Growing up as an Indian-American woman in white society meant constantly navigating conflicting beauty standards. In her memoir They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us, Prachi Gupta candidly reflects on her struggles to fit into these ideals and the impact it had on her identity.
One poignant memory involved her friend Swapna, who asked Prachi to join a dance performance at the local Hindu temple. Swapna, along with her friend Adya, became a significant influence on Prachi’s life. Unlike most Indian kids pressured into pursuing traditional careers, Adya wanted to be a fashion designer, and Swapna a novelist. Prachi found herself inspired by their courage to follow dreams outside the usual cultural expectations.
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Adya also played a role in Prachi’s evolving relationship with beauty standards. In one scene, Adya uses a clothing iron to straighten Prachi’s hair, attempting to create “white-girl hair.” Prachi describes the moment when she adopted heavy black eyeliner and mascara to exaggerate her big brown eyes—her “best feature” inherited from her mother. She recalls how Adya introduced her to Drew, a tall, blond, and handsome college boy who eventually became her date to senior prom.
Reflecting on this time, Prachi writes, “I had tricked Drew into thinking I was pretty, but I knew that beneath the makeup and clothes, I was ugly. For the past two years, I had been studying ‘hotness’—the ability to blend into whiteness.” In an effort to meet society’s standards, she spent countless hours flattening her curls, reshaping her brows, and purchasing padded bras to conform to what she perceived as ideal beauty.
The pressure of being seen as attractive in a predominantly white society came with its own emotional weight. When Drew accepted her as his prom date, her father’s dismissive reaction spoke volumes about the underlying insecurities that Prachi had internalized. “Papa barely interacted with him. Later, though, he asked you, ‘Why would he want to go out with Prachi?’” Her father’s question hinted at a deeper narrative: one where beauty, in the context of whiteness, defined worth.
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At prom, one of the popular white girls in the bathroom asked Prachi, “Is he your boyfriend?” Suddenly, in that moment, Prachi felt validated. The girl reevaluated her and Prachi felt noticed, even by her own father. “I learned that when I was seen as the object of desire of a tall white man, suddenly, I mattered. I became visible,” she writes, revealing the complexities of identity shaped by outside perceptions.
This feeling, however, came with a cost. The constant striving to fit into a world that didn’t fully accept her left Prachi questioning her true self. “Despite my best efforts to fit in, I could never fully belong. Every time I submitted to the fantasy, I deepened my belief that I had to hide my true self in order to be desirable,” she admits.
Gupta’s memoir highlights the painful contradictions of growing up in a society where acceptance is often conditional. The need to conform to white beauty standards left her struggling between embracing her identity and sacrificing it for validation.
