carefully, though still a little shaky behind the wheel. Lana was impressed with my daredevilish initiative. I felt jittery with her in the car, but mostly because I was counting the minutes before I needed to head back home. I felt guilty for deceiving my grandma.

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After only twenty-five minutes of uneventful making out, I abruptly took Lana home. She seemed disappointed by my departure, but I couldn’t help it. I knew I’d already been gone for too long. I sped back home, trying my best not to smash the car or get pulled over, feeling that I was in way over my head. I stopped at the gas station to replenish the tank. I had only twenty bucks on me and I didn’t even know how to pump gas. I stood there like an idiot, trying to slip the bill into the credit card slot. An older woman, sitting in her BMW at the stall behind me, stepped out and approached me. I thought maybe she was coming over to help me. “Excuse me, when you’re done with this one, can you come over to mine? I’m in a hurry.” “Oh, no, I don’t work here.” I looked around the station, catching a glimpse of the few attendants on staff—young, light- to dark-brown guys, wearing zip-up track jackets just as I was that day. “My mistake,” the woman said in embarrassment, heading back to her spot. That kind of mistake would happen again and again whenever I’d stop somewhere for a fill-up. By the time I hurried through the front door, it was already dark outside. I could hear the shower turned on in the upstairs bathroom. My mom must have been preparing for her night shift. I hurried to the kitchen to find my grandma sitting there with her arms folded. Only my dish sat in one corner. The chana masala, sitting on a mound of basmati rice, wasn’t steaming or glistening. It was cold and looked disappointed without my company. “I’m sorry,” I said in a heavy-breathed voice, sighing. She said nothing, got up, walked over to the sink, emptied the rest of the food into Tupperware containers, then began washing the dirty pots and dishes. While her back remained turned to me, she softly yet sternly said, “Don’t do that again. Now, sit down and eat.” “I’m so sorry, I—” “It doesn’t matter where you were.” “Does Mom know?” “No. Thank God she didn’t look out of the window to see my car wasn’t there.” “Where’s Ravi?” “He’s eating out with his friends.” I took my seat and began eating my cold dinner. The meal she’d made and left for me. The one I hadn’t been present for, to help her cook and eat beside her. I felt terrible about having played her, whether she knew how

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far I’d gone or not. Even worse was knowing she’d rearranged her life to be more present in ours. We were both experiencing growing pains, traveling toward where we felt the most wanted, but unsure if our decisions were worth the effort. Over the years, girlfriends would come and go, but my nani remained. I’m awfully glad she did.

Loretta and Elsie’s Chana Masala Ingredients may be subject to change depending on your preference or what’s readily available.

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Heat a pan on medium. Coat the pan with either ghee or oil. Add a dash of cumin seeds. Heat until you hear them popping. Chop 1 large onion and add to the pan to lightly sweat. Grate fresh ginger (amount to your liking). Dice 2 jalapeño peppers (green chilis will do—whatever you have in the house) into a paste. Grate 6 to 8 cloves of garlic. Add ginger, garlic, and peppers in a mortar and pestle (a food processor works as well) and grind into a rough paste. Add the paste to the pan and stir it in to combine. Add a sprinkle of salt. Add generous dashes of coriander, chili powder, and turmeric. Add a teaspoon of oil to prevent burning or sticking. Chop 3 large tomatoes (you can also use a can of tomato puree) into chunks and add to the pan. Add 2 small cans or 1 large can of chickpeas and stir. Cover the pan and turn up the heat. Let it cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Once you’ve got a stew consistency, remove the cover and lower the heat. Add a few more dashes of chili powder (if you like it spicy) and sprinkle garam masala. Stir. Squeeze a half-lemon over the top. Garnish with fresh cilantro.

Elsie in her twenties, early ’50s

Elsie and Anthony, mid-’50s

Anthony and Elsie, wedding day, 1957

The newlyweds with friends and family, Copacabana, wedding night, 1957

Loretta in her twenties, late ’70s

Roop in his twenties, mid ‘70s

Loretta dressed in a saree, wedding day, 1981

Roop and Loretta, ceremony at a Hindu temple in Queens, 1981

Loretta and Raj, 1988

Ravi and Raj, late ’80s

Loretta in the kitchen, early ’90s

Tawney family, early ’90s

Raj and Ravi, late ’90s

Raj, age fourteen, 2001

Raj, Roop, and Ravi celebrating Diwali, 2019

Michelle and Raj, wedding day, 2019

Chapter 7

Straddling the cultural realms my parents inhabited meant never feeling completely “this” or “that” with any one group. Each time Ravi and I attended a puja, wedding, birthday party, or function on my dad’s side, we’d feel like outsiders—sometimes because of the questionable stares and comments from other guests, other times because of our own insecurities. Skin tone was one element—that was easy to comprehend, especially if we were teased about our light complexions. But there was something deeper about other Indian kids’ active participation in their insular society. There was a sense of immense pride and belonging they all seemed to share, bonding over their wholeness. That innate sensibility bestowed on them by their parents and grandparents, who mostly married those from their own specific region in India, didn’t live inside my brother and me during our youth. There was no unified household, no singular ancestral identity. Perhaps we figured we’d never be accepted by any one branch of our tree, no matter how hard we tried. I also wondered if my dad felt a sense of shame for having married outside of his own people and producing “impure” children. He never expressed those concerns to me, but given how proud he was of being Indian, during those parties and gatherings I couldn’t help but question why he’d married my mom in the first place. Love? Oh yeah, love. I’ve always had a deep respect and admiration for my father, who patiently encouraged his boys to be our best selves, no matter our silly interests or passions. And through our adolescent growing pains, there were

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many. But his marriage to my mom wasn’t ideal, which sometimes drove us away from him, as it was easier to side with her woes than with his. She was more open with her problems, if not to a fault. They didn’t get along for most of my youth and largely lived separate lives, even though we all resided under the same roof. Food served as an anchor, however, as there were rarely any other traditions practiced in our home. If I wanted to learn more about my heritage(s), I could ask questions in the kitchen or at the table. For better or for worse, neither of them imposed their religious beliefs of Roman Catholicism and Hinduism on their kids, which sometimes serves as a guide into the past if we’re forced to attend church or temple each week. But without the ritual of religion, there wasn’t always a forum for discussion. Dad often spoke Hindi to his family and friends, whether on the telephone or in person, making us feel left out of the conversation; he’d never made the effort to teach Ravi and me. He didn’t provide much detail about his own family and their roots. The limited information I did receive usually came from my mom and what she’d learned about his side through her own explorations as a young wife. As I grew older, efforts to understand where I came from turned uncomfortable given the instability of their union. After years of trying to learn about her husband’s culture, mostly before I was born, Mom still felt like an outsider in his community’s circles. Though he made an effort to include her, it wasn’t enough. The other wives didn’t care much for her, frequently putting down her attempts to assimilate, primarily viewing her as “the Amerikan” who was trying too damn hard. Her feelings of both rejection and dejection were passed down to her sons before we even had a chance to form our own opinions about half of our identities. Though she loved the culture from afar, she began to overshare with us her sad personal stories. I absorbed her pain, perhaps too early in my life. I wasn’t yet able to fully grasp the complex family dynamics and struggles behind personal journeys of people I loved. Before long, I felt resentful toward my aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends from childhood because I knew my mom had suffered great pain at the hands of these people, including my father, and I possessed an inner responsibility to defend and protect her—even if her perspective was technically biased and one-sided. By my mid-teens, I began hanging out with an assortment of misfits who thrived in their version of the creative arts, whose talents were less desirable than those of the jocks and yuppies. Thanks to my affinity for loud, aggressive rap and rock music, I naturally gravitated toward the stoners

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and musicians of my high school who wore band t-shirts and unintentionally ripped jeans. I didn’t smoke weed, but I liked the way some of them thought outside of the box when they were high. Sometimes, if I were over at one of their houses after school, they’d play a range of different notes on their guitars or keyboards. I was fascinated listening to them experiment with discomforting avant-garde sounds, building with each scale, bordering on madness. Sometimes the drumkit would offer a consistent beat that thumped for what felt like hours. I was impressed that most of them could riff on any instrument available to them, like a bunch of amateur virtuosi. I was more interested in rapping; they’d occasionally ask me to get on the mic and unload a few bars. They knew I wrote lyrics during class. It was a personal practice of mine to scribble rhymes in my notebook instead of paying attention to teachers. I’d been writing both rap lyrics and poetry since fifth grade. I had so many emotions inside of me all of the time and needed to filter them through an outlet. Thanks to the records that Ravi and his friends exposed me to early on, probably too soon for my young ears, I took to writing lyrics myself. The words I wrote were elementary at first, but by high school, my expressiveness matured to an angstier, antidisestablishment-type sentiment. Whenever I was around my fellow rebellious, social outlaws, they allowed me the opportunity to convey my feelings accordingly. On the microphone, I could unleash my bottled-up anxiety into an amplifier for the whole world to hear—well, the entire basement, anyway. Over many months of what turned into rehearsing for a band we’d formed, we developed an actual structure and binder of original songs. Before long, we were signing up to perform at our school’s talent shows and winning over classmates, garnering a buzz around campus. Though playing in the auditorium felt invigorating, the faculty who organized the talent shows didn’t allow us to curse. School policy. We also couldn’t play as loud as we wanted and were limited to only one or two songs per performance. “We should throw a concert ourselves!” our band’s bassist said to the rest of us one night during a practice session, angrily flicking his strings as he spoke. “Why would we do that?” I queried. “So we can play our music the way we wrote it. Those pigs can’t keep us contained!” “Pigs? What pigs?” “The adults, man. The fucking man. They censor us and try to keep us down. If we play on our terms, no one can stop us.”

