India celebrated 76 years of independence on Aug. 15, but it’s the first time the Indian American community in Stratford will celebrate the holiday.
Yashita Chaudhary, 14, will co-host the festivities alongside another teenager, Avani Kulkarni, and she said it's important to stay connected to her culture.
“It means a lot, because we wouldn't be who we are without our heritage and our past,” Chaudhary said.
Chaudhary and Kulkarni spoke at the Hindu Cultural Center in Stratford, where the festivities will be held.
The celebrations will coincide with the growing visibility of the Indian American community in the area, as the population has grown according to American Community Survey data. But the celebrations also mean a chance to reaffirm family ties between the United States and India, which the two teens expressed continued pride in.
The event will be held on Saturday starting at 10 a.m. and will be held at the Hindu Cultural Center which opened its Hindu temple in 2022.
The day will consist of a flag raising, dances, food stalls, and other events. But for Chaudhary, it also means showing others what needed to be done to gain independence from the British in 1947.
Children, she said, will perform a play where they will dress up as notable independence figures.
“They're going to be telling us about the history, how our freedom fighters fought for us, what happened there and how we overcame the British,” she said.
India was colonized by the British in the 1800s after centuries of intervention and competition with other colonial powers. The country was considered Britain’s most prized colony due to its population and its resources.
But much of the population resented British imperial rule and Mahatma Gandhi and others, led a nonviolent movement which resulted in independence.
India is also ethically and religiously diverse. Kulkarni said the celebrations will acknowledge the country’s diversity with its cuisine options.
“What we're going to try to emulate here in this very hall is, from north to south and east to west, we're going to have all the different foods from all the different states,” Kulkarni said.
Both Chaudhary and Kulkarni’s families emigrated from the country within the last 30 years. Kulkarni’s parents came to the United States in the late 1990s, and Chaudhary’s parents came in 2008. Both families immigrated to the U.S. in search of economic opportunity.
Yet both teens also gushed about India’s economic progress and expressed particular pride in a space mission expected to land on the moon soon.
Chaudhary, who lives in Trumbull and Kulkarni who lives in Orange, said getting culturally acclimated was a smooth process, the Indian Flag placed side by side with the American Flag at the cultural center, as she spoke.
“I'm happy that we're being accepted and being able to do these big events in a town where we're not originally from,” Chaudhary said.
