A If you are what you eat what am I?

The issue of a double standard for Americans, especially minority Americans, is constantly touched on and debated. What is American? How do you preserve culture when American culture is pressing at you from all sides, when you want to learn to interact and identify with friends? Insisting to be of some other ethnicity as an African American, Asian American, Indian American, Irish American or any other kind of American can be interpreted the same as rejecting being American completely. Greeta Kothari, in If You Are What You Eat, What Am I? ponders over this idea. She does not feel that she is Indian because she understands how clearly she is not during her visits to her family, during which she cannot eat the same foods or drink same water. She also does not feel American, though, because she likes neither the classic American foods nor the Americanized versions of Indian food. Understanding her confusion, her guilt over what she should identify as, is easy. Yes you are American because you are born and raised in this country, because you know no other way of life, because you can not imagine or manage living in any other country. You also, however, have a subculture of your ancestors that you feel is your duty to preserve. The double standard of wanting to be viewed and accepted the same as everyone else but to still recognize your subculture is a confusing problem that plagues how you live day to day.