Embracing Dual Identities: How Running Has Allowed Me to Navigate Life as an Indian-American
Rajpaul Pannu is a first generation Indian-American who lives in Denver. He is a professional ultrarunner for Hoka—and reigning 100-mile U.S. champion—who has enjoyed exploring his limitations, especially since he has come to grips with his dual-identity. This is his story.
Being an Indian-American provides you with a unique experience that involves navigating the delicate balance between two rich cultures. My dual identity has often led to a complex journey of self-discovery. I was born near Los Angeles, to hard-working immigrant parents from India who arrived in pursuit of a better life. Their journey to the West was marked by struggle and resilience. They both worked 70-hour weeks at a convenience store, trying to keep a roof over my head while instilling in me the importance of perseverance and sacrifice, qualities that would prove crucial in my adult life. To them, success for me meant becoming a doctor, lawyer, or engineer—someone with prestige that would make their journey to America worthwhile. However, my father passed away when I was just 3 years old, which brought additional challenges to our family, and it meant I would grow up without a father figure in my life.
Still my mom held onto the vision my parents had for me. Providing a platform for me to become successful—based on their definition of success—had been a life goal of theirs. Despite this, I felt the pull of my American identity in ways that I now know most of the rest of my family couldn’t easily understand. I spent countless hours daydreaming in grade school about becoming a football player or a professional wrestler. Ultimately, I had to grapple not about whether I’d ever become Stone Cold Steve Austin, but the family tension that arose from the clash of contrasting values and family expectations. It didn’t help that I was friends and classmates with a wide range of kids—from numerous other backgrounds—who seemed to have more freedom to immerse themselves into American culture in whatever way they wanted to.
Reaching Rock Bottom
By the time I was a teenager, I had hit a real low point. My first year of high school felt very passive, as I was doing enough just to get by. I was a straight “C” student at one point, and early on, I quit junior varsity football after only a week of practice. A feeling of loneliness had consumed me. I didn’t have the drive or motivation to do anything. The only thing I could feel was a sense of hollowness, a vacancy I filled with emotional eating and video games. I was just flat-out unhealthy and I had a terrible lifestyle at that time and no real self-esteem. I was eating cookie dough for breakfast and three cans of soft drinks a day.
After a certain point, I knew my lifestyle had become too unhealthy. My father had died from heart failure, largely due to his poor eating habits, so I realized my unhealthy diet was starting to parallel his. I began yearning for a lifestyle change and making it paramount to get healthy. But I was also yearning for something I could make my own, something that could help me both define and embrace who I could be.
On New Year’s Eve of 2007, I decided to do something about it. I ripped some paper out the back end of a notebook, and with a Sharpie, and I hastily wrote down several goals. The two biggest goals I came up with were to lose 20 pounds and “run a mile in under 6 minutes, 20 seconds. I had no perception of what running a mile in under 6:20 meant, and I had almost no idea about what proper nutrition was all about. But I was determined to achieve those goals by any means necessary. Out of nowhere, I decided to start running on a consistent basis. It wasn’t easy at first, and I wasn’t running fast, but I was determined to stick with it. Little did I know how much of an impact the seemingly primal activity of just putting one leg in front of the other would have on my life.
When I discovered running, for the first time in my life I had found something that made me feel good, and, for that reason, I actually stuck with it. Within a span of two months during the end of my sophomore year, I had achieved my two main goals: I had lost 20 pounds, and I actually ran a mile in under 6:20 in PE class. I still recall sprinting the last 100 meters of that mile and waiting for my teacher to call out the time as I was catching my breath. “6:08,” she said. That might seem like a random childhood moment in gym class, but to me it was a real and very tangible accomplishment.
I was slowly developing a deep sense of purpose and confidence. I was running 3 to 6 miles a day, which was unheard of in my city of Hercules, California. I still remember telling my friends that I went on a 6-mile run during spring break, and their response was pure disbelief: “No way in hell!” Through the early days of lacing up my beat-up basketball shoes, pounding my feet on the pavement, and hearing the steady cadence of my breath, I’ve discovered an inner strength that transcended physical and mental boundaries.
The motivation to pick up running had initially begun as a journey toward healthier living, but as the years progressed, my relationship with running slowly evolved into something much bigger. It gave me the realization that I was able to bridge cultural boundaries and navigate my dual-cultural identities.
The act of running is a test of mental fortitude and a battle against the voice inside your head—the negative self-talk that we all, to some extent, have, but it’s in those moments of adversity that true resilience is forged. Running hard isn’t just about covering distance; it’s about embracing the discomfort, pushing through the pain, and emerging on the other side with a greater sense of self that surpasses the physical.
