I was waiting for my friends on the playground when I heard some boys spitting abuse through the chain-link fence at a man who had dropped a grocery bag on the sidewalk. He was wearing pants that billowed with the breeze and a turban the color of the prettiest aqua sea glass. He looked up at these two boys with an unreadable expression, all the while rushing to get his items back into the bag that had fallen out of his arms and into the dirt. Surely most of his haste was in order to get away from these hateful creatures posing as patriotic boys. Somewhere between the yells of, “diaper head!” and “go back to your own country! All 70 pounds of me sprang into action. I hurled myself in between the fence and these boys and screamed at them to stop and learn some respect for their elders. The shock on their faces, which I can only assume was from the suddenness of my outburst, was enough to tell me that they would listen and shortly afterwards, they said their last parting shot of “dirty Indians” as they walked away. After they were finally far enough away for me to let my guard down, I turned to the man who could have easily impersonated my great grandfather, put my hands together and said the only words I knew in Punjabi, “Sat Srii Akaal.” The traditional Sikh greeting that I now know means “God is the ultimate truth” and in that moment, I felt so proud, like I had just protected a part of myself and my
I was waiting for my friends on the playground when I heard some boys spitting abuse through the chain-link fence at a man who had dropped a grocery bag on the sidewalk. He was wearing pants that billowed with the breeze and a turban the color of the prettiest aqua sea glass. He looked up at these two boys with an unreadable expression, all the while rushing to get his items back into the bag that had fallen out of his arms and into the dirt. Surely most of his haste was in order to get away from these hateful creatures posing as patriotic boys. Somewhere between the yells of, “diaper head!” and “go back to your own country! All 70 pounds of me sprang into action. I hurled myself in between the fence and these boys and screamed at them to stop and learn some respect for their elders. The shock on their faces, which I can only assume was from the suddenness of my outburst, was enough to tell me that they would listen and shortly afterwards, they said their last parting shot of “dirty Indians” as they walked away. After they were finally far enough away for me to let my guard down, I turned to the man who could have easily impersonated my great grandfather, put my hands together and said the only words I knew in Punjabi, “Sat Srii Akaal.” The traditional Sikh greeting that I now know means “God is the ultimate truth” and in that moment, I felt so proud, like I had just protected a part of myself and my