S3E2: #GrowingUpBrown

Bushra: Hello.

Harjit: I can hear her.

Bushra: It's me.

Harjit: Okay. I think that's enough.

Bushra: It's never enough.

Harjit: JK. Thank you.

Bushra: All right. Let's get into it.

Harjit: Should I start?

Bushra: Yeah.

Harjit: Man, Margaux's not here. She usually keeps this in check. Hello.

Bushra: What is up, everybody? My name is Bushra Hussein. You probably heard of that name before. We have myself and Harjit in the studio, which is I think the first time we're recording alone together. Leen and Margaux are off doing their clinical duty, and we'll miss them, but we have a great topic for you guys.

As you know by now, Harjit and I are from India and Somalia, respectively, and so we're going to talk about our respective experiences here, growing up in a predominantly white society and kind of share stories.

Harjit: Yeah. It's going to be a mini-series of growing up as a brown girl.

Bushra: Oh, #growingupbrown.

Harjit: Yes.

Bushra: So Harjit had a wonderful experience during her internal medicine sub-I that she had. She had a great conversation with an intern. Do you want to share?

Harjit: Yeah, Bushra. So I'm actually doing my sub-internship in medicine. I'm going into psychiatry, but we usually have to do another core sub-internship, because psychiatry is a specialty. So I'm doing it in medicine.

And one of the interns I was working with, you know, we were doing our pre-rounding, we had 30 minutes until the attending was going to show up, and he was like, "Hey, can I ask you a personal question? I was wondering how it was growing up as an ethnic person in Utah." And I was like, "Let me tell you, it was an experience." And we ended up having a really good and long conversation about it.

And when I was with him in the team room, there was another intern and another MS3, and I think it became a really good talking point and a conversation. And it was just so refreshing that I had that conversation through the day, because I was like, "These are the things that I'm thinking about constantly every single minute, every single second, but no one asks me about it." So when he asked me, it was just like, "Oh, this person cares about me and cares about where I come from and cares about my experiences." And it was just like really nice to kind of have that connection.

So kind of going along with that, Bushra, do you have experiences that really shaped you growing up and shaped your understanding of being a brown person in America, or in Utah, specifically?

Bushra: So for me, my experience has always been . . . this is going to sound awful, but everybody, as a kid, you want to fit in, right? You don't want to be the person that sticks out.

And so, for me, my goal was always to assimilate as much as possible, which means I don't want to talk with a freaking accent because that's going to pinpoint the foreigner in class. I don't want to look any different, although I don't have much control over that. And I don't want other people to think that . . . and this was a big one I think for me. I didn't want to feel like I was lagging behind the rest of the group just because I didn't have that background, I guess, of a household with a formalized education, because I didn't.

Harjit: Right.

Bushra: And so, I worked really hard in those aspects. Some of them were great, others not so much, right? As far as my looks go, I remember wanting straight hair so bad.

Harjit: I know.

Bushra: I wanted it so, so bad. And so, I remember, this is probably seventh and eighth grade, I would straighten my hair every day. Straighten my hair, apply heat, damage my hair every day, because I wanted straight hair so bad because that's what everybody else had. As far as my skin tone, you know, I can't really change that, but making sure I don't get any darker.

Harjit: Right.

Bushra: Because that was very important, not just in the outside world, but also in my household. In the Somali culture and a lot of other cultures too, being "light-skinned" is a trait that you would want to have, right? So avoiding the sun, making sure you're covered, your hands and your feet and your face, and just making sure that you're not going to get any excess sun exposure so as to darken your skin.

We have that story about being in ESL.

Harjit: Yes.

Bushra: But I would just remember being in ESL and wanting to get the F out as soon as possible. I was like, "Yo, I don't want to be grouped with these people who don't speak English, because my English is fantastic. Can't you hear me when I speak?" It was so lame, but that was my mentality back then. I wanted to be as "American" as possible, right?

But something that I realized is, yeah, when I go outside of my house, go to school, whatever, I wanted to be as American as possible, but then when I came home, I was coming back home to a Somali environment. And I kind of struggled to reconcile the two, because I felt like there was this internal struggle between the two, which kind of . . . I don't know. I felt like it inhibited some of my growth a little bit, because I just didn't know who I was and where I fit in.

Did you have a similar experience?

Harjit: Yeah, 100%, Bushra. I'm so resonating with everything you're saying. I will say, yeah, it does kind of sound bad, but it's our truth, right?

Bushra: Right.

