Despite living in Brampton, I still went through a phase like this. I went from confused to an inflated ego because I was Punjabi. My "confusion" is definitely a bit different from others, but anyway growing up I didn't like being Indian much, didn't hate it either. I always hated bollywood (still do) and growing up I thought Indian people were "physically" beneath everyone else. Weak and ugly basically and from what I saw on Bollywood absolutely weird.

Then in 5th grade I got put into Bhangra after being forced by my parents and grew an enormous love and attachment to Punjabi music and culture.

This was when I started taking huge pride in being Punjabi. However going into middle school I still felt less than other non-desi people despite there being so many around me. It was probably just the huge lack of representation in the media but I felt we weren't good enough to do the "cool" things like sports and whatnot.

It was common to hear shit like "You're good at ____ sport for an indian", "Indian people can't do this", "You're good looking for an Indian" despite there being a big desi presence there was definitely subtle racism. Even self hate from some desi's. It never outright bothered me but it was in the back of my head from time to time. The worst was that I thought since I was Indian, I was a weak pussy. It felt like I couldn't get respect from everyone since I was brown. I always wondered why there was negativity surrounding your average brown name, why we got questions like that when we were good at something other than school and why brown girls got shit like "You're decent looking for a brown girl" when the prettiest girl in most of my classes was a brown chick. Why we pre-judged to be shit at athletics when so many us were really good.

What started the change was me noticing a lot of my older brother and sisters friends and other seniors who were brown were excelling in every field including athletics and they weren't being disrespected by their peers.

Now, while a lot of people who commented had some sort of epiphany but mine was very generic aahahahhaha. In high school a lot of my fellow desi people were excelling in everything and than I had a sudden growth spurt and ended up being among the taller/bigger people my age. I realized I could kick most peoples asses and I was shitting on other people in sports. Long story short I realized Punjabi's were blessed with good genetics and that we are the shit. The end. (God I sound like an asshole)