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Granted, I felt pretty supported by the school staff who allowed us to present our sound without much interference. Still, he presented his argument to his bandmates with the kind of fury we were yearning for during those impressionable years. In short order, I couldn’t help but believe we were somehow oppressed by “the man.” “You should throw a party, Raj!” our drummer weighed in. “Me? Why me?” “ ’Cause you’re the lead vocalist. You’re the one whose voice is being silenced. Plus, you have that deck in your back yard that we can use as a stage.” At that moment, I was gullible enough to believe his bullshit. We did have a small deck, elevated about two feet off of the ground, as big as a platform a wedding band might use in a VFW hall. I guessed it could work, but I’d never thrown a party before. To be fair, I never had enough friends at one time to even conceive of one. Though this could be the perfect opportunity to earn some more money, I thought. I’d been to only a few house parties before, and they were usually hosted by one of our town’s resident guidos (an outdated term that still held weight if I needed ammunition against their variety of insults) or lacrosse players (a sport beloved by pompous assholes to this day), who generally had a distaste for guys like me. In fact, most of them were total assholes to me and basically anyone who didn’t wear Abercrombie & Fitch or play sports. They loved frying their skin at tanning salons to look darker—a ritual I’ll never understand, since they teased most kids who had naturally darker skin tones, and yet these schmucks voluntarily burned their bodies to resemble potpourri orange. I was never physically kicked out of any home, but I often felt like an uninvited guest; I usually was. Ironically, the citrus-tanned tools couldn’t wrap their heads around a non-Black person rapping. Although rap music was beloved in my age group, it was a genre reserved in their minds to only one race. Well, unless your name was Eminem. In the late ’90s and early ’00s, Eminem became something of a phenomenon throughout middle-class America. The bros worshiped him as their “Great White Hope” and ignored many of the other Black and Hispanic artists in the same scene. Though I could respect his skill as a rapper, I felt like I was the only one who could clearly see the reason for Eminem’s massive popularity. Still, it didn’t matter— color played a big role in the young consumers’ eyes, whether they were aware of it or not. And if any artist attempted to bleed beyond those lines, like I had, onlookers became visibly uncomfortable and sometimes

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hostile. “Yo, yo, yo, gangsta!” in a lame urban impression, paired with “Thank you, come again!” in an Indian accent were frequent combinations of ridicule meets ignorance. Those dumbasses. I found myself in more than one shoving match, though I never threw a fist—they weren’t worth my time. Maybe by hosting my own party, I could control the guests, decide who was worthy of my own inner circle—one I’d spawn myself, where some made the cut and others were left out. All I’d have to do was get my parents’ approval. “A party?” said Mom when I brought it up over dinner the next day. “What kind of party?” “You know, some friends, a little food. We were thinking of playing our music on the back deck.” My parents were both music fans, constantly playing cassettes and CDs on our home stereo or in the car. Mom gravitated toward passionate female singers: Gloria Estefan, Toni Braxton, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Astrud Gilberto, Whitney Houston. Dad preferred Hindi music, from traditional ballads to popular Bollywood tunes. They knew the kind of genres Ravi and I favored at the time—they weren’t fans. But to their credit, they allowed us to listen and never gave me a hard time when they overheard my practicing in my bedroom over instrumental tracks blaring from my boom box. Though they didn’t quite understand hip-hop, they attended all of my band’s school shows and cheered me on as if I were the greatest entertainer they’d ever seen. That kind of unconditional support meant a lot. If only I could return the favor by getting good grades, but I was never a strong student. “He has great potential,” my teachers would often write in the “Comments” section of my report cards, “but he doesn’t apply himself.” The funny thing is, I did apply myself, just not toward my schoolwork. I was committed to being a musician and I worked tirelessly at honing my craft, even if it offered little hope to any possible financial stability in the future. But I wasn’t concerned with how I’d make a living down the road; I was interested in immediate glory. My dad’s friends’ kids were en route to becoming doctors and engineers while his son was a punk musician with wild, untamed curly hair and smelly clothes. Guess who was most proud? Still, at home, he adored my passion as if it were his own. After all, he too was a rebel. “Sure, let’s have a party!” Dad seemed excited about it. “Do you want me to pick up a keg?”

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Mom’s eyes widened, shooting him a long stare. “No alcohol. Are you crazy?” Then, turning to me, she gave in: “You can have a party, but we’ll be there to make sure everything goes okay.” I thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded my head in agreement. Most of my friends liked them anyway and I figured they wouldn’t bother us too much. “I’ll call Nani and we’ll make some food for your guests.” I leaned back in my chair. “Oh, no, no, you don’t have to do that.” “Why not? Your friends love when I cook. Remember when I made pakoras and chutney to bring into your Global History class? They gobbled it up!” “That was like three years ago. All they do is drive around and stuff their faces with burgers now.” “Well, we can pick up some burgers, too. We’ll get a case of White Castles.” It was no secret in my household that Mom and Grandma adored White Castle burgers, among other occasional junk food escapades, so she probably saw this as an opportunity to indulge, too. That was fine as long as they left us alone. I texted my bandmates, who proceeded to text about every teenager within a ten-mile radius. The evening of the party arrived. My bandmates and I were busy setting up our equipment on the back deck. Meanwhile, inside our kitchen, the combined smell of vegetable oil and coriander was drifting from the window. Mom and Grandma were cooking up a storm inside the house. As I entered, I felt the heat from the stove permeate the room, turning it into a sauna. Beads of sweat dripped from both of their foreheads and cheeks as they smiled, preparing their dishes together. On one side of our tiny four-cooktop stove, Mom was chopping heads of cauliflower and whole potatoes into cubes, then dunking them into a boiling pan that splashed sparks of scalding oil if you got too close. Her pakora—a spicy Indian-style fritter—was a snack that she admitted had taken her many years to get right. She used to make them for my dad’s friends when they’d come over for social gatherings. Aside from dunking them into an accompanying emerald-green chutney she made from scratch, they also seemed to pair well with many cans of Bud Light. On the other side of the stove, my grandma was slicing chicken breast, which she then laid into a bowl mixture of old Italian bread-turnedbreadcrumbs, various spices from the cupboard, milk, and raw eggs, before setting them into an oily pan to fry. Her chicken cutlets were one of my

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favorite items in her repertoire—a recipe she’d mastered in the Bronx over countless dinners for my grandfather’s family; she’d earned their respect through their taste buds. After the chicken was done, she’d make an original dipping sauce using leftover oil, charred breadcrumb bits, sliced onions, and ketchup—her own unique invention, perfected over decades. The cutlets that were already completed on an adjacent pan were cut into smaller strips to be served alongside the sauce. I wasn’t concerned about the food that evening, but I loved standing in the doorway, observing the two of them cooking side-by-side, talking and laughing as they perspired under the rotating ceiling fan that did little to cool them down. As the party started, an assortment of kids from our school and neighboring towns showed up. Some snuck in beer, to which my dad turned a blind eye as he hung out in the back yard with us. He loved being the life of the party within any group, and my friends iconicized his legend. Others showed up to see our band perform live. Mom and Grandma sat in one corner of the back yard, by the fold-out table of chips, soda, White Castle burgers, chicken cutlet slices, and pakoras. Those who stepped up to the food display for a bite praised the ladies’ dishes. I cherished the blushing of their faces and validation in their eyes. The back yard began getting congested. Mom wasn’t too pleased with how rowdy the kids were becoming. Then our band performed, loudly, to the disturbance of our neighbors, who must have called the police because they showed up only fifteen minutes after we’d taken the stage. As soon as they came into my view, out of the darkness of our house’s side entrance, I waved my arms to the rest of the band. “Stop! Stop!” I screamed, my back toward the crowd. The entire yard abruptly hushed. “What’s going on here, guys?” asked one of the two officers, his hands gripping his utility belt. “We received a complaint.” “Um . . . well, you see . . .” My mind had blanked from fear. I felt my armpits leaking sweat. “We’re just having a little concert!” shouted Grandma from her chair. “Let the boys play!” A few sporadic claps followed. The cop turned his head in her direction, then surveyed the spectators until his gaze landed on Dad. “Anyone drinking alcohol here?” “Just me, Officer!” He held up his can. “But I’m not sharing!” The whole party burst into laughter and cheered as the uncomfortable silence finally broke. Thankfully, anyone with beer had been smart enough to hide it.

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“Okay, okay. You don’t have to shut it down but keep the music off or we’ll be back.” The band was disappointed, but what choice did we have? Fifteen minutes was still the longest we’d ever played live in front of an audience. Surprisingly, nobody left. They were all having a good time. The two gals in the back remained, too. Though clearly slightly embarrassed by our general behavior, they never left their seats. The music stopped, but the chatter continued around them. After an hour or two, the food was completely gone, but our patrons stayed put and continued praising the venue’s chefs for their culinary contributions. Even my dad tipped his ball cap their way. I stood back and reveled in the community I’d created. That night seemed to go on forever, even though I knew its paradise was only temporary.

Loretta’s Pakoras and Chutney Serve on a plate or tray, with chutney in a separate bowl for dipping. Find chickpea flour, called Besan, at your local Indian grocery store. Pakoras

▪ Place 2 to 3 cups of Besan in a bowl, depending on how many pakoras you plan to make (around 20 to 25). Add a little more than a pinch of salt. Add a half-teaspoon of baking powder. Add a half-teaspoon of baking soda. Add less than a teaspoon of kalonji seeds. Add a half-teaspoon of ground cumin. Add a half-teaspoon of coriander powder. Add one-quarter to one-half teaspoon of turmeric. Add cayenne pepper to taste, to add some heat. Mix all of the dry ingredients together, then add water slowly as you mix until it becomes a thick, loose mixture (similar to pancake batter). ▪ Choose which vegetable(s) you’d like to use. Possible options: ▫ Cauliflower—cut into florets. ▫ Potato—peel and slice into one-eighth-inch-thick slices. ▫ Spinach—chop up leaves into small pieces. ▪ Dip vegetables into the batter, one at a time.

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

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▪ Heat pan, wok, or iron karahi, depending on what you have, and add canola oil. Wait until the oil is hot enough to fry. You can test it by placing a drop of the batter in the pan. If the batter starts to bubble, the pan is ready. ▪ Coat each piece of vegetable with the batter, then slowly drop into the hot oil to fry. Flip them around a little bit with a slotted spoon until they appear light golden brown. ▪ Lift each piece out of the pan and place onto a paper towel–lined plate or tray to soak up the excess oil, then serve. Chutney

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Wash and then chop a bunch of coriander leaves. Cut the leaves from the stems. The stems tend to be too bitter. Chop about a half of an onion. Add one-quarter cup of plain yogurt. Add a little salt and garlic powder. Place ingredients in a food processor and blend. It should have a spring green color. Serve in a separate bowl next to the pakoras.

Elsie’s Chicken Cutlets Best served on a tray or platter with sauce in a separate bowl for dipping.

▪ Slice chicken breasts thin. ▪ In a shallow bowl, crack a raw egg and pour in a couple of swigs of milk, then beat it with a fork.

▪ Take a loaf of stale Italian bread, break it into chunks with your hands, and place the chunks into a food processor.

▪ Add a half-teaspoon of dried oregano. ▪ Add a teaspoon of dried basil. ▪ Add a teaspoon of parsley (fresh or dried). If fresh, use 2 teaspoons, finely chopped.

▪ Add salt and pepper to taste. ▪ Mix together in a food processor until you have a fine breadcrumb mixture.

▪ Dump into a bowl or onto a plate. ▪ First dip each cutlet into the egg/milk mixture, then dip into the breadcrumb mixture.

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▪ Place each piece gently into a pan with 1 inch of hot oil (vegetable or canola).

▫ Don’t crowd the pan, or you will lower the temperature of the oil and won’t fry well.