Harjit: I aspired to whiteness my entire young life. I just wanted to be "white." I wanted to feel like a white person. I wanted to look like a white person, because I think being non-white, in my mind, I always knew there was a difference. Sometimes, those differences weren't overt, but I always knew there was a difference in the way my classmates that identified as white got treated versus me. So I get that you spent so much time . . .

I'm laughing about this, but I'll tell you my story. So I was in seventh grade, and I used to apply gel and oil to my hair so it'd be even straighter than straight, and I have straight hair. Out of my whole family, I have super straight hair.

North Indians, in general, specifically Punjabis, one thing that they pride themselves upon . . . because they also, I think, as a community aspire to whiteness, because they were colonized back in the day . . . is that they are lighter than most Indians and that they have straighter hair than most Indians. And it's kind of sad because, in that way, we as a community are privileged, and I think there is a lot of anti-blackness in our own community.

Bushra: Absolutely.

Harjit: So it's not only that I aspired to be whiteness because I was in America and living in Utah, but I aspired to become white because of the narrative of our entire community as well. So it was like . . .

Bushra: It's deep-rooted.

Harjit: It's so deep-rooted.

Bushra: You probably would be facing similar things if you had stayed in India, right? Like, this idealization of your eccentric beauty standards is ingrained in several different countries because of colonization, and that's kind of important to highlight. It's not just here in America. It's literally throughout the world. Harjit: Right. And I think that . . . I like how you said it kind of hindered your growth as a person. It was a huge struggle for me. I am Harjit, right? I'm a brown woman, but I think that, for a long time, it was difficult for me to accept that identity and really understand its richness because I was so chasing for something else, something that was never going to serve me, but I thought it was, you know? And I think that whole idea really took up a lot of my life when I was young.

Bushra: Right. I have a funny story to share.

Harjit: Share all the funny stories.

Bushra: It's kind of sad, but whatever. So we just celebrated Eid on Sunday. Eid is a huge celebration for Muslims across the world. And so, a lot of people get mehndi or henna done for Eid. And so, you get these beautiful designs on your hands and it's just so intricate, so detailed. It's beautiful. And I loved getting my henna done. It was probably one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things.

And so I remember this kind of vividly in the second grade, the day after Eid, I had my mehndi done, I had my henna done, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, everybody's going to be so excited. I'm going to . . ."

Harjit: Oh, my God, I used to think that too. Every time I'd get henna done, I'd be like, "Everyone's going to love my henna." Okay, go on.

Bushra: And so, I go to school and I'm like feeling myself, because duh, you know, it's gorgeous. And so, I get to school and like everybody's staring at my hands like, "Did you forget to wash your hands?"

Harjit: Did they really say that?

Bushra: Yeah. I was like, "No, this is henna." They're like, "What is that?" I was like, "It's just like a plant that you put on . . ." you know, trying to explain. I didn't really know what it was either, so I probably did a terrible job.

Harjit: I usually give the plant. It's this plant, you dry it up, and then you squish it up.

Bushra: They're like, "Are you sure? Why is it . . ." It's kind of like a dark orange, and it could be super red too, but I remember that time, it was a dark orange color. They're like, "It kind of looks like poop stains."

Harjit: Oh my gosh, exactly the same thing happened to me.

Bushra: No. And I was freaking mortified.

Harjit: I know.

Bushra: I remember grabbing . . . because I had long sleeves on, I remember grabbing my sleeves to cover my hands because I was so embarrassed by it. And then after that, I never was excited about getting my henna done, because I was like, "Oh, everybody is going to make fun of me," and all that stuff. And it sucked that I couldn't, at that time at least, share my culture without fear of being pointed out for being odd or for being different or whatever. You know what I mean?

Harjit: Yeah. Those kind of things are always happening, and I think you kind of have accumulation of these events, and you just get so used to them, you know?

Bushra: You get cognizant of things that could be perceived in a negative light from your background. For example, for me, parent-teacher conference is always difficult for me, and it's for the dumbest reason. So my mom is Somali and she dresses in traditional Somali dress, right? And so, she was the one that came to our parent-teacher conference. And so, I was like, "Oh, everyone's going to see my mom."

And I love my mom, by the way, but it was just this whole idea of "otherization." They're going to put me back into that category. That was a constant fear that I had. And so, the more that I knew that was coming up, the more I would try to make myself not associated with that, right? So it's just a struggle.

Harjit: And I get that, Bushra. I think a lot of listeners, or people in general, have a critique like, "Oh, that's maybe just in your head. You're thinking of all these things of how you're becoming somebody other than what is 'the mainstream and normal.'" But a lot of times, the reason I think that a lot of us have those thoughts is because the focus then just becomes, "Oh, Harjit's a Punjabi girl." They won't know all the other things I'm good at, you know?

