S. Chandel

I'm 32 years old. I spent the beginning of my childhood in California and then moved to India for about 2 years during 3rd and 4th grades due to my father's work. My family then moved back to California for a couple of years and then again moved to Kentucky. My ethnic background is Punjabi and I was raised mostly Sikh.

Although my family and I aren't very religious, I still believe in the teachings of Sikhism and that is what I identify with religiously the most. I've been stereotyped from as early as elementary school until today in my thirties. When I first moved to a small town in Kentucky (population of about 20K) in high school, I was one of about five other South Asian/Indian students.

I remember when I first started classes many of my teachers questioned whether I "even spoke English." A question that was based solely on that fact that my skin color was brown (aka not white or black...aka different). So imagine those teachers' surprise when I not only definitely spoke English, but also usually scored close to the highest on my exams and graduated near the top of the class. And even through all these stereotypes and hurtful judgements, I have been able to achieve my dreams of becoming an emergency medicine physician.