▪ Use a fork or pair of tongs to flip over when one side appears light golden brown.

▪ Place onto a paper towel–lined plate to dry. Elsie’s Chicken Cutlet Dipping Sauce

▪ Let the oil cool down. Once it has cooled, pour most of it out, but leave the leftover bits of hard breadcrumb lingering in the pan.

▪ Slice an onion into half-moon shapes. ▪ Heat the pan once again, but keep the temperature low, and place onion slices into the remaining oil. Fry them until they’re softened but not really brown. ▪ Add about a cup of ketchup and stir around for 2 to 3 minutes. ▪ Pour mixture into a bowl for dipping and serve with the chicken.

Chapter 8

As most of my friends ventured off to college in cities I’d never been to or heard of, I stayed home. To the disappointment of my dad, I hadn’t made any preparations in pursuit of a higher education. Though school wasn’t part of my plan, I applied to a couple of local universities to satisfy his wishes. He valued schooling. While he rarely disclosed any stories from his past, he frequently told me how hard his father had worked to receive a degree back in India, studying under a gas-lit street lamp because they were too poor to afford electricity, working his way up to becoming a diplomat for his country. He held his role proudly and instilled the same values in his son—though I’d find out later that my dad had been just as careless about his education as I was about mine, more concerned with being a ping-pong and cricket player before finally getting his act together. Eventually, he made his way to New York as a graduate student at Brooklyn Polytechnic, earning his master’s degree before meeting my mom. Once settled in the United States, he became a respected industrial engineer, his salary never high enough to reflect his brilliance and worth. Money was always tight for him as the breadwinner. I can’t imagine the pressure he was constantly under—both of my parents, actually. For a while, Mom pitched in to help make ends meet. In addition to her nursing shifts, she took a part-time gig at the local Edwards supermarket. I used to go with her sometimes, helping push a shopping cart full of products around the aisles, hoping not to bump into anyone I knew. How would it

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look if someone from high school saw us? They’d think we were poor. I was angry at myself for the little bit of shame I carried. Guilted, coerced, or otherwise, I enrolled in Adelphi University about twenty minutes away from home, just to appease my dad. I was determined to make a living in music, to show him that I could become successful without taking the traditional route. Unfortunately, to even more dismay, I flunked out after the first semester. He was pissed, and rightfully so. He didn’t have the cash to spend but he’d paid for my enrollment, so I wouldn’t start out my adulthood in debt, like most Americans my age. I felt like a loser, a let-down. All of his friends’ kids were on steady paths toward sturdy futures. I’d be forced to hear these little shits each time I attended another wedding or party on the Indian side, bragging about their travels abroad or the fraternities they’d joined, or the prestigious internships they’d started. Meanwhile, I had little to show for myself other than my struggling musicianhood, creating a noise I was embarrassed to share with elders. Before a new semester began, Dad had to beg the local Farmingdale State College to accept me. Once I got in there, however, I’d remain an inconsistent student, producing lower-than-average grades and dropping out every few semesters to chase my creative ambitions. Somehow, I didn’t allow myself to become dissuaded by my near-impossible goals. In fact, I was entirely motivated at the possibility of making it as a musician, viewing my road ahead with tunnel vision. Whether my family knew it or not, I was working harder than anyone else I knew, including those pretentious pricks en route to lifetimes of student debt. I was just exerting my efforts differently, that’s all. I tried my best to stay focused while the other elements of my life were crashing around me, including my parents’ marriage. They’d stopped talking—a trend that carried on for years—yet we all still lived in the same house. I found myself in the middle of their sadness, frequently serving as a messenger, delivering daily communications about bills and other responsibilities I wasn’t formally involved in and had no business being. Focusing on music was my only escape. In that first year, I assembled a band consisting of friends or local musicians who were still around town. Ravi also joined in for a while, as drummer, then bassist. Four years older than I, he had just graduated from Farmingdale himself and was postponing his forcible entrance into the mundane role of office slave for as long as he possibly could. Although intelligent, he also wasn’t motivated by the appeal of becoming a collegiate do-gooder. His original ambition had been playing for the NBA; he was the best ball player our town had seen.

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Crowds of kids would gather at the local park to watch him play. An excellent shooter and stylish trickster, he’d outsmart his opponents the way his hero Allen Iverson would during 76ers games. He even got the AND1 logo tattooed on his arm—one of many that would eventually cover his body. Although his talent was evident, he was a loner among our high school’s athletic cliques, which included the coaches who touted their gifts during pep rallies. They refused to acknowledge my brother’s ability, cutting him during tryouts, mainly because he didn’t fit into their social club. That rejection deflated him. Still, Ravi tried to make a go of a ball career anyway, trying out for the NBA’s D-League (the minor league of basketball) but falling just short because of his lack of sufficient height. I felt bad for him. But thankfully, he was around more often during my late teens and early twenties, and he valued music just as I did, so he taught himself both the drums and bass and stood beside me in my pursuit. In between scarcely attending classes, I’d practice with the new iteration of my band in our basement. We were first called “Life Is Designed for Dreamers”—corny name when I look back at it now, but it made total sense at the time. I was making a statement to the conformists and naysayers, to my parents, and, most important, to myself. From my perspective, life wasn’t meant to be conducted practically, grinding 9-to-5 each day, cautiously building a foundation just to lie in it and die gracefully. I wanted mine to be full of adventure and creativity, of struggle and splendor, of distinction and decoration. I didn’t want to be Peter in Office Space, a movie that freaked Ravi and me out when we’d first watched it. The lead character carries on a soulless existence without anything to show for it but shitty bosses and piles of pointless paperwork. Aside from Kal Penn’s leading role in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, a beloved late-night favorite of ours, there was no other fictional character we saw ourselves in. Then, Entourage premiered on HBO soon after and our aspirations grew. We idolized Adrian Grenier’s character, Vincent Chase, his New York–to– Hollywood success story, and the emphasis on family and friends. Grenier was also the only protagonist we’d ever seen on a TV screen who looked remotely like us. Watching the show motivated me to prove that there was more than one route to prosperity. I worked tirelessly to construct a band that could somehow generate a living and maybe even become popular. After a few years of relentless hustling—booking local and regional gigs; developing a brand and image by designing the logo and marketing materials myself; formulating an online presence; recording songs out of my friend/producer Andrew’s house; mailing our demos to dozens of record companies; occasionally dropping out of school to play shows in

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small cities like Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Burlington, Virginia; experiencing a revolving door of band members who’d given up in search of more pragmatic lifestyles; welcoming Ravi’s return to the group; and, finally, generating a little buzz in New York—we were finally offered a record deal by a small label just before my twenty-first birthday. I was so proud to tell my mom and dad. There was barely any money offered, the royalties were terrible, and I didn’t even know what the word “invoice” meant, but I didn’t care. I had made it, sort of. I finally had something to show for all of my hard work, a tangible accomplishment Dad could brag about to his friends. A few months after we signed the contract, the demo recordings turned into a five-track E.P. released nationwide in record stores and major retailers, and on iTunes. I couldn’t believe I’d made it happen. I’d sacrificed so much, especially my college education, which my dad still hounded me to complete. The day our CD came out, we anxiously drove over to our local Best Buy. Finding a few copies on their shelves, among artists whose names I’d been listening to for years, blew my mind. My dad was so proud that day that his son had produced something worthy enough to attract a company’s financing and distribution. It wound up selling around forty copies in its first week and we received a few negative, heartbreaking reviews in blogs and the trades, but that didn’t matter at that moment. I had found the validation in my father’s eyes that I’d yearned for, and that was worth more than a gold album. Following the album’s release, our label managed to book us onto a national month-long tour, opening for a popular band we weren’t familiar with but whose draw was around 2,000 people a night—a big leap from the varying five to 50 people a show we were reeling in. It was a big deal for us, a chance to prove we had the chops to perform alongside commercially viable acts. To help out our broke asses, Dad bought us an old Chevy Conversion van to travel around in. He bought it from a friend who’d used it to drive his physically disabled mother around, paying a few thousand in cash that he didn’t have to spare. Part of the chairlift still remained inside. There was also a rusted hole in the floor that had rotted open, exposing the ground underneath, that we simply plugged up with a few towels. We didn’t mind its shortcomings. We had a tour van of our very own and we felt like an official act. Christmas lights were strung from the window’s interiors, and Ravi jury-rigged his N64 in the back, so we could play Mario Kart or Golden Eye while on the road. It was all becoming real, even as we couldn’t figure out how to make a dime from this path we were on.

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The day we left on tour, in the early morning hours, Dad, Mom, and Grandma stood on opposite sides of the driveway as we headed out for our first stop, in Buffalo. Mom sobbed continually while her mother consoled her. Dad remained on the other end, pacing and looking concerned but hugging us in support nonetheless. Mom handed me a giant plastic container, still warm on the bottom. She had stayed up all night cooking a batch of arroz negro (black squid ink rice) so we’d have something to eat on our journey. I opened the lid slightly and stuck my nose inside, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of the fish particles and spices, salivating as I thanked her. I almost felt bad leaving. Our family hadn’t experienced that “heading off to college” thing, so this was basically it. We all hugged, then fired up the van and made our departure into the unknown. They stood on the edge of the driveway in the dimly lit dawn. I teared up, knowing this was an important moment for all of us. There was a feeling of letting go, but to be honest, I had no desire to leave them behind. Over the following year, a few more tours came and went. We were always the opener, warming up the crowd, usually to half a full house or restless attendees eager to see the headliner instead of us. In some cities, we felt that our live performances were tight and that we’d won over some new fans; in others, some audiences made us feel like an amateur act. We could never quite find the consistency we were searching for. Plus, life on the road wasn’t as appealing as I’d thought it would be: living out of cheap motel rooms or sometimes sleeping in the cold, drafty van to save money; eating fast food every day; being constantly surrounded by smelly, raucous bandmates whose presence quickly agitated me; and, most of all, the homesickness. Each time we’d venture out, whether for a few out-of-state gigs or weeks at a time, Mom and Grandma would prepare a travel container of arroz negro, a piece of home to take with me. I usually ate it sitting on the back bumper, while the guys were drinking and playing video games inside our mobile frat house, each spoonful bringing me back to our kitchen. I could picture them standing by the countertops, their backs facing toward me as they cooked up a giant pot—one dicing the squid while the other stirred the rice until it darkened from the sea creature’s ink—steam rising to the ceiling. I could see them in my mind’s eye so clearly, gabbing away as they practiced their second-nature wizardry. Less than a year into our new, erratic career trajectory, I began to realize I wasn’t suited for all this. On top of longing for home and family, we were barely earning a living and we’d alienated our record company through our

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lack of professionalism: obscene blogging on Myspace, hastily canceling shows because of low funds, and poor reviews of sloppy performances as a result of a lack of practicing. All band members, excluding Ravi and our friend-turned-road manager Dave, had exited the group for one cowardly (or rational, depending on how you look at it) reason or another. My years of tireless work were becoming undone, and I’d let it happen. I was burnt out and downtrodden about the lack of sustainability I saw ahead. Finally, when I was twenty-three years old, I threw in the towel. I needed a stronger sense of normality. “I’m ready to go back and finish,” I said to my dad one day after thinking about how many times I’d let him down on the education front. “Are you sure? It’s going to take some time. You still have over half your credits to complete.” “I’m ready for a change.” “Okay, then. We’ll sign you back up.” He didn’t smile or jump for joy. He just gave me a hug; that was that. Returning to Farmingdale wasn’t as tortuous this time around. I actually applied myself and earned some decent grades. I was even appointed president of the Asian Student Alliance, a club that was really an excuse for free field trips to the Chinese buffet down the street. Still, I found a small belonging in those final semesters and made a few friends, too. Two years later, I graduated with a degree in Professional Communications. Mom and Nani were there at the ceremony. Dad was there too, but he came alone and sat separately from the ladies, in another section of the school gymnasium. Although my parents’ ongoing years of distance still bothered me, I was grateful to have them there. No party was planned, no celebration afterward. But they were proud. I was, too. I completed what I’d started even if doing so took a while. I could take ownership of that achievement. I felt more validation that day than I ever had before.