Not that I'm not proud now that I'm a brown woman, but I also am proud of all the other things that I've achieved in my life, right? And I think with that identity, it's kind of that balance. Yes, I'm a woman of color, but I'm also so much more.

Bushra: Right.

Harjit: I thought when I was younger that if I took that part away, then people would notice everything else about me.

Bushra: Right, exactly.

Harjit: But what I know now is that part of me is what makes everything else so beautiful, and I don't think I had that realization when I was younger.

Bushra: Right. So, when do you feel like you started to accept yourself fully, accepting the fact that you are a brown woman, a woman of color?

Harjit: I still struggle with it even to this day. But I think when I was in junior high or high school, I kind of started . . . I always tell people I'm very Punjabi. The first thing anybody knows about me is "Harjit's Punjabi" or Indian.

Bushra: True. I can attest to that.

Harjit: Yes. And I'm very loud about it. I think it's because it was who I was. And I have a really hard time hiding myself. I'll be honest. I'm a very open book. So it's such a deep part of me that I started getting a little bit more verbal with it, even though I struggled with it.

I would say in med school is when I started having pride of being a brown woman, being like, "Yeah, I'm brown." Now, everyone I talk to, I make it an open conversation. I think it was even a hard thing to say, "Oh, I'm a brown woman," or, "I'm a woman of color." But now, I use it in all my conversations, and I'm trying to normalize it because it is normal. It's my identity. And I'm saying, "Yeah, as a woman of color, XYZ."

But I will say that I still have this fear, and I have a perfect example of this. We have to do a photo shoot for "Bundle of Hers," and I was at Leen's place. And last year, Leen wore her Palestinian scarf, and I in the group text . . . we have a group text, the four of us, and I was like, "I'm so inspired by Leen that I want to wear something Punjabi or something that represents me fully as a person." So I texted our group and I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to wear a Kurta." So basically, the top that I wanted to wear was an Indian top.

And so, I put it on, and I was walking out of Leen's house, because Leen lives on campus, so I was like, "Oh, I'll go to her house and change." And we were walking out, and I looked at Leen and I was like,"I feel weird." And she's like, "Why do you feel weird?" I'm like, "It's because I'm wearing my Punjabi clothes." And she's like, "Why are you so conscious?" And I was like, "Leen, I know. I'm so sad and mad at myself for being so conscious of this, and I just need to be proud and let it go."

What I mean by saying this is that, because it's been going on for years and years and years, you just can't erase it. And I still struggle with it to this day, you know? And that's kind of hard for me to grapple with.

Bushra: So I studied abroad in Spain for a semester, and when you study abroad, you meet a lot of new people. And every time I met one of the locals, they'd be like, "Oh, where are you from?" And so, I would always say Somalia, because that's what I'm used to, right? When people ask me, "Where are you from?" here, they mean, "What's your country of origin?" basically.

So they're like,"Oh, you just barely came from there?" I was like, "No, I was, you know, raised in the States, in Utah. I've lived there since I was pretty much 3 years old." They're like, "So you're American, right?"

Harjit: Really?

Bushra: Yeah. And I don't know why it took me so long to consider myself an American. It took me leaving the country and someone else identifying me as American to fully grasp that, "Hey, girl, you're American." And this was probably my second year of college and I remember coming back and reevaluating why I answer that question the way I do.

And so, like you said, you were just ingrained in every day, you kind of deal with the same things, and so you're used to answering the questions . . . not the question that's being asked, but what the person meant by the question.

And so I decided, "You know what? I'm not going to do that anymore." And so, if you want to know where my family is from, you're going to have to ask me that specific question. When people ask me where I'm from, I say, "Oh, I'm from Salt Lake," because that is where I'm from. This is where I've been living for the last 23 years of my life. This is where I grew up. This is where I was raised. This is my home.

And so I just saw kind of a shift in what everybody else would be . . . they'd be confused by my answer. I know the answer that they want me to give, but that's not what I was giving them.

And further, kind of like you, when I came into med school, one of my biggest fears was that I was going to be the only person of color.

Harjit: Mine too, girl. Mine too.

Bushra: And so, I knew that whatever the case may be, I wanted to be myself fully, and I wanted to make sure that everybody knows who Bushra Hussein is. Bushra Hussein is a first-generation student. She's an immigrant. She is Somali, but she's also American.

