Op-Ed: I Don't Look Like Other Desi Girls, Unless You Say A Hot One

I’m here to set the record straight. The biggest issue South Asian Americans deal with isn’t immigration, healthcare, tyrannical Hindu nationalism entrenching itself into the diaspora or that my eyebrow lady thinks threading wool shag off my arms is a hate crime. It’s that some white people think that all Desi girls look the same. Please don’t tell me I look like another Desi woman, unless it’s a hot one.

I am my own person with my own face, and I absolutely don’t look like “your friend Priya from spin class.” I don’t even know Priya, and I’m morally against spin class because one time I got kicked out for “panting audibly.” But I do kind of look like Priyanka Chopra. If you don’t think so, you either clearly haven’t looked at my business card (Rima “Broke Ass Priyanka” Parikh) or you’re a straight up racist. And in the year 2019, honestly? That’s a little sad.

Desi women come from an array of cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, and it’s offensive to flatten us into all looking the same, and, by association, being the same. We are diverse, and regardless of the box you want to shove us in, we are oh wait did you say I kind of look like Jameela? Thank you so much! I just got bangs.

Desi girls don’t all look alike, and I’m positive that my twin, Padma Laksmi, would agree.