Loretta’s (or Elsie’s) Arroz Negro Purchase two or three boxes of Goya’s “Squid in Their Own Ink.”

▪ Add a couple of spoonfuls of olive oil to a heated pot. ▫ Depending on the size, use a Dutch oven, or coldero (cauldron or soup pot) if you’re making a large batch.

▪ Peel and smash a couple of cloves of garlic and add them to the pot. ▪ Fry the garlic in the oil on low flame for no more than a minute. ▪ Sprinkle a packet of Sázon inside the pot.

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▪ Add a half of a 4-ounce can of tomato sauce to the pot. ▪ Open the cans inside of the “Squid in Their Own Ink” boxes and place their contents in the pot.

▫ Fry the squid a little bit lightly in the oil. The cans will be full of ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

residual ink so save them for the next step. Rinse 2 cups of regular long-grain rice in a colander, then add to the pot. Add 3 tablespoons of Alcaparrado or cocktail olives. ▫ Remember to spoon the vinegar from the jar along with the olives. Stir all of your ingredients in the pot for about a minute. Add tap water until it’s about an inch over the rice. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, then lower the heat and cover the pot for about 10 to 15 minutes. You can top it with chopped cilantro if you like.

Chapter 9

Entering the “real world” in my mid-twenties, having tried and failed at my initially chosen profession, felt less like being shot out of a cannon and more like falling into the deep end of a pool with the ability to swim—except I just floated around, like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, and there was no sexy love affair. There was an older woman who had an immense impact on my life. Our relationship was far from a romance; rather, it was a deep sentiment. I had to first get off my ass, surrender my ego, and re-evaluate my direction. I had no clue where to go next. I’d devoted about nine years to a dream from which I was ultimately forced to rudely awaken. Although it came with pitfalls, being a starving musician had been more exciting than the prospect of cubicle servitude and an adulthood full of perpetual stagnation. But I couldn’t land a job anyway, no matter how many applications I filled out. On paper, I had no tangible experience that companies or firms expected to see. Plus, each time I was asked to check off one box in the Race/ Ethnicity column, I’d wonder if choosing “Hispanic” over “Asian/Pacific Islander,” or vice versa, would help my chances or hurt them, so I’d usually pick both, then add “White” for good measure. Sometimes, I’d go with the “Two or More Races” option, but I doubt any potential employer wanted to see that complicated shit. After all, they carefully selected their diversity hires, someone who made their company look good, a clearly identifiable,

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singular example that a Board of Directors could put on display as they patted themselves on their shoulders. In my early twenties, my disheveled self couldn’t have been the ideal face for any company brand, not until I cut my hair shorter and changed my wardrobe to button-down shirts and form-fitting jeans. I had to at least try to look like I wasn’t going to mug my potential employer. I’d later realize that the past decade had afforded me an invaluable wealth of skills and knowledge that I picked up along the way out: strategic marketing, public relations, management, event organizing, sales, graphic design. But after graduation, I was determined to leave my former life behind and start fresh. I was embarrassed to put my band on a résumé —who would take it seriously? I was feeling down on my luck when my friend Evan suggested I go down to the local senior center and help out in their computer tutoring program. They loved hiring tech-savvy young people who had enough patience for their aged students. It was a volunteer gig, but I figured I’d gain some muchneeded experience and training for future positions. I’d never thought about volunteering with the elderly before, but how bad could it be? From childhood, most of my free time was spent watching old movies and TV shows with my grandma. I’d helped her learn to use her computer, camcorder, cell phone, and all the other new gadgets she acquired. With nothing else going for me, I signed up as a tutor in the center’s computer lab. A few weeks in, I was actually having fun. I liked assisting others; it was satisfying, did my heart good. I offered a range of services, from showing a woman how to download Linda Ronstadt albums to her iPod to helping a man print a photo of Dean Martin from Google Images. He was surprised to discover that his young instructor knew a great deal about the Italian crooner-actor he was researching. Dino’s LPs, leftover from Anthony Papa’s collection, spun regularly in our household, and I’d watch his films on Turner Classic Movies with Nani whenever they aired—especially the Martin & Lewis and Rat Pack vehicles. I was giddy to talk nostalgia with my wise, old, budding techies since nobody my age cared much for the past. Supporting seniors in their determination to absorb technology so they could stay both relevant and informed made me feel needed in return. For once, I was acting beyond my own wants and desires. I was serving a purpose in the lives of people too often neglected in society, considered nuisances by their own kids and grandkids who didn’t have time for them. Rather than being perceived as a loud-mouth rogue, an outcast among

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my own age group and extended family, I was seen by these folks as I’d always secretly hoped I would be: a kind, forbearing, considerate young man. And I was more than happy to lend them an ear while guiding their hand atop the mouse. Their appreciation came at the right moment in my life. I found a sanctity in attending those classes each day—and then I met someone who would further alter my life. One day, Evan told me about a few students who were paying him cash for private tutoring sessions. Some seniors were having trouble making it to class each day and were offering $25 an hour to teach them computer skills within the comfort of their homes. Evan’s schedule was too packed to take on more clients, so he passed my number along to a couple of prospects. One of his inquiries came from a lady named Irene—an eighty-something retired teacher who phoned me, requesting lessons in PowerPoint. I stepped up to her front door to find a handwritten note taped to it: “come in! the door is open!” (She used a lot of exclamation points in her writing, I’d come to discover.) I gently pushed through the unlocked door to see a less-than-five-foot-tall woman standing at the top of her splitlevel staircase, like a party host, welcoming me up to her kitchen. “Come, come,” she said, gesturing to me in her direction. “I have rainbow cookies on the table and the coffee is brewing.” I was a bit perplexed by her greeting. I thought I’d been called for some serious tutoring. Still, I smiled back at her gleaming, wrinkled face, topped with a shimmering blond hairdo similar to my grandma’s, as she grasped my right hand and shook it warmly using both of hers. “Please, sit, sit. The coffee is almost ready.” Not wanting to be rude, I took a chair and plopped myself down. A tiny mountain of sweets rested on a plate in front of me: bright, multicolored cake layers of blues, greens, reds, and yellows unevenly stacked, jelly oozing from each color’s edges, bordered with chocolate. They reminded me of those I’d seen in the windows of bakeries along Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. I could still recall the heavenly smell of fresh dough and sugar drifting from the shops’ doorways as we passed by. “You made these?” “Heck, no.” She chuckled. “I don’t bake. I barely cook. I picked them up from the supermarket down the street. They make ’em fresh in their bakery section. And they’re all for you, honey.” My mouth hung half-open. Before I could respond, she walked over to her coffee pot, picked it up, and began pouring into the ornate cup and saucer sitting beside the cookies, smoke rising as the carafe spouted hot liquid. The joe had a thick consistency, a midnight-black hue. I didn’t know

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they made roasts so dark—a far cry from the cans of Stop & Shop Medium Roast that Mom brought home. “Do you have milk and Splenda?” “Do I have a what?” “You know, for the coffee.” “Cream and sugar?” She exaggeratedly gasped. “Only real Italians drink it black!” “Oh, well, I’m a quarter Italian.” “Good! Then you’ll love it this way.” I didn’t want to upset her, so I took a sip. It was bitter, real bitter. After a few more cautious slurps, however, I got used to its taste. From that day forward, I never again added anything to my coffee. I dipped the rainbow cookie into the scalding brew, watching the chocolate melt instantly, then shoveling half of it into my mouth so it wouldn’t disintegrate into the dark void. It was moist and savory. I could easily become spoiled by this style of treatment. I wondered if all of the students treated their tutors this way. “So, when would you like to start our lesson?” “Soon, soon. First, let’s have a nice chat.” So, we chewed the fat for a while. She shared stories from her life with me—extraordinary tales we’d delve deeper into over many more sessions to come, complete with cups of coffee and store-bought rainbow cookies. Like how she’d relished her career as a high school history teacher and the nickname she was given, “Hurricane,’’ because of her chronic dashing down the halls because of her tardiness. She opened up about how she had left her husband decades earlier, simply because “I was sick of him!” flying to Mexico for a twenty-four-hour divorce. She dished about her three adult children, all of whom lived in different states and were successfully married, and how boring she found each of them. Although she loved them, she had no shame about her bluntness. Her unbridled charm and unapologetic candor were infectious. I’d never met anyone like her. “So, aside from Italian, what else are ya, honey?” “Well, I’m a quarter Puerto Rican. Oh, and my father is from India.” “Oh, wonderful! I’ve been to India five times over the years. On school trips abroad. A beautiful country!” “Really? I only went when I was a baby.” “Well, then you’ve got to go, honey. Go everywhere. See everything!” I never had anyone encourage me to visit India before, not even my dad. Irene had indeed traveled to half of my motherland. She brought out trinkets and artifacts she had picked up during her trips. She’d also traveled

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to China, Thailand, Italy, and countless other countries and ventured to Mongolia a few years later, on her own, because “It’s the only place us humans haven’t screwed up!” She also detailed her own immigrant experience—how her father had arrived in New York from Calabria, through Ellis Island, and opened a bar in Harlem with his brother, establishing a means to earn an income before bringing his family over. And how her mother was so God-fearing that she forbade her daughter to attend college, pressuring her to get married instead. So, behind her back, young Irene worked as a waitress and paid her own tuition to Hunter College. I know it sounds odd, but I felt a connection with Irene. A fellow restless spirit searching for danger and showing the world her lust for it. Although we were six decades apart, I understood her, and she seemed to get me, too. Once we finally sat down at her computer, I learned that she had already attempted a presentation based on a movie screening she was organizing at a local library. She’d been retired for nearly ten years now but had found a second life in teaching local film history in townships as far east as the Hamptons—from examining postwar Italian neorealism like Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (her all-time favorite), Federico Fellini’s La Strada, and Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City, to the greatest American comedies, including Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. She’d seen many of these celluloid gems in theaters during their first runs, and her passion for researching led to her desire to share her knowledge with others. In her twilight years, she’d discovered a new calling as an amateur scholar. Not long after, she developed a following of fellow movie lovers who valued her insight. Wanting to add an extra attraction to her screenings, she thought PowerPoint presentations might spice up her lectures. She had some text and images already inserted. “Citizen Kane?” I queried. “Yes, it’s a film from 1941. Considered the greatest of all time.” “I love Orson Welles. Did you know he made this as a commentary on the media business’s corruption? He really pissed off William Randolph Hearst, who tried to quash the release.” “You, you, you know this picture?” Irene nearly fell out of her seat, which would have been especially bad given the fragility that accompanied her advanced age. “Then you have to come to the screening this Friday night! I’m always looking for young people to attend, and I think you’d have a wonderful time.”

