Rose Water and Peanut Butter

by Ayeshah Samihat

I grew up with two versions of myself.

One recited the Pledge of Allegiance with her right hand flat over her heart, wore gym shoes to school, and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at lunch. The other bowed her head in prayer on Eid, wore glittering dresses that shimmered like celebration itself, smelled of rose water and cardamom, and called her grandmother “Nanu” on crackling WhatsApp calls that always dropped mid-conversation. Neither version felt complete on its own.

As a South Asian, Bangladeshi-American from New York, I've always lived in the

in-between—never quite Bangladeshi, never fully American. When I traveled to visit relatives in Dhaka, I was the "bideshi" cousin who couldn't speak Bangla correctly, who laughed stiffly when I didn't understand a joke, who ate with a fork while everyone else used their hands. But over here in America, I am told that I "speak English surprisingly well" or that I'm "so exotic." I bear the bitter feeling of not quite being in either place.

I once believed that this distance was a flaw, something to be ashamed of. I envied people

who could speak to their grandparents without stuttering over words, who could respond to questions about where they came from without going online to look up the answers

afterwards. I was a stranger in my own name—like I had been handed backstories I couldn't

finish.

But as I grew up, I realized that this feeling of being "too much" of one thing and "not

enough" of another wasn't just my own—it was part of a greater story of many

first-generation children like me. A story about navigating two worlds and loving them both

and not losing either.

Being Bangladeshi-American is juggling multitudes. I can whip up a killer bowl of ramen and roll the finest beef shingaras at the same time. I can discuss mental health with my friends and still respect the cultural silence that encircles it in my community. I can be a place where two worlds coexist—where henna stains and sneakers don't necessarily have to exclude each other.

There's still sadness. There are still days where I feel like I'm letting both sides of me down.

But I've learned to appreciate the perfection of the duality—to the mixing, to the tension, to

the desire to belong everywhere even when I don't belong everywhere.

And maybe that is okay. Maybe my foundations don't have to look like anyone else's. Maybe

they are not set in one place—they are growing out, in every direction I choose to go.