I clearly remember that morning. I was only 4 years old. For some reason, the nursery class was let out early. I ran through the front door of my home, into my grandma’s bedroom, which is the first thing I always did when I returned from school. But instead of seeing her bright, cheery face eager to see me, she was in tears. She was watching the news on our 21-inch black-and-white television and unable to console herself. As a child, I was confused about what was happening, but just sad to see her this way. “The prime minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi was assassinated,” she told me.

This memory did not resonate until two decades later ― I had moved to the United States and started learning about American politics. For years, my “idea” of America was defined by Hollywood and fashion. I saw on “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Baywatch” that women in the U.S. have the freedom to wear scantily clad bikinis and play volleyball on the beach. They kissed their boyfriends at prom and dated several people, and didn’t marry if they didn’t want to. They openly talked about adolescent concerns like eating disorders, body image, periods and sex. They were teenage witches, vampire slayers, fast food workers and girl bosses. As a teenage girl, I dreamt of living in this place!

And here I was, a South Asian teen growing up in a small town of northern India, where life was fairly conservative for a girl. After a certain age, I had to mind how I dressed in public (no shorts), where I went (not allowed to go out after dark), or who I talked to (absolutely no boys). And the neighborhood aunties were always watching, so if I did cross any of those lines, the headlines reached my family even before I realized I did something wrong. But in a country where female infanticide, child marriage and dowry deaths were everyday news, we had a female prime minister — in the 1960s! And I never ever once thought about it.

In the mid-2000s, I became an American citizen and had the privilege to partake in my presidential elections. I was so excited, I even got a car tag for my Honda Element that said “VOTE08.” When I appeared in traffic court to dispute a traffic ticket, the judge asked me what that meant, and I told him that it was to remind everyone to exercise their right to vote for the 2008 elections.

As a new legalized immigrant, I found out that the U.S. has never had a female president or vice president........

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