Should I be more culturally inclined to the customs of my ancestors or should I be a determined millennial living the American dream?My mom juggled between being a young mother and an assistant manger in a Circle-K convenient store in downtown Miami. My dad was crossing fast food hurdles managing a Burger King store in Delray Beach. The infrastructure to care for an impressionable child was not feasible. My grandmother and extended family were in Dhaka and everything that I needed as mental nourishment was at my fingertips, a magical remote control that would turn on the “tube” of visual engagement. Would you call them bad parents? I could. But I won’t. Our narratives are very different. They grew up in Bangladesh, literally in villages. They were brought up in familiar surroundings and languages. When they became young parents, they were flown over to an alien country, packed with Anglophone language and customs. I’m sure they had a culture shock so the last thing they wanted to worry about was a child with identity issues. I was figuratively “fresh off the boat” when I reached Hollywood to start my adult life. The first few years in Los Angeles I juggled freelance writing gigs, production assistant work, script writing courses during the weekdays and improv classes, stand up shows and my favourite: The path to finding a sense of humour on the weekends. None of this fits the expected route to academia or medicine or business or whatever. And none fits the unspoken rule set by my parents. Which summarises as: “No fun, no friends, certainly no artistic future.”
For a young Muslim, the daughter of scared immigrants, I feel the urgency to complete the task I set out to accomplish. Or maybe it’s just my mother’s stubborn genes speaking through meMy parents still question where they went wrong. Or maybe right? There’s a big disparity between my pragmatic parents and me. I’m optimistic about the future and that started with ample amounts of television viewing as a child. Cut to November 2012, I’m sitting in my parents’ kitchen: Newly graduated with a useless BS degree in Communication. “I’ve been accepted into the MBA program at University of California, LA. I’m leaving in the Fall,” I lied through my teeth. Honestly, lying to my parents was the only thing that propelled my move to California without the additional guilt of impending failure on my back. I moved out to Los Angles with $800.00 in my pocket and a part time retail job and moved in to a bed-bug infested studio apartment in Korea Town. I haven't looked back, but I’ve thought about giving up at least 10,000 times since I started my journey to become a screenwriter. For a young Muslim, the daughter of scared immigrants, I feel the urgency to complete the task I set out to accomplish. Or maybe it’s just my mother’s stubborn genes speaking through me. In any case, after years of self doubt, ancestral guilt, and back-breaking anxiety I now am a writer and performer based out of Los Angeles. In a sea of Caucasian narratives filled with passive-aggressive racist points of view, I am a dusky young woman attempting to make a name for myself and the culture I represent. A culture I’m afraid to say is as foreign to me as the words of the Star Spangled Banner I didn’t bother memorising as a child. This coming November will be my fifth year in Los Angeles. I now work as an assistant editor on a Sundance documentary, I perform monthly on storytelling shows around town, I have also been cast as a series regular on my first TV-show and I have been accepted into the MFA program for Screenwriting by the school that started it all: University of California, LA. “So, what part of my identity am I?” To be honest, I still don’t know. All I can say with certainty to anyone reading this is, don’t allow all your road blocks to prevent you from looking for other methods of travelling to your destination. Even if that destination is not the final one.
Tanha Dil is a young writer and an aspiring screenwriter based in Los Angeles, USA.