My first name was given to me because both of my parents liked unique names. Spencer quickly rose to the top of the ranks, but my parents also toyed with the name Xavier, a famous saint in Roman Catholic history (my whole family is Catholic). When I was born, I was officially christened Spencer. While my first name is bland, tasteless, and lacks any sense of metaphorical meaning, my middle name and last name are the remnants of my father and grandparent's culture. In 1970, when my father was 7, he and my grandparents moved from New Delhi, India to Franklinton, North Carolina. In 1970, New Delhi had a population of 3.5 million people and more significantly, a population density of 2358 people per square kilometer, compared to Franklinton, which had a population size of just over a thousand people total. New Delhi had twice as many people in a kilometer as Franklinton had in its whole city.

My middle name, Mohandas, is a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, whose birth name was Mohandas Gandhi. My father wanted a part of his culture to be with us wherever we go, and each of my siblings' names is a related to our Indian heritage. Similarly, our surname, Maingi, is a reminder that we, as a family, were immigrants from a poor country, and to be grateful for the life that we live in America. My grandparents were upper class in India, but because of Indian-American monetization, they were lower middle-class when they arrived in America. I think the main reason my father wanted a part of his culture to be with his children is because he knew that we would grow up America and know next to nothing about our real culture. Neither my siblings nor I speak Hindi, and we are not Hindus or a Buddhists, as the overwhelming number of Indians are. We grew up American, but through our names, our past will always be with us.

Because of the dual nature of my race, I struggled with coming to terms with the idea that I wasn't like everyone else that was around me, specifically from elementary school to middle school. I went to a private Catholic school, and it was quite lacking in the racial diversity department. I was one of the only "ethnic" kids there, even though I was born in America and had assimilated into white culture. I was embarrassed by my middle name because I didn't understand the nature of it, and for years I never told anyone my middle name. As I grew older, I understood why my parents chose the way that they did, but it still resonated within me that I was different than others, and I thought different meant that I was worse. In reality, it simply means that I'm unique, but being American and Catholic and not being white, set me up for occasional racist or inappropriate remarks, and I thought for a long time that I wasn't good enough for the rest of the people that I knew. Later on, I was told by my father that America itself is a melting pot, and that everyone in our country came from somewhere other than here. That realization alone helped me be happy with who I really am: an American with Indian heritage.