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Sruthi Jayadevan is an Indian-American model, stylist, and blogger. She grew up in South India and moved to the U.S. when she was 11 years old. After being bullied for being different while growing up, she is now proud to embrace her culture and is not shy about sharing it with others on social media. But in a recent Twitter post, she opened up about the negative comments she?s heard regarding her traditional garb.
Jayadevan shared two beautiful photos of herself, captioning the tweet with examples of criticisms she?s gotten: ?People: ?what?s with the dot? ?what?s that on your nose? ?maybe you should tone down all this cultural stuff.'?
Jayadevan now uses her social media platform to try to empower others to embrace their own culture, and her message is resonating with many: Her recent tweet got more than 74,000 likes and 21,000 retweets.
The 22-year-old shares with Yahoo Lifestyle that her family moved to California when her single mom, a registered nurse, was offered a better job opportunity.
?I went to my elementary school wearing a traditional bindi, my thin gold anklets, and my hair in braids like I used to back in my village,? she says. ?My sister and I were the only Indian kids at my school, so we would get called all kinds of names and be asked why we don?t speak English or why we had a dot on our forehead.?
Because of the bullying, she began to assimilate into American culture. It was not until college that she realized that she?d been shying away from embracing her roots, and decided to then get back to loving her traditions.
?I wanted to break free from these things that held me back. One day, I just decided to post a picture of me wearing a bindi and share my story on my page, and the responses were incredible,? she says. ?I got so many messages and comments from young Indian-Americans who had all been through similar things.?
Her recent tweet sparked a thread in which people encouraged her to keep on being proud of her heritage.
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