In Bengali culture as well as most south Asian cultures, it’s a custom to give brides gold from the groom’s party. This gold means that you have become a wife, and it’s a tradition for the women to wear the gold in the beginning of her married life to show that she is married. A year into her marriage, my mother had always worn her golden bangles everywhere. When she first received them, they were a bright gold, shiny; a perfect circle with no dents. Through time and work, having to start a new beginning, my mother has gone through many different hardships that changed her. At the same time the bangle also started to lose its perfectness. Coming over to America around September 1997, my mother wore her marriage bangle to America. She was lost as she was once again in new surroundings, and nothing was the same but that same bangle on her hand. Yet this time looking at it, it had a few more dents on it and it wasn’t as bright as before. Looking at the bangle, she said “The bangle symbolizes new beginnings but the marks on the bangle symbolize all the success she gained.”

– Abida Samia

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