We were often asked, “Well, what do you eat then?"

From Sneaking Out for a Burger With My Indian Dad by Shaila Kapoor. While the specifics are those of an Asian Indian family in West Texas, it a universal story of all those living between cultures. Every family is a conspiracy of uniqueness in the context of an undifferentiated universalism.

When I was a teenager, several of our relatives from India came to visit for a few weeks. It was the first time any of my mother’s siblings had come to America and, therefore, especially significant. My mother had every meal organized, the house was spotless, sightseeing and weekend road trips were all arranged.

My mother had been a strict vegetarian when she lived in India. Her family is Jain, and a fundamental tenet of Jainism is to not harm any living creature. That means not eating meat, eggs or even any root vegetables for fear of killing bugs as food is pulled from the ground. So we were to be vegetarian the entire time our Indian relatives visited us.

It was hard for Texans in the early ’80s to understand or relate to anyone who didn’t eat steak or hamburgers. We were often asked, “Well, what do you eat then?” Eventually, my mother forced herself to eat meat so that I would grow up eating it. But she had never mentioned her decision to her parents or siblings back home.

Our visiting family had no idea we ate meat and I was strictly warned not to give it away. No mention of eggs by accident, no discussion of turkey sandwiches that I sometimes ate for lunch, or my favorite chicken enchiladas I yearned for. My mother had planned all kinds of Indian delicacies — there were special daals, stuffed vegetables, curries, homemade yogurt, rotis, amazing desserts. Enough food to eat more than three times a day, and we did — we ate all the time.

One Saturday evening, a few weeks into the visit, my mother sent me and my father to the grocery store to pick up some items before dinner. “Don’t be too long,” she warned as we walked out to the garage.

We sat in the car, both of us enjoying the brief silence after weeks of entertaining. The planning, the reunion, the late nights, the weeks of altered home life had been intense. We were weary. I admitted to it first. “I’m really tired of all the Indian food.” My father smiled knowingly and looked at me before replying. “What do you think? Want to go to Braum’s and get a hamburger?”

[snip]

We hardly ever went to Braum’s, a popular burger and ice cream place in town, the epitome of American food. We didn’t really eat hamburgers. In fact, fast food was not a concept my parents condoned. But I think my father and I needed some time away, some time together, and something profoundly not Indian that day.

“Really? What will Mom say?”

“Never mind what she will say. We won’t tell her.”

He parked in the restaurant lot and we walked in, his arm around my waist, leading me. Once inside, we paused at the counter to regard the menu, finally choosing for one another what each would like.

[snip]

It was completely dark now and we rushed to the store to get the items my mother had sent us for and to get home. I heard my father laugh out loud as he opened the car door for me. In a near whisper, he said, “You’re American. Why not?”