Foreign at home?

    I've been home for awhile, but my pursuit to learn new things has not stopped. During my time at home I've gotten better at critically analyzing what I do. I've once again resumed trying to learn Hindi and in fact am studying some classical Indian dance forms (Bharatanatyam and Odissi).

   With the studying of these classical dance forms I've gotten closer to the Indian community that lives in my area. Which to my great pleasure has been all positive and I always get a warm welcome. It seems a little backwards to say I was expecting a little apprehension or being kept at an arms distance because I am not Indian myself, but as a mixed person I found that is what has happened trying to interact with people my own age from other cultures. Maybe it was the fact that it was during college so we are not the most sensitive to other people's feelings, but I always got rejected and felt like I was inferior because I was either American or did not posses dark skin. It has been the exact opposite when I've interacted with either my fellow classmates or the parents of the children from other classes. They have been happy to welcome me into their lives and help teach me the culture. If they are speaking in their native language, they will stop if it is not a private matter to include me in the conversation with a quick translation and I always appreciate it, this is why I want to increase my Hindi skills so at least I can have some words I can pick out even if they are not speaking Hindi (I do understand there are more languages in India than just Hindi and I'm hoping to also pick up Tamil).

    On the other hand I've also started teaching Bollywood choreography classes which gives me performance opportunities. This is a problem in the idea that during these performance opportunities I might be representing the Indian culture (which is way more than Bollywood) and it worries me that I might not be doing a good job. It isn't my culture and representing it to the general public worries me just like I am always worried when I see people representing to my culture to the world. So I only try and discuss the things I am educated in like the mudras and the translation of the songs I am dancing to.

I think through my education I will keep reflecting on this and perhaps come up with an answer.