Growing up I never had an idea of the type of man I wanted to be with. In all honesty, my teenage self used to dream about being a single mother of an adopted daughter (I'm weird like that). So I never really thought about being in a relationship, let alone the race of the guy. But I also knew the expectation of my family: find a nice, successful Punjabi boy, preferably a doctor. But I never thought this was set in stone. So I went on with my dating life, thinking once there

I don’t know what my culture is called. My family moved from Finland to the States when I was an adolescent, but calling it Finnish-American doesn’t sit right. I can’t tell you what it is called, but I can tell you its norms. In this culture, we think twice about who is going to drive because not all friends have papers. U.S. citizenship doesn’t mean arrogant membership in a chosen group, but rather, freedom of movement. You can finally go back and see your grandmother. No le

Imagine at nine years old having to leave the only country you ever knew, the relatives you have, the street you grew up on, the familiarity and comforts of your home and being sent thousands of miles away. In this new country, it is just you and your immediate family. There are no grandparents to visit. No cousins to play with or aunts and uncles to talk to. It is just you, your siblings and your mom and dad. You all have to learn a new language. Your accent is so thick that

February 10 was my two-year anniversary in Colombia. When I moved, my friend, Kathryn, was doing a documentary about people emigrating from the U.S. So, I am fortunate enough to have footage of this huge change in my life. It seemed fitting that we would watch it on my anniversary weekend. I sat there with tears in my eyes (I mean, you know I cry at anything). But these tears were of so many emotions: a reaction to my cousin who cried when I told her I was moving, the scenes