Growing up Guyanese: A Memoir About Growing up as a First Generation Indo-Caribbean in America.

By Ashti A. Motilall

This memoir specifically highlights the experiences of a female of Indo-Guyanese decent growing up in the Midwest. Often confused for being an immigrant East Indian, Ashti offers a brief exposure to a thriving culture that is consistently overlooked. Ultimately, she aims to show others what it is like to be a West Indian living in the United States.

As she explains her ethnic background, Ashti also covers the nuances of growing up Guyanesethe struggles she and others like herself face and the comical interactions they have all likely experienced. As it progresses, the book delves deeper into a theme of finding oneself. This occurs as the author reaches adulthood and makes discoveries that all millennials must make in their lifetime. Highly anecdotal, Growing Up Guyanese offers any reader regardless of ethnicity something to which he or she can relate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524572754

Ashti A. Motilall

Ashti A. Motilall, age 25, was born and raised in Minnesota. Her immediate family originates from Guyana, South America, and her ancestors from India. She spent a majority of her life in the south suburbs, and attended the Carlson L. Curtis School of Management (Twin Cities) for her undergraduate and graduate education. Afterwards, she began working as an accountant at a large corporation headquartered within the state. She remains there amidst moving off campus to be back home with her parents and grandmother. Her story outlines these experiences, and associated growing pains, as told from the standpoint of a first generation Indo-Guyanese living in America.

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Copyright © 2017 by Ashti A. Motilall.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 12/30/2016

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Contents

Preface

History

Family

Guyanese Anecdotes

Life Changes

Relationships

Quarter-Life Crisis

A

special thanks to my father, Bharatlall Motilall,

for fact-checking and providing additional content

for the history chapter. You do good work.

Preface

I am going to start with a disclaimer. I am not writing this book as pure fact. That is why there are no references included at the end. The history I provide is one that has been passed down from generation to generation through stories from those who experienced it firsthand.

I will generalize and probably offend a few, if not many, individuals. However, this is intended to be a memoir of my life and my experiences as a first-generation Indo-Guyanese American. I will tell my story as I see it through my eyes.

I start off fairly early in the book detailing a lot of background on my life and family dynamic just for those who do not know me personally. It is not the most exciting of topics, I understand. However, being aware of my family and its dynamic helps the reader understand me and the experiences I had growing up.

Hang tight and power through that portion. You will get to the entertaining parts quickly because it is a short book. After all, I am only twenty-five. I do not have years and years of life experience to speak to, and I barely remember the first ten years anyways.

***

This book is an anecdotal tale of my life growing up as a first-generation Guyanese female in Minnesota. However, it is also much more than that. As I continued to age and go through monumental stages in one’s life, I began drawing more upon that journey into adulthood. I believe that many of the points I touch on are a common thread felt by many my age regardless of ethnic background and upbringing.

Lame as it may sound, my childhood dream was to have a little playhouse that I built with my dad where I could go to read and write books. I am not sure what I used to dream about writing. I think it was always about children’s books because I was a child myself. I had always loved to help others my age or younger. Thus, when I was little, I thought writing books for those my age would help other kids be happier.

I don’t think that dream ever died because now at twenty-five my motivation for my book is still to help others my age be happier. Except it may be less about cheering them up with pictures of shaggy dogs that like to visit the wolves at the zoo. (Side note: This is an actual book I wrote when I was twelve called Snuggles Trip to the Zoo. As part of my sixth-grade English assignment, we wrote the stories and took them to read to kindergarteners in my old elementary school).

Now it is more about how life is hard at times, but you need to remain optimistic. It is only then that you can get through to the happier other side with as little scars as possible.

As I entered my adult life and started mentoring others, my desire only grew. I was told numerous times by my mentees that sharing my personal stories with them was comforting. Moreover, I was told that letting them know that the thoughts and feelings they are experiencing were things I had also thought and felt was extremely reassuring.

I was shocked to hear that no one in their lives had really ever told them that. That no one prepared them for the mental and emotional aspect of entering life after college. Then I realized no one really prepared me either, so I am not sure why I was so surprised.

***

Now don’t get me wrong. The initial motivation for the book was to educate the general public about Guyanese people. Therefore, I do explain some history of our people.

However, I more so explain the unique upbringing of the first-generation Guyanese Americans. The reason being that I was not only fed up with having people assume I was just Indian, but also discouraged by not having any role models in pop culture that were like me.

I recall this frustration furthering in college when I took an Asian American studies course (I had to fill a social science elective credit, so believe me this was not my first choice of an elective). I chose this class to meet my requirement, out of the other limited options, because I thought, Well, I’m Asian American. Maybe there will be a lecture or two about my ancestral past.

To my disappointment, there was no such lecture. The class was not a complete loss though. I learned a lot about different cultures that originated from Asia. But even more rewarding was when we had a Hmong author from the Twin Cities come speak to our class. Our first assignment was to read her book, which was a memoir of her life as Hmong American.

The book was great, but her speech to the class was even greater. She was so passionate and shared her angst with some of the issues I had about my own ethnic background. Specifically, she talked about how no one like her existed in the media, and that was when the lightbulb went off in my head. What if I write a book about what it means to be Indo-Caribbean?

I do not yet have the answer to that question since I am now writing the book. I suppose I will find out after the first round of publishing. However, I am not going to, nor did I ever think I would, answer