{"id":580,"date":"2021-05-11T13:12:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T13:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/?p=580"},"modified":"2021-05-11T13:12:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T13:12:02","slug":"part-7-getting-used-to-being-the-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/2021\/05\/11\/part-7-getting-used-to-being-the-only\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 7: Getting Used to Being \u201cThe Only\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Discussing the intersection of career and heritage.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There was an overwhelming isolation in my master\u2019s program where I was<em> \u201cthe only<\/em>&#8221; of my racial\/ethnic\/religious identity. My very first day of orientation, my assigned academic advisor and professor scoffed, \u201cthere are so many Indian students in the College of Medicine, don\u2019t you think you\u2019d be better off getting your degree in medicine?\u201d She had no idea the price I paid in my personal life to make the decision to pursue a Master\u2019s in diplomacy and overcome the positive stereotype she had about me as a South Asian American woman. Another professor consistently paired me in group assignments covering foreign policy with \u201cnon-American students,\u201d assuming that since I was South Asian, therefore I couldn\u2019t be an American citizen. I was a perpetual foreigner from Kindergarten-Graduate School.\u00a0 It surprised my professors when I brought up registering for and passing the FSOT (Foreign Service Officer Test), a requirement for career US foreign services officers\/public servants. Despite these experiences, there were two main Sikh values which informed my resilience: <em>Miri <\/em>and <em>Piri<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>Miri-Piri<\/em><\/strong><strong> Resilience <\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sikh Americans not exclusively Punjabi\n(Indian\/Pakistani) or South Asian\/Desi (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencedbysikhi.com\/\">Black\nSikh Initiative<\/a>). However, Sikh\nAmericans have our own respective culture informed by a warrior ethic of <em>Miri and Piri<\/em>. In my own words, I\nunderstand<em> Miri<\/em> to mean\npersonal-political sovereignty and <em>Piri <\/em>to\nmean spiritual agency. The Sikh Guru Hargobind Sahib initiated the values and\nsymbolic swords of <em>Miri and Piri <\/em>centered\nby a Khanda (This is the symbol you\u2019ll find featured by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/mu_sikhi\/\">Miami\nUniversity Sikh Student Association instagram page<\/a>).\nCertainly, as an APIDA Punjabi-Sikh woman, I have leaned in to my cultural\nvalues to overcome societal stigmas both within my ethnic community and\nstereotypes in greater American society which otherwise de-privileges my\nreligious-cultural identity. <em>Miri and\nPiri<\/em> are values in my language, culture, and religious-cultural tradition\nwhich empower me and encourage me to overcome challenges and barriers to my\ncareer and academic success, time and time again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Advice<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Lean in to your respective religious, secular, spiritual cultural values and traditions to overcome stigmas and stereotypes. APIDA students are diverse, our worldviews are vast and numerous. There is strength in remembering and owning one\u2019s sense of identity. Being yourself allows you to remain focused on who you are and what you believe in when facing relentless racism-sexism. Your values don\u2019t need to be translated into English or understood by others to be impactful or personally meaningful. In a society where APIDA religious-cultural identity might be deprivileged (as Dharmic (Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist) APIDA students\u2019 identities often are), overcome by seeking strength in your values. For me, this meant seeking out literature by Sikh American feminist professors. Whether you identify as APIDA Sikh or not, I recommend reading, Dr. Nikky-Guninder Kaur-Singh\u2019s, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Birth-Khalsa-Feminist-Re-Memory-Religious\/dp\/0791465845\"><em>The Birth of the Khalsa: A Feminist Rememory of Sikh Identity<\/em><\/a><em> <\/em>to develop your cross cultural knowledge base about Sikhs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/files\/2021\/05\/S-Kaur-Colbert-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-559\" width=\"219\" height=\"219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/files\/2021\/05\/S-Kaur-Colbert-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/files\/2021\/05\/S-Kaur-Colbert-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/files\/2021\/05\/S-Kaur-Colbert-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/files\/2021\/05\/S-Kaur-Colbert-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/files\/2021\/05\/S-Kaur-Colbert.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 219px) 100vw, 219px\" \/><figcaption>Simran Kaur-Colbert<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tomorrow &#8211; Part 8: <strong>Religious, Secular, Spiritual Diversity in Student Affairs in Higher Education<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Discussing the intersection of career and heritage. There was an overwhelming isolation in my master\u2019s program where I was \u201cthe only&#8221; of my racial\/ethnic\/religious identity. <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/2021\/05\/11\/part-7-getting-used-to-being-the-only\/\" title=\"Part 7: Getting Used to Being \u201cThe Only\u201d\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2308,"featured_media":570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580\/revisions\/581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/careerservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}