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“It’s a date.” I’d never been summoned by anyone to attend anything, aside from Dad and those damned Desi social gatherings. This request appeared to have no strings attached. Plus, I had nothing else to do, and library events were free, which directly aligned with my leisure activity budget. That Friday, I felt a little shy walking into the basement of a building I hadn’t visited since I was a kid, but I knew Irene was expecting me. I took a seat in one of the empty rows in the back. Viewing a black-and-white movie from 1941 on a grand pull-down screen made me feel as though I had traveled back in time. Somehow, the story came more alive than when I’d first seen it on our TV set, like I was witnessing a live theater performance. And experiencing it with an audience made a difference, too, as we collectively reacted to scenes that provoked gasps and laughter in moments that called for them. At home, reactions to those minor nuances were mostly internal, but the human mind and body seem to naturally respond when others are present. Once the film was over and the credits began rolling, Irene stepped to the microphone and addressed the ten to fifteen filmgoers, all of whom were much older than I. “How do you feel about this movie?” She begged them as if deeply longing for their answers. “Before you do anything, you must tell me how you feel.” A few raised their hands. Irene walked over to them with the mic like she was Monty Hall or Phil Donahue, placing it under their chins so they could provide their opinions. Then, after all their thoughts had been allocated, she turned the spotlight on me. “We have a young man in the audience tonight. His name is Raj.” Heads slowly turned as she pointed directly at me, pressing her vocal cords harder into the mic. “Raj, tell them how you feel!” Nobody outside of my mom and grandma had ever asked me that question. So, I nervously shared my feelings with a room full of strangers who seemed delighted by my insight, and after doing so, I was energized for the first time in too long. Suddenly, my voice was not only being heard, it was being embraced, not criticized by un-interested listeners or stifled by intimidating forces—it was simply absorbed with no greater consequence or expectation. I felt acceptance, and earning it had been so simple. Over the next handful of years, I attended dozens of film screenings that Irene presented at an assortment of local libraries, halls, theaters— anywhere a projector or DVD player existed. If she asked me to attend, I’d be there. Cookies and coffee were usually offered to patrons, courtesy

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of the host, who would lug her free concession stand with her in her oversized pocketbook. Sometimes she’d ask me to assist her in creating educational PowerPoint presentations to accompany her movies—those were produced at her house, usually during one of our sessions, after the java was consumed. She’d then ask me to co-present with her, slipping me some cash on the side for my efforts. Word began to spread about our Harold and Maude routine and attendance slowly but steadily increased, sometimes to between fifty to seventy-five heads. Even Mom, Nani, and Ravi came for a bunch—Irene welcomed them as if they were royalty. When she was invited to present special lectures at C. W. Post University, an institute that never would have accepted me as a student only a few years earlier, she asked me to present alongside her. Everywhere we’d go, she’d treat me as her equal; I know she was genuine about it. She built up my confidence whether she knew it or not. But more than what she gave to me, she was simply grateful for our friendship and the time I devoted to her. The feeling was mutual. Our bond grew stronger over time. Analyzing old movies only served as a springboard to richer, more fulfilling conversations about history, society, present and past culture, family dynamics, relationships, the plight of immigrants, living and dying, and a deeper understanding of the human experience. There were no generational or racial gaps between us; we were just two friends trying to understand the world. Age made no difference and neither did outer appearance; we valued each other’s contrasting yet unique perspectives. After all, neither of us had it all figured out and we could openly admit our shortcomings without fear of judgment. We helped each other during transitional periods—for her, making sense of a changing society she felt less engaged with and less needed in; for me, figuring out who the hell I was and my purpose for being alive—but our friendship continued, even as I left the Senior Center and found work, first stocking shelves at the local bookstore, then to utilizing my Communications degree in the not-for-profit sector, helping local artists and creatives in my community. From job to job, she watched me mature and grow as both a passionate professional and as a man; she visited me at my jobs and brought cookies, called my bosses to tell them, “You have a wonderful young man working for you” while encouraging me to reach higher because “You deserve it, honey.” And so, I did. All she asked of me in return is that I never forget her, that I thank her when I won an Oscar (a little cinephile joke), and that I keep our standing coffee and cookie appointments. I kept my promise.

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Irene’s Rainbow Cookies

▪ Visit your local supermarket. ▫ Preferably one with an operating bakery inside. ▪ Find a pre-packaged container of rainbow cookies. ▫ If there is no bakery, Cakebite Classic is a strong runner-up. ▪ Let them sit in a room-temperature setting so they’re nice and soft. ▪ Place on a plate. ▪ Best served with bold, black coffee.

Chapter 10

I bounced around from job to job throughout my mid-twenties, trying to find a role I could truly embrace and sink my proverbial teeth into. That type of requirement is so typical of Millennials—having work that provides both economic security and personal fulfillment—something my parents’ and grandparents’ generations rarely had the privilege to consider. To this day, I still wonder if both are attainable at once. A decade ago, my responsibilities were at an all-time minimum: shower (enough to satisfy basic hygiene), contribute some income to my family’s household, since I was squatting in our basement, and keep a position for longer than six months. I stocked shelves at a nearby bookstore, tried my hand as a deejay for a local radio station that played repetitive pop and dance music (I could never display enough on-air enthusiasm for their liking, or come up with a cool DJ name. One time, the station manager told me I should build my own show titled “Raj in the Garage”—real clever), worked as a social media coordinator for a health organization (though blogging about deadly diseases never sat well with me), and applied my years in the music business to managing a couple of bands and singing acts in the area who each gained some modest, regional notoriety. The pay was low across the spectrum, and none of those stints lasted for long. I realized that after the countless hours I’d spent around musicians, as well as those spent helping the seniors in my area, I craved another chance at supporting people in their ambitions. Months into sending out

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my slightly-longer résumé, it ended up on the desk of a woman helping to run SparkBoom, a small arts nonprofit initiative. She called me in search of a volunteer blogger who was willing to write about the artists around Long Island; their mission was to support the local scene through producing content and live events. I wasn’t interested in more unpaid work, but my options were pretty low, so I met with her. Michelle was in her early thirties, wore a dark 1920s-era bob haircut, sported rock ’n’ roll t-shirts and black jeans, and carried herself with a cool confidence I’d never come across in a female before. During our first encounter, I couldn’t get a read on her. She spoke freely while simultaneously holding back about herself. She was deep, determined, outspoken, fearless, edgy, composed, and strong, and she intimidated the crap out of me. There was an elusiveness about her, a guard she wouldn’t let down. I admired her closed-book approach. I, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem word-vomiting my life story to her. Whether she wanted to hear it or not. “Yeah, I was in a band, but we sucked. Couldn’t make a living. But I love helping others. Young, old. I just adore people. Do you like people?” I sounded manic, like a young Robin Williams bantering with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Something about her presence made me feel like I had to impress her or at least keep her attention. She was polite enough to entertain my blathering. That fateful day, I had no clue I was meeting a person who’d leave the fondest impression on me, more than anyone I’ve ever met. I wasn’t looking for a relationship; I hadn’t had many girlfriends throughout my life and wasn’t much of a tomcat either. When it came to the opposite sex, I was rather shy, a closeted hopeless romantic, the kind of sap who cried at the end of You’ve Got Mail and 500 Days of Summer. Encountering Michelle lit a fire inside of my soul that hadn’t yet been ignited. I can’t honestly say any matches rubbed together for her, but for me, well, Cupid’s oil tanker spilled over and flooded my bloodstream, engulfing my mind and body with pure infatuation . . . but I digress. Although enchanted, I tried to suppress my feelings for the time being in order to efficiently carry out the tasks she assigned after hiring me. For months, I crawled through the bars and clubs around the island and wrote vigorously about the underrated performers who deserved a boost. Michelle seemed to appreciate my efforts; she added more responsibilities, like managing the operation’s social media and helping assemble live events. As we continued working together, I gained the benefit of spending more time around her, learning about the gal in black.

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During breaks or sparse moments of free time on the clock, she began to open up, little by little. I discovered her path had also been far from conventional. In fact, she was a professional artist who had showcased and installed loud, colorful large-scale structures, made from wood and recycled lumber, in cities around the country, from San Francisco to Indianapolis. She’d put her own practice on hold, however, in order to help artists in need. She knew what many of them were enduring: a lack of both resources and financial support. She’d gone through the same struggles, having paid her way through college and graduate school by working at a shoe store. By her late twenties, she’d become disillusioned by the art world’s elitist circles, the spoiled rich kids who had copious amounts of time and backing to elevate their careers while Michelle amassed a lifetime of student debt just so she could be included in the same conversation. Rather than become resentful, she persisted as best she could until she lost her studio space in rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn and was forced to move back home with her parents in central Long Island. After a while, it became clear that artistic brilliance could not sustain a career alone and she had no choice but to switch paths. But rather than go corporate, she decided to help others who were undergoing the same bullshit she had experienced. Thankfully, Diana, the person behind SparkBoom’s creation, threw Michelle a bone and hired her despite her lack of administrative training. (Diana would become a dear friend and mentor to both of us over time.) Michelle took the small opportunity, ran with it, and didn’t look back. In those moments of listening to the details of her own plight, my admiration for her grew. She wore her scars like badges, skipping past self-pity and jumping ahead to survival, then to reinvention. The more I learned about her, the stronger our connection grew, deeper, like our friendship. A couple of years later, after I’d moved on to larger positions at other organizations that showed my dad that I was putting my communications degree to use, Michelle and I would often get together for coffee and talk endlessly about our mutual hardships’ sustaining creative existences. Although jaded, she enlightened me with her knowledge of art and both its historical and contemporary characters. Sometimes we’d meet at museums in Manhattan, like The Museum of Modern Art and The Guggenheim, where I’d come face-to-face with innovators who had directly inspired her: Frank Stella, Eva Hesse, Philip Guston, Judy Pfaff, Zaha Hadid. Viewing their canvases through her eyes, I began to discover what moved her; I became even more dazzled.

