i will fail your quiz
Words by Jackson Miller // Published November 27th, 2023
my tongue falls heavy with the weight
of languages i do not speak
when i admit i only know English
to people looking at me expectantly
as if it is a quiz to see how Indian i am.
spoiler alert: i will fail your quiz
i tell people who ask no,
i’ve never been to India
my friends look at me intently
wanting to know if i’ve heard of the foods
they bring up, the Hindu holidays they celebrate
i tell them no, the Indian side
of my family is Catholic, from the south
sometimes i call a food they know
by a different name or don’t recognize it at all
& i await their response with an unseen grimace
because even if they don’t say it
their eyes still tell me they question
if i’m really Indian at all
or if I’ve been whitewashed, Americanized
cut myself from the culture because i am ashamed of it
& the truth is maybe i have been assimilating comfortably
trying to bunch my identity smaller & smaller
like the kurta that hangs at the back of my closet
yes, i know i will fail your quiz but just know
i am hating that my name does not reveal that my story
is incomplete without scenes from Nani’s apartment,
being served heaping piles of lamb curry, buttery puris
letting my body absorb the strong mix of scents
emitted from the spice cabinet: asafoetida, ginger, cumin
yes, i know i will fail your quiz but just know
my heart is not split like my half-Desi identity
it tries with all its fullness to remember that time
when all the relatives from Karnataka were at the wedding
& the aunties on the dance floor moved graceful like the moon
while me and my cousins watched, our eyes twinkling
yes, i know i will fail your quiz but one day i will go
to where my grandparents once called home
& i will let the breeze run strong upon my back, tearing your scantron to shreds.
✺ For Coalesce, Issue 6
Jackson Miller (he/him) is a freshman at the University of Southern California. You can find him on Instagram @7acksonmiller.
“My childhood was dotted with time between cultures, recognizing my grandmothers’ cooking as a way they shared their love. One week, I’d be rolling atta in my Nani’s white-tiled kitchen as we made kuswar--South Indian Christmas treats. The next, I’d be celebrating Hanukkah with my Bubbe, menorah candles illuminating my gap-toothed smile, digging into freshly hot latkes. I’m trying to make my work full of the love that their cooking had, but writing is not cooking. It’s not prepared through recipe passed down through generations. Instead, it demands you to grapple with a story that may never be whole but that can be wholly yours. My art is for the kids whose hair tells tales in two tongues. It’s for those who whose story sings louder than the “2 or more” boxes on applications. I write to remember my grandmothers and their love, unconditional across traditions because when people ask “what are you,” glancing at my name, my hair, then my skin, I want to tell them about kuswar and candles.”
Artist Statement: The theme “coalesce” spoke strongly to me because I am still trying to piece together my identity, to have it come together. Sometimes I feel like I’m not Indian enough or not American enough or not whole enough. This poetry work was a chance to approach some of those feelings through a rough recollection of memories and a confrontation with all the times I felt like people challenged my very ancestry.
