Take it from someone who has lived almost 37 years being mistaken as a foreigner when I was born and raised here, that it gives one an uneasy feeling sometimes. Most of the time, like I said, I don't even think about it, which is a credit to our generation and where I live. My point is, that uneasy feeling is hard to shake.

I want vs. parents want
Throughout the movie there is quite a bit of tension between what the parents want/are used to and the freedom Americans give their children. To try and ease Gogol into school his parents gave him a more American sounding name, Nicholas. On his first day in Kindergarten he tells the teacher he would rather be called Gogol and without asking his parents the principal changes his name back in the records. That's no big deal to us, but imagine coming from a culture where your parents even have control over who you marry, much less the name that you go by.

Later in the movie, Ashima makes a statement that she feels like she gave birth to strangers. This is in response to looking at her mostly American teenagers, her boy with long hair and her daughter wearing all black with buckles and chains everywhere. Fast forward to Gogol, now called Nick, living with Maxine, who his parents haven't met. Maxine asks him if his parents want him to marry a good Indian girl and Gogol/Nick responds by saying, "I don't care what they want; this is what I want."

Is this kind of tension there for most parents and teenagers/young adults? Sure. But it is heightened when the parents are not used to this kind of treatment and the teenagers/young adults know it. This happened to me all the time. What seemed absolutely normal to everyone else was forbidden territory for me. It ranged from simply going outside and playing with friends to later going to football games to even later going out and living on my own.

But I say all this not to make you sorry for first-generation Americans, but to drive a point home that we feel out of place and that's a very discomforting thing. I took two 2-week trips with my white classmates to Chile and Brazil then Japan and Thailand. They only had to feel that discomfort for 4 weeks, but they got a great taste of it! Those of us that are not white Americans feel that discomfort all the time.

Or maybe I'm wrong about that... I believe all of us feel something very similar. Let me explain.

Each and every one of us was created for a totally different world than the one we live in. Hang in there with me; it will become clearer.

God created us for paradise, Eden we call it. A place where we live in harmony with our creator, each other, and the creation around us. Our parents, Adam and Eve, broke the one law that God gave them and they were cast out of paradise, and an angel with a fiery sword guards it so we can't get back in. If you think I'm making this up, go read the first few chapters of Genesis.

Ever since that fateful day when we chose to go against God's law we have been living in a very alien place indeed. A place where we don't live in harmony with God, each other, or the creation around us; thus more laws. As the passage from the Psalms above states, we are strangers; most of us, in our quiet moments, know it. St. Paul in his letter to the Romans states:

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