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“I have to take you to Flushing,” she declared one day while we were deep into a discussion about food—another favorite topic of ours. She had a passion for exploring new and inventive cuisines; with her best friend, Lauren, a Vietnamese immigrant, Michelle frequented Shabu-shabu restaurants (Asian-influenced hot pot, where patrons sit in front of individual bubbling pots of soup, are given raw meats and vegetables of their choice, and cook their meal in real time). “Are you up for the adventure?” A bold question that would end up holding more meaning over time. “Yeah, sure I am!” I replied with an overly confident enthusiasm. I would have said “Yes” to going almost anywhere with her. Scratch “almost.” I was all in. “Great, come pick me up tomorrow at eight,” she said assertively. By that evening, giddy and caffeinated, I’d started to believe there was a chance this association could actually evolve into romance, but I was still too shy to ask her for a date outright. She had sent me a text: “Look, is this a date or not ’cause I’m too old for this shit.” My face lit up in jubilation. She’d done the heavy lifting for me. “I’ll drive,” she announced when I arrived at her house the next night. “Driving in Queens is tricky.” Twenty minutes later: “Get out of the way, fuck face!” she screamed abruptly, leaning on her horn while maintaining control of her vehicle, carrying on our conversation without missing a beat. I was smitten with her confidence and assertiveness behind the wheel. At Minni’s Shabu Shabu, a Taiwanese-style hot pot outfit, we were ushered to our seats by the hostess, who clearly knew Michelle as an establishment regular. Scanning the room, I saw nothing but Asian faces, all focused on their pots, surrounded by platters of fresh ingredients, gusts of steam rising into and above their heads. A pretty terrifying place to conduct a first date. We took our seats. In front of us was a round metal pot, embedded in the table, cold broth sitting inside. Before I could blink, the waiter flicked a switch to light the pots, then set down a tray of uncooked produce, complete with cabbage leaves, whole mushrooms, slices of tomato, pumpkin, taro root, and carrot, broccoli spears, an egg—all raw, plus, tofu and dumpling balls. The objective was to place all of these items into the broth to quickly cook them, then you’d scoop them out with a ladle or lift them using the accompanying chopsticks (which I barely knew how to use). Before I could glance at the menu, Michelle ordered slices of raw beef and two cups of white rice.

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“Before we add the vegetables to the soup, we first have to get our dipping sauces.” She walked over to a separate station at the edge of the room that held containers filled with a vivid array of various condiments, some of which I’d never heard of: chili paste, fish sauce, chopped garlic, cilantro, parsley, sesame oil, green scallions, soy sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, BBQ sauce, and many others I could not pronounce, all of which had been prepared in-house. The objective was to mix them to create an original taste to dip your cooked delicacies into. I’ve always loved combining flavors, so I scooped as many into my tiny side bowl as I could fit. Back at our table, I wondered what my soup would taste like if I dumped everything in at once and developed a stew. And so, I did. (I later learned that this is the Korean style of eating hot pot.) Michelle looked at me funny at first, then giggled. She laughed even harder once I began fumbling to use my chopsticks, liquid splashing all over my clothes as I put the scalding-hot food into my mouth. I was a sloppy, embarrassing sight to behold. But I had fun with this new process; I felt like a little boy let loose in the kitchen without supervision. When we got back to her house, Michelle’s folks were asleep, so we tip-toed into her living room. Aware of my cinematic dalliances with Irene, she popped in a beloved favorite of hers, one I’d never seen—Metropolis, a 1927 German expressionist movie directed by Fritz Lang, who during World War II fled to the United States, where he made some of the best film noirs during the ’40s and ’50s. Damn, she’s so cool, I thought. Still nervous, I kept both hands on my lap, trying to maintain composure. Then, she kissed me. Fireworks shot out from behind the TV (well, that’s how it felt, at least). When she walked me to the front door at the end of the evening, I didn’t know what to do during those seconds (hours) of awkward silence. “Well, good night,” I said, sticking out my hand for a shake. She gave me a confused look, almost disgusted, but shook it. I remember how I made it back home to my parents’ basement, where I resided, but I woke up the next morning feeling like an enormous idiot, certain I’d blown it. That is, until she texted me minutes later: “So, where are we going next?” I collapsed on my bed in relief, and in love. Our relationship began in the ensuing days, slowly at first, then launching into a full-blown, serious courtship. From that point on, venturing to eateries of cultures whose cuisines we hadn’t tried before became one of

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our pastimes, but we’d return to Shabu Shabu almost at least once a month as a ritual. I guess I was not aware of the volume of Indian weddings, family parties, and other functions I actually attended throughout the course of a single year. For Michelle, accompanying me as my girlfriend meant lines of questioning from relatives and acquaintances. Although most of the women dressed in formal sarees, while the men wore whatever they pleased, I wanted Michelle to feel comfortable in her own clothing; her style was part of who she was. My mom had always dressed in traditional Indian garb for my dad and, although she loved the silks and sequins, she’d grown sick of wearing them once it was expected of her. I promised myself I wouldn’t pressure my partner into anything that made her uncomfortable. Whenever we entered a catering hall or host’s home, she felt a little out of place being the only female dressed in “American” clothes, but I held her hand proudly as we followed Dad inside. We could feel the stares and chattering penetrating the walls; that didn’t bother me. On one occasion, a group of Indian girls around our age cornered Michelle and probed: “So, tell us what Raj is really like as a boyfriend.” “When are you two getting married?” “Have you ever dated a Desi before?” (Not a Ricky Ricardo but another word for a South Asian person.) They carried on while I was waiting at the buffet line on the opposite side of the room. By the time I returned to find Michelle, she’d walked out of the room in tears. I chased her down, offering consolation. “I’ve never had anyone talk to me that way before,” she said, tearful. I guess I’d never paid much attention to that type of cattiness. I finally realized why Mom had struggled for so many years. She’d had enough of subtle cruelty and the lack of emotional support from her husband. I decided, then and there, that I wouldn’t let that happen to Michelle and me. If we were ever to get married, a concept neither of us held in high regard, it wouldn’t be one of those over-the-top productions costing six figures and featuring hundreds of guests we barely knew. We vowed to break free of conventional norms. After all, we’d been raised by families who’d done the same—well, I had been, anyway. As we continued dating, Michelle’s parents warmly welcomed me into their home, as a family member. Jim, an Italian American from Corona, and Susan, a French and German American from Flushing, were two hardworking kids who’d been successfully married since 1972. I had never met a happily married couple before. Most of my friends’ parents were divorced, and mine were utterly miserable in their union. Michelle’s folks had both grown up in sometimes unpleasant homes; they’d been each

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other’s saviors, teenage sweethearts who forged an alliance early on. Observing their love for each other was beautiful, and no matter how much they bickered in front of us about the silliest matters, they’d find a way to kiss, hug, and make up—like in a romantic comedy, except it was real. Their open-mindedness impressed me, too. Growing up in those richly diverse Queens neighborhoods afforded them a lack of ignorance and wealth of tolerance for others, which they passed down to Michelle and her brother, Doug. We’d often double-date with Jim and Susan, venturing to the burgeoning Indian buffets of Hicksville (the new “Little India” following an economic upswing and subsequent migration of Desis from Jackson Heights), where they sampled every tray on the line. Michelle and her parents ate dinner together every night, talking about their days, something my family rarely did anymore given that my parents hadn’t spoken to each other in years. I found myself spending more hours at her house than at my own, being treated like an adopted son. I’d sometimes feel guilty about the distance growing between the occupants in my own house as quality time became rarer. Nani even started to consider moving down south to Florida, as she felt less and less needed. The first December that Michelle and I were going out, her mom invited my family over for a traditional Italian feast for Christmas Eve dinner. I was apprehensive at first. Though I’d been bringing Michelle around my family for months, her encounters with my parents were always isolated. Individually, they adored her but not each other. “I don’t think they’ll come.” “Why not?” Susan begged. “ ’Tis the season. They’ll have to speak to each other sometime.” Dad hadn’t spent Christmas with us in years. Although he isn’t Christian, in the early years he’d always partake in the festivities, for the sake of his wife and kids. He enjoyed the conviviality, however foreign it was to him. But as the wedge between my parents expanded, he stopped participating. During Christmas mornings, he’d either go to a friend’s house while we unwrapped presents or sit upstairs in his office (also his bedroom by that point), where Ravi and I would visit him to swap gifts. Though the strain in my parents’ marriage really weighed on me, I’d gotten used to sweeping my feelings under the rug. I could talk endlessly to Michelle about aspects of my life, but some conversations were too painful. Still, Susan continued her endearing argument until I eventually caved and extended her invitation. And so, both Mom and Dad, along with Nani and Ravi, showed up at Michelle’s home on December 24th. To my great surprise. I guess each of

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them made the trek to show their goodwill; maybe they did it for the free meal . . . or maybe they did it for me. Whatever their reason, I was grateful to have them all sitting around the same table again. My parents barely said a word to each other, but at least they were cordial in public. Michelle, a marvel in the kitchen, made a gustatory heirloom she’d learned from her grandparents that featured on their table each year: Insalata di Mare (seafood salad consisting of fresh octopus, shrimp, scallops and calamari marinated in citrus juices), while Jim spun homemade pizzas (a self-taught skill he’d become legendary for within our clan). My grandma was impressed with the spread, which included her contribution of lasagna—a dish that usually took her an entire day to assemble and bake. To my astonishment, however, the Tawneys kept coming back each year and were soon spending other occasions with Michelle’s family, too: New Year’s Eve, Easter, Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, Fourth of July. We’d also celebrate Diwali, India’s festival of lights, out of respect for Dad, featuring some curries Michelle taught herself to cook (with a little guidance from Mom). Sometimes, we would invite Michelle and her parents over to our house, too. Eventually, every significant holiday was spent at one of our homes, over a table full of home cooking featuring dishes spanning all of our ethnic backgrounds. I’d look down at the display and see generations of meals before me, forging a great unification among our two units. Over time, Mom and Dad even became friendlier with each other as a result of their being forced to sit together. After nearly a decade of zero communication, I was dumbfounded to witness them actually share a laugh or two, even reminisce about early days back in Queens. If only for the sake of their son’s happiness, they tried to show a semblance of peace. Five years after our first date, on the night before Christmas, I proposed marriage to Michelle—something neither of us had ever wanted; over time, however, our feelings had changed. Members of both sides were once again in Jim and Susan’s living room that evening, including Dad, exchanging presents, when Michelle opened a cardboard packaging box. She reached inside and pulled out a small sack of store-bought long grain rice. Our mothers thought I was surprising her with a vacation to China or India or somewhere where rice was a key ingredient. While she was inspecting my gift, I got down on one knee and held out a ring. Completely stunned, Michelle placed the box over her head and stood there like a buffoon. “Will you marry me?” “Uh, okay,” she responded bashfully. We all laughed at her embarrassment. She never did say “Yes” outright—typical.

