Tolerance is a sham. It’s what minorities cry out for when they can’t understand why everyone else won’t accept them. But the tolerance they want can never exist. People from different cultures will always experience friction when they rub up against each other. If I am used to receiving a certain response when I act in a certain way, I will be unsettled when I receive an off-script response from someone who grew up in a different setting.

For instance, when I forgot to take off my shoes in an Asian household, I got a dirty look. That made me feel terrible and less likely to visit in the future.

You might say that I could be more sensitive and adjust myself to whom I am talking. But that adds a level of guardedness to every interaction. I not only need to educate myself about every culture I am likely to meet; I also have to be aware of every person’s culture. That would be quite an effort. And from my point of view, it’s much easier to just avoid people from other backgrounds (and occasionally make fun of them behind their backs).

I’m told that immigrants find it very difficult to blend into the majority of American society while maintaining their native culture. They have to present one face to whites, and another to those of their native culture.

As someone of South Asian descent, this has never been a problem for me, and it shouldn’t be for anyone else. I made a conscious effort to abandon my native culture and become a thoroughly assimilated second-generation immigrant. I so self-identify with whites that whenever another minority starts castigating white, male privilege, I get angry over how they’re insulting me. And I can’t help looking at the immigration debate through a white-guy lens.

And when I use that lens, I get tired of people who attribute fear of immigration to racism. Those people say that immigrants add to America’s patchwork quilt and that they will revitalize our culture.

But when they say that, what they really mean is, “We’re here. More are coming. Deal with it.” I was born here. I grew up here. I am comfortable here. I know how things work. And I don’t see why it this culture needs to be added to or revitalized.

Native-born Americans make all the compromises. We open up our country. We give jobs and human rights to the poor, huddled masses. Then they have the gall to come here and make us feel awkward in our home. When they insist that we should be more tolerant, it turns our discomfort into a moral failing. And that makes us dislike them for making us feel like terrible people.

This discomfort is not racism. It is the same alienation I feel when I visit India, where people stare at me and whisper about the ferungi (foreigner.) It applied to Swedes in the early 18th century, Irish in the mid 18th century, and eastern Europeans in the early 20th century. It is the same feeling that Easterners get when they visit Montana, or evangelicals get when they talk to atheists. It is natural and it is unavoidable.

There are only two solutions to the problems caused by a multicultural society: self-segregation, in which you stay with your own kind, or abandoning that cultural baggage in favor of assimilation. All I can say is the sort of ease I have in navigating American society is a tremendous boon.

I’m not merely tolerated. I am at home.

If you want to show Rahul Kanakia where brown people really belong, please email him at rahkan "at" stanford.edu.