Festivals From The Fringe, by author Mitali Perkins.

We were one of the first Bengali immigrant families to settle in the San Francisco Bay Area. On puja days, we'd drive for miles to share a feast in a high school gym somewhere that was festooned with Indian decorations and smelled like a strange combination of sweaty socks and turmeric, coriander, cinnamon, and garlic. I didn't know the other Bengali kids as we only saw each other once or twice a year and none of us really wanted to be there. I usually brought a book or two along and read those nights away.

In the neighborhood where we lived, most people celebrated "Christian" festivals like Easter or Christmas, but I didn't understand that they were supposed to be religious events. I thought Christmas was about a fictional fat man in a red suit who brought presents for white kids and Easter about an equally fictional, equally ethnocentric candy-laden rabbit. I didn't discover that Christmas celebrated the birth of Jesus and Easter his death and resurrection until I got to college.

American festival days were simply extra days off school for me and my sisters, and free time off from work for Ma and Baba. The five of us slept in, played tennis, and ate lamb curry, but it wasn't the same. Kids at school would return and compare presents, festivities, traditions, and I'd listen and count the days until the decorations came down. I usually checked out several books from the library and read the holidays away.

I believe that's one of the reasons why immigrants cluster in new neighborhoods with people from their countries of origin. Something about festivals requires the context of community, or even better, a crowd; a nuclear family doesn't feel like enough of a venue for an authentic celebration. Fringe-dwelling kids today who are the only immigrants in their communities still watch from the sidelines, and return to post-holiday days feeling out of step. It's one of those times in a kid's life when the power of story can help alleviate the loneliness on the margin. "Been there, done that," the writer says. Ah! Then I'm not the only one, the reader realizes and, hopefully, is comforted.

Posted December 2005