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We celebrated that evening, as one big family. If only my nani had lived to see it.

Michelle’s Insalata di Mare Make sure you have raw shrimp, scallops, calamari, mussels, and one whole octopus (you can buy a frozen octopus from a fish market if you’re squeamish).

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Dice a bunch of carrots. Dice a few stalks of celery. Dice 1 large bulb of fennel (make sure to use the entire piece). Dice 1 to 2 medium red bell peppers. Dice 1 large red onion. Dice a generous amount of parsley. Dice a little bit of fresh oregano. Dice a little bit of fresh basil. Finely chop a few cloves of garlic. Throw everything into a large glass bowl. Squeeze about six fresh lemons into the mixture. Pour in a generous amount of fine, dry sherry. ▫ Give yourself a sip, too. Add a cup of extra virgin olive oil. Add a pinch of kosher salt to taste. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste. Add 2 to 4 bay leaves. Add a little bit of Old Bay Seasoning. ▫ Don’t add too much. Same goes for the sherry. Put the bowl aside. To poach the seafood, you’ll need a large saucepan fitted with a colander insert. Place the saucepan on the stove and fill it halfway with water. Combine chopped chunks of some celery, carrots, a small onion, a bay leaf, some lemon juice, and a pinch of kosher salt and drop it into the water. Heat the pan and bring everything to a boil. Clean your calamari and slice it into rings, add it to the colander, and place it in the boiling water. ▫ This should take about 2 minutes. Do not overcook.

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▪ Immediately pull out the colander and dump the calamari into a bowl of ice.

▪ Place scallops in the colander and repeat the process. ▫ This should take about 3 to 4 minutes until the scallops are ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

▪

opaque. Peel the shrimp, place them in the colander, and repeat the process. ▫ This should take only a few minutes. Add mussels to the colander and repeat the process. ▫ This should take a few minutes, until the shells open. Clean your octopus, tenderize it, cure it with kosher salt, and chop it into chunks, then add it to the colander and repeat the process. ▫ This will take much longer, around 40 minutes. After all of the seafood is cold, remove everything from the ice and transfer it to the glass bowl. Mix everything up, then chill it in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours, but preferably overnight. ▫ Taste it before you chill it. You might need more lemon juice, sherry, or olive oil. Scoop into small individual bowls and serve to each guest.

Chapter 11

My grandma, my second mother, died four months before I popped the question to Michelle. That summer, I told her that I was thinking about proposing to my girlfriend (whom she really liked, which meant a lot to me) but listed all of the typical reasons why marriage seemed pointless and antiquated. “If you love her, then do it,” she said. “Don’t think twice about it.” “But what if it doesn’t work out?” I whined. “Do you love her?” “Yes.” “Good. I love her, too. Stop thinking so much, baby. You’re only wasting time.” She was right, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do it. The institution never seemed to work out for most people I’d known who’d taken the dive, especially my parents. If I had known it was going to be Nani’s last visit to New York that summer, I would have sucked it up sooner and asked for Michelle’s hand. Four years earlier, Nani had moved away from us, down south to Central Florida, to one of those “fifty-five and over” communities where the elderly remove themselves from the chaos of mainstream society. “I’m going to Heaven’s waiting room,” she’d joke—she had a dark sense of humor that peeked out only once in a while. She poured her savings into purchasing a home—a piece of property she could claim as her own for the first time ever, after a lifetime of renting. When she first decided to make the move,

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I tried my best to feign support for her decision, but I didn’t want her to leave us. Although Mom, Ravi, and I had all become busier in our individual lives, we never expected her to pick up and resettle a thousand miles away, to the middle of nowhere, far from everyone and everything she’d ever known. And leaving New York, no less. Approaching eighty years old, she perceived this relocation as her permanent migration, a final transition to the completion of her life’s journey, and, most important, a sole decision without influence or consideration—though she’d later confess to me that her move was based on Mom’s yearning for a fresh start, hoping the move would give her the push she needed to leave Long Island and join her. That awakening never materialized in Nani’s lifetime, though Mom flew down every few months to visit her. The little ranch-style house my grandma bought was cute. She was so proud to call herself a homeowner. Inside her gated neighborhood, each home’s mailbox displayed the owner’s last name in a ’50s-stylized script font, along with their house number; it stood at the end of each driveway. “Simonetti” was displayed prominently, though even her Italian heritage appeared slightly more ethnic than “Smith,” “Miller,” and the other Bible Belt constituents residing all around her—many of whom were originally from places she’d never been, like Alabama, Kentucky, and Ohio. One time, during a potluck gathering at the local recreation center, she contributed a simple appetizer to the table: caprese skewers (single sticks holding balls of mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, and basil leaves doused in balsamic vinegar and olive oil). Her neighbors were curious about the odd-looking assortment of cheese and vegetables on sticks among their trays of pigs in blankets, onion rings, and fried chicken wings—all of which Nani loved eating in abundance, by the way. “They look like Christmas ornaments,” a fellow diner commented, chuckling. “It’s an Italian antipasti.” “Oh, I see. Is that what you are?” “Yes. Yes, I am.” She wouldn’t admit to anyone, ever, that she was, in fact, Puerto Rican. Even at the very end of her time on Earth. On the few occasions I asked her why she still cared, I’d get a “Come on, are you kidding me?” kind of response and the indication that she had no intention of providing further explanation. My mom, brother, and I each flew down separately every few months to spend time with her, when she wasn’t heading back up to see us, mostly during holidays. Year after year, traveling became increasingly challenging

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for her as she weakened. Sitting around her house all day by herself had led to her mind and body deteriorating further into old age. Isolation didn’t help her spirit; neither did a lack of movement. Her exercise consisted of pushing a cart through Walmart a few times each week, which wasn’t enough. Having her at a great distance, without our watchful eyes keeping checks on her, was all too painful for us to bear. “This is for the better,” she once said while Michelle and I stayed with her for a few days. “The longer I’m down here, the easier it’ll be for you to get over me when I die.” “Nani, why the hell would you say that?” I responded grouchily. “That’s ridiculous.” “But it’s the truth, baby.” It wasn’t true at all, actually. I missed her all the time. Distance only made me call her more, keep tabs on her mental and physical state, and tell her about my life’s progress, which she was missing out on. It couldn’t have been easy for her to miss more precious moments, from birthdays to sometimes major holidays (on a couple of Thanksgivings, she ate at the rec center—not the same). Even her eightieth birthday was spent alone, at home. I felt terrible about it, but it was only a few weeks after New Year’s Eve and her recent return from another New York visit. Still, one of us should have taken off from work and flown to Florida to be with her. Instead, we sent flowers—big fucking deal. She’d been there for all of our birthdays. To this day, I regret not having been there for such an important milestone in my grandmother’s life. After two more years of schlepping back and forth, north to south, south to north, Nani was eighty-two and had slowed down significantly. She’d taken a couple of nasty falls inside of her home and her heart was beginning to fail her. If it weren’t for her neighbor Joe, who found her lying on the floor, we would have lost her much earlier. With each scare, Mom would race down on a plane that same day. It was all becoming too exhausting. And now, Nani needed to use a portable oxygen tank, tubes shooting into her nostrils at all times. I was sick to my stomach as I watched her conditions worsen, but she didn’t seem to feel sorry for herself. Her sense of humor never waned, nor did her appetite. On those final visits, we carried on like old times, I Love Lucy in the background while I helped her shape the meatballs and stir the sauce. I held those moments tighter and tighter; I knew there wouldn’t be many left. Nani had another fall. She’d been on the floor for hours before she found the strength to pick up the phone and call someone for help. She was admitted to the hospital and Mom traveled down immediately. A day

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later, over the phone, I asked her if I should join her. “You better get down here,” my mom responded in a low, grave tone. I knew what it meant. I packed a small duffel bag, and Michelle rushed me to the airport. I made it to her hospital bedside before midnight. Nani was resting. Mom and I headed back to her house to get some sleep. The next day, my grandma was alert and peppy but rambling from the steroids they were pumping into her body. The doctors informed us that she was declining rapidly, that there wasn’t much more they could do. I watched my mom make the toughest choice she’d ever had to make, to transfer her mother into hospice care. Before transporting her, I sat next to Nani as she lay in bed. She seemed a bit hungry but couldn’t move her hands very well or articulate what she wanted. She pointed to a banana on the tray resting at her side. I picked it up, peeled it back, and broke off a few chunks. I fed her the last meal she’d ever eat, piece by piece. Less than twenty-four hours later, in another bed, under a painted mural of Heaven on the ceiling, she was gone. Mom screamed so loudly inside the hospice center that I could only imagine what the other patients were thinking. I held her as she sobbed in my arms, then we each kissed Nani on the forehead and said our goodbyes. It was all so surreal. We spent weeks cleaning out Nani’s home and making arrangements; her ashes flew with my mom back to New York, where we’d planned a small funeral service down the street from my childhood house in Commack. Her life-in-photographs covered thumbtacked boards, greeting guests as they entered the parlor. Irene was the first one to arrive, even before me; then family, including Michelle with her parents; Ravi with his new girlfriend, Sara (whom he’d later marry), and her folks; some of Nani’s surviving sisters, as well as cousins and other members from both the Puerto Rican and Italian sides. Childhood friends—of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and atheist ideologies—who’d grown up eating in our kitchen, nourished by meals she’d cooked, savoring flavors they couldn’t get in their own homes. Although my grandma and dad were never close, he showed up dressed in a suit and tie, and even a few of his Indian pals showed up to offer their sympathies. If only my grandma could have seen the diversity in the room that evening, how the Great American Experiment was flourishing thanks to the bold steps she’d taken throughout her lifetime. Michelle and I married a year later. Contrary to trends, we kept our ceremony as basic as humanly possible, tying the knot at a local town hall, surrounded by all of our parents; Ravi and Sara; Michelle’s brother, Doug,

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and her sister-in-law, Dennisse; my grandpa’s sisters Martha and Mary Jane; and Diana, our friend and former boss who’d hired us all those years ago when we were still figuring out our shit. That evening, we gathered an assortment of about sixty friends for dinner, in the back of a local seafood restaurant that sat along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, miles from Ellis Island. It may have been the most diverse room any of us had ever been in. Countries represented included China, Ireland, Poland, Brazil, Italy, Puerto Rico (not a country, of course), South Korea, Hungary, Mexico, France, Japan, Germany, Peru, India. It was a beautiful scene, one that naturally grew over time, without any concerted effort. Irene sat at our family’s table. Nani was deeply missed, but I could feel her presence that night. We kept things simple, just as we’d promised each other. The menu featured fresh components of the adjacent sea: lobster, clams, shrimp, tuna, sea bass, salmon, oysters, crabs. Among the appetizers, we brought in one homemade dish we’d prepared the night before: skewers of mozzarella, tomato, and basil marinated in vinegar and olive oil. I asked the waiters to pass them around. Everyone devoured them. That late summer day, we celebrated our moment and those whose journeys led us to it. There was no wedding planner, no limousine, no photographer, no deejay, no extravagance whatsoever, just a dining room full of love, just as it’s always been. With a little luck and perseverance, it’ll remain that way, in one form or another.

