Self-Portrait

              For my self-portrait I decided to really look at myself and ask, “who am I?” This is a question that I often still struggle with till this day since I am an immigrant struggling with trying to keep my foot in between two worlds. It seems like yesterday that I was still an introverted young boy who never had gotten a haircut or trimmed the little amount of facial hair that he had. I am from Punjab and most of the people over there practice a religion called Sikhism. In this religion we follow certain traditions and one of them is that a baptized Sikh does not cut his hair or trim his facial hair. We then cover our heads by wearing turbans. For the majority of my life I used to be the same way. Even after coming to America at three years old I still stayed true to this religion for over a decade.

              It was not until I was about 15-16 years old that I began to ask myself questions internally that related to my identity and who I was as a person. A few years after that I decided to cut off all that hair that I had been growing for 16 years and really try to find myself. I did not even know if doing it was the right thing or not, but I knew keeping it further would just feel wrong if I did not have my heart fully in it. There is a decent sized sikh community in New Jersey and we are all pretty close. We know each other’s families well. I knew cutting my air, although a meaningless formality in American standards, was a big thing in our culture and would impact how I was viewed by the others in the community as well. I knew even my family would be taken aback at first and be against it. Nevertheless, I continued with what I believed to be best for me and I broke away from traditions that I had known for all my life.

              Flash forward a few years and everything is now as normal as it could be. Life moved on and although the initial shock was very impactful to most, I still decided to move on with my life. The sikh community understands that I still am who I was before and for the most part, realize it would be dumb to look at me differently. But sometimes I just sit and wonder, am I still who I was before? Evolution is a part of life and we all have to adapt in order to survive, but how much would be different if I did not go through with it. The biggest thing that even my family was worried about when I told them my intentions was that I would change more than just my appearance. They were afraid that it would go to my head and that I would become a whole different person. Sometimes I wonder if I have become someone completely different.

              The novel “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a book that really stuck with me when I originally read it about a year ago because identity is something that I have struggled with for a while. Being someone who wore a turban was hard enough in America, but when mixing that with the fact that I moved to America a little after September 11^th 2001 made it even harder. The country was in disarray and it made it even harder to fit in without looking like an outsider. Coates’ novel talking to his son about finding himself and helping him try to find himself in America in s topic that not only caught my eye, but also hit home for me as well.

              For my self portrait I decided to take two pictures and combine them into one. One picture is of me with a haircut and the other is of me with a turban on. This represents who I am, not only to the world but myself as well. Although I decided to stray away from certain traditions from my culture, it was actually this separation that made love some more things about it. The extra space that I gave myself from those traditions helped invigorate my love for them. Also, growing up a certain way obviously affects what kind of person you become as an adult. It’s hard to find yourself in this world that always tries to push you to be someone you are not, but that is what makes it so much more fulfilling when you actually find yourself.