I wanted these identifiers to be open, and so I'm really glad that I found people like you and Leen and Ali, another one of our classmates, all these people who also kind of felt the same way. And so, it made me more comfortable to do so.

Harjit: Bushra, I totally agree with you, because when I started med school, I had a goal in mind, and my goal was that I was going to be fully myself, that I was going to be proud of being a woman of color and being proud of finding other people that I could connect with.

Because I think I was always scared to seek that out just by the mere fact that I didn't want other people to think like, "Oh, she's only associating with people of color," right? It's not that I'm only associating with them. It's just it's easy to find support and community with those people because you can vent and you can talk about things that with other people, it just takes longer to explain.

Bushra: You don't have to explain the context because they already know the context behind it. Because like you said, our experiences are similar, right? And so, that's kind of nice that I can just start into my story or my experience or whatever, and you already know the answer.

Harjit: And I think that I have been very conscious of that and I'm proud that I'm conscious of that, because we're building a community so we all can thrive.

I also realize that me being more myself means that people can see me being a Punjabi woman American who is going to be a doctor so that other Punjabi-Americans or other women of color who are kind of aspiring to be in a position of higher education or achieve higher education, they can see that. And I think that's a theme that we've been talking about since day one of this podcast.

Bushra: Right.

Harjit: So, Bushra, how do you feel that our experiences of being women of color will transform or serve us as we move forward in medicine?

Bushra: So we are able to see things from multiple different sides, because you've had to. You need to be able to switch from different facets of your life, and that's what we've been doing every single day.

And so I think that's great for patient care because you're able to understand patients better fully. I think that's great for education, I think that's great for mentorship, and finally, I think it's great for building communities that are more diverse, especially within healthcare.

Harjit: I also think that coming from this perspective of understanding what it means to hide yourself and then also express yourself is super powerful.

I think patients, in general, you're always wondering, "What are they not telling me? What are they telling me, and how does that impact my decision-making?" And I think we know that patients won't tell us a lot of things because we've hidden things in the past too. And because of that, we are able to dig deeper and ask more questions and really understand where they are and where they want to go.

And because of that, I think I am so grateful that I've lived the life that I lived even though it was really, really, really hard at times. And I will say it's been very difficult. Hiding your identity is really hard. It's really hard because it's like you're silencing yourself. Not only are you being silenced in the outside world, but you're being silenced in the inside world.

And I think that is one reason this podcast is so important to me, is because I know how it feels to be quiet and I know how empowering it feels to talk.

So I hope that every patient that I interact with knows that I want to listen to them, knows that their voice is important, knows that their stories are important, and knows that their identity is important.

And kind of going on that, I think it's also important to know that identities are fluid, and we are shaping them as we go. And who I am today might not be who I am tomorrow, but that is for me to decide.

Bushra: Honestly, I hope that I'm not the same person today that I will be in the next year, next five years, because for me, I think it's important to grow every single day. I don't think I'm the same person I was yesterday.

Harjit: No.

Bushra: You know what I mean?

Harjit: Yeah.

Bushra: I think as you go through life, you learn new things. And if you're not learning, that means you're not growing. And so, for me, I'm always constantly wanting to grow. I want to be a better person. I want to learn more about the world. I want to learn more about the people around me. And so, I'm not going to be the same person I was in this moment.

Harjit: Neither am I. And I'm not the same person I was when I was younger. The essence of me is still the same, but there are a lot of things that have come with the education that I've been a part of. I am a brown woman, I'm American, I'm Punjabi, I'm Sikh, and I'm so happy that I can share that with the world. And I'm so happy you can share your identities with the world as well, Bushra.

A big reason why we wanted to share our identities, especially on this podcast, is we always speak out so we can encourage other people to speak out.

And we actually want to share a comment on one of our posts on Instagram. So Instagram user @nursebetty2 commented, "I'm grateful for women of color in medicine and women in general for pursuing medicine, especially male-dominated specialties. It's been nice to see women of color and women becoming more common over the past 12 years since I started working in healthcare. Our country needs more women of color, women, and LGBTQ persons in leadership. I feel that is when we will be our best."

Nurse Betty, thank you for your comments, and I think that's something that we really resonate with. And we would love to hear anybody else's comments as well. Please let us know if there's anything you want us to talk about or share.

And I think we are done with today's episode. What do you think, Bushra?

Bushra: We out here.

Harjit: We out here. We done. We sharing our stories. So please follow us on @bundleofhers on all social media platforms, and you can listen to our podcast on all podcast platforms. Do you want to do your bye-bye?

Bushra: And until next time, folks, bye-bye.