Elsie’s Caprese Skewers Purchase a block of mozzarella or mozzarella balls, however you find them.

▪ If it’s a block of mozzarella, cut pieces of the cheese and roll them into small balls, the size of a cherry tomato.

▪ Place the balls in a container. ▪ Pour balsamic vinegar and olive oil into the container until the balls are drowning in them.

▪ Stick each ball onto a single skewer. ▪ After each ball, add 1 cherry tomato and 1 leaf of fresh basil, until the skewer is full.

▪ Repeat steps until you’ve filled up as many skewers as you need. ▪ Place on a tray and in the refrigerator to chill for a few hours. ▪ Serve cold or at room temperature.

Acknowledgments

I would be nothing without my mother, Loretta Tawney; my father, Roop Tawney; my brother, Ravi Tawney; and my grandmother Elsie Simonetti. You four are my core, my heart, and my home. For most of my life, nobody else has mattered more to me. I owe who I am to each of you. You are special, quirky, vibrant, talented, a little nutty, beautiful, silly, strong, and truly authentic. I love you four more than words can ever describe. Let this book be a record of us, of outsiders who now matter. I carry you with me every single day of my life. Also, to my three other grandparents who weren’t in my life but whom I grew up learning about: Anthony, Gopi, and Gokal. You’re part of me. I’m also thankful for the family members that make up my Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian sides. You’ve all inspired me in one way or another. I couldn’t be prouder to represent all three heritages and the plights of our people. Michelle Carollo, I didn’t know my heart had the ability to expand until I met you. My life partner and best friend. What the hell would I do without you? Your pure soul, vigor, wisdom, creativity, passion, determination, support, resilience, curiosity, patience, and beauty, both inner and outer, have made an enormous impact on my life. I couldn’t have grown into the man I am today without you. You helped me not only understand my complete self but pushed and challenged me to champion aspects of my identity I was once ashamed of. I’m grateful for you every day and I love you like you have no idea. (P.S. Thanks for putting up with my crap.) Jim, Susan Carollo, Doug, and Dennisse Carollo, thank you for taking me into

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your lives like a son and brother. I’ve cherished every moment we’ve spent together and will continue to. My sister-in-law, Sara Tawney, and her parents, Eugene and Claudia Devanay, I’m blessed to have you as part of our family. I love you all. Many friends and acquaintances have come in and out of my life. Some have remained, some I’ve lost touch with, and others have passed on. You’ve all brought greater meaning and joy to my life. I’ll try my best to thank as many of you as I can: Ujas Shah; Derek Caruso; Anthony Kang; Gary Hardoon; Joe Achnitz; Ed Hou; Kellen and Jordan Nock; Vishnu Pillai; Dave Montpetit; Bhumika Vyas; James Kim; Jesse Gaccione; James George; Nancy Wong; Andrew Grosvalet; Jason Markowitz; Evan Wessler; Matt Landow; Diana Cherryholmes; Peggy and William Low; Maureen Starr; Greg Blank; Finn Miller; Peter Braune; Brian and Hyeji Kim; Ethan Rosen; Ranley Duret; Vanessa and Topher Hernandez; Budd Burton Moss; Shankar, Sonal, and Laila Pillai; Lucienne Pereira; and last but not least, Irene P. Eckert—friend, mentor, movie buff, lover of coffee and cookies—I miss you every day. You are all my family as far as I’m concerned. The idea for this book started as a result of the essays I’ve written on identity, family, food, race, and my love for New York. There are colleagues I’ve met along the way who have become confidantes as well as friends. Benée Knauer, I can never repay you for your confidence in me, your encouragement and devotion, the number of hours you gave to me, the frantic phone calls you took, the motivational emojis you sent, and your overall belief in this project. I couldn’t have made it to this point without you. You’re such a special person and a true badass to boot. Thanks for not letting me give up on myself. Amanda Uhle, your wisdom, advice, and support kept me going through arduous as well as celebratory times. I value and admire you for numerous reasons. To Wajahat Ali and Krishnendu Ray, thank you for your initial eyes on this manuscript. Your feedback meant more than you know. Also, thank you to Victoria Sanders and Bernadette Baker-Baughman for your early support. Thank you to Fredric Nachbaur and the entire Fordham University Press family: marketing director Kate O’Brien-Nicholson, production and design manager Mark Lerner, editors Eric Newman and Kem Crimmins, publicist Jen Richards, marketing manager Katie Sweeney Parmiter, the board of directors, and everyone on the team who championed this book right away. I’m deeply touched by your hard work and enthusiasm. Thank you to every newspaper, magazine, and digital editor who ever gave me a shot and took a chance on one of my little essays. It’s not easy

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putting personal stories out there in the world, but most of the time, I drew confidence from your confidence in me. For any writer, that means the world. Last, I want to thank you, the reader, for going on this journey with me. If this is the only book I ever write, your making it all the way to this last sentence will have been worth it.

Raj Tawney is a writer and journalist whose work largely reflects his New York upbringing and sensibility. Raised in an Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian-American household, Tawney has explored his own race and identity through stories published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, USA Today, Smithsonian magazine, and many other outlets throughout the country.

Select titles from Empire State Editions Daniel Campo, The Accidental Playground: Brooklyn Waterfront Narratives of the Undesigned and Unplanned John Waldman, Heartbeats in the Muck: The History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor, Revised Edition John Waldman (ed.), Still the Same Hawk: Reflections on Nature and New York Gerard R. Wolfe, The Synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side: A Retrospective and Contemporary View, Second Edition. Photographs by Jo Renée Fine and Norman Borden, Foreword by Joseph Berger Joseph B. Raskin, The Routes Not Taken: A Trip Through New York City’s Unbuilt Subway System Phillip Deery, Red Apple: Communism and McCarthyism in Cold War New York Craig Saper, The Amazing Adventures of Bob Brown: A Real-Life Zelig Who Wrote His Way Through the 20th Century R. Scott Hanson, City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration, and Pluralism in Flushing, Queens. Foreword by Martin E. Marty Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker: The Miracle of Our Continuance. Edited, with an Introduction and Additional Text by Kate Hennessy, Photographs by Vivian Cherry, Text by Dorothy Day Mark Naison and Bob Gumbs, Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life in the Bronx from the 1930s to the 1960s Robert Weldon Whalen, Murder, Inc., and the Moral Life: Gangsters and Gangbusters in La Guardia’s New York Sharon Egretta Sutton, When Ivory Towers Were Black: A Story about Race in America’s Cities and Universities Pamela Hanlon, A Wordly Affair: New York, the United Nations, and the Story Behind Their Unlikely Bond Britt Haas, Fighting Authoritarianism: American Youth Activism in the 1930s David J. Goodwin, Left Bank of the Hudson: Jersey City and the Artists of 111 1st Street. Foreword by DW Gibson Nandini Bagchee, Counter Institution: Activist Estates of the Lower East Side

Susan Celia Greenfield (ed.), Sacred Shelter: Thirteen Journeys of Homelessness and Healing Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis and Matthew M. McGowan (eds.), Classical New York: Discovering Greece and Rome in Gotham Susan Opotow and Zachary Baron Shemtob (eds.), New York after 9/11 Andrew Feffer, Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism Colin Davey with Thomas A. Lesser, The American Museum of Natural History and How It Got That Way. Forewords by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Kermit Roosevelt III Wendy Jean Katz, Humbug: The Politics of Art Criticism in New York City’s Penny Press Lolita Buckner Inniss, The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson Mike Jaccarino, America’s Last Great Newspaper War: The Death of Print in a Two-Tabloid Town Angel Garcia, The Kingdom Began in Puerto Rico: Neil Connolly’s Priesthood in the South Bronx Jim Mackin, Notable New Yorkers of Manhattan’s Upper West Side: Bloomingdale–Morningside Heights Matthew Spady, The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It Marilyn S. Greenwald and Yun Li, Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice Jeffrey A. Kroessler, Sunnyside Gardens: Planning and Preservation in a Historic Garden Suburb Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, Antiquity in Gotham: The Ancient Architecture of New York City Ron Howell, King Al: How Sharpton Took the Throne Phil Rosenzweig, “12 Angry Men”: Reginald Rose and the Making of an American Classic Jean Arrington with Cynthia S. LaValle, From Factories to Palaces: Architect Charles B. J. Snyder and the New York City Public Schools. Foreword by Peg Breen Boukary Sawadogo, Africans in Harlem: An Untold New York Story Alvin Eng, Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond

Stephanie Azzarone, Heaven on the Hudson: Mansions, Monuments, and Marvels of Riverside Park Ron Goldberg, Boy with the Bullhorn: A Memoir and History of ACT UP New York. Foreword by Dan Barry Peter Quinn, Cross Bronx: A Writing Life Mark Bulik, Ambush at Central Park: When the IRA Came to New York Matt Dallos, In the Adirondacks: Dispatches from the Largest Park in the Lower 48 Brandon Dean Lamson, Caged: A Teacher’s Journey Through Rikers, or How I Beheaded the Minotaur Edward Cahill, Disorderly Men Joseph Heathcott, Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic Francis R. Kowsky with Lucille Gordon, Hell on Color, Sweet on Song: Jacob Wrey Mould and the Artful Beauty of Central Park Jill Jonnes, South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City, Third Edition Barbara G. Mensch, A Falling-Off Place: The Transformation of Lower Manhattan David J. Goodwin, Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft in Gotham Felipe Luciano, Flesh and Spirit: Confessions of a Young Lord Maximo G. Martinez, Sojourners in the Capital of the World: Garifuna Immigrants For a complete list, visit www.fordhampress.com/empire-state-editions.