For many in the South Asian diaspora, belonging is not something we inherit. It’s something we chase—sometimes unknowingly, sometimes urgently. We grow up between hyphens and time zones, learning how to translate ourselves. We speak languages halfway. We dress up for Eid and Diwali and apply for internships in the same breath. And still, we wonder: where do we truly belong?
For amader meye, meaning our daughter in Bangla, Maleeha Mahbub, echoed the very same question where do we truly belong for years. She knew how to play the part. Knew how to be useful. Knew how to be good. But somewhere between her grandmother’s stories and her own search for purpose, there was always a sense of floating. Too American in Bangladesh. Too Bangladeshi in America. Never quite claimed by either.
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Originally an independent intiative that would later merge with the nonprofit, Human Concern International, Maleeha returned to the heart of Bangladesh to implement a women’s health initiative in Susua — a village few outsiders visit but one that felt deeply familiar to her. It’s where her great-grandmother had once lived and died. The program focused on menstruation education and access to basic hygiene products—topics too often overlooked or shrouded in shame.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to show up empty-handed—that’s truly how this all began. Growing up Bangladeshi, it’s written in my bones that you never show up anywhere without something to offer,” Maleeha shared. “So when I started thinking about returning to my homeland, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had to bring something meaningful with me. This project became that offering… My original plan was to bring mishti. Unfortunately, I lack the required bartering skills.”
She arrived not as a savior, not as an expert, but as a woman carrying generations of stories in her body. The nose she inherited from her mother, the voice that echoed her grandmother, the hands that resembled her aunt’s—none of these features had ever been used in this way before. Not here. Not like this.
The transformation was subtle, but sure.
“There wasn’t one moment when everything clicked,” she said. “It was more of a process. But there was a moment that made me stop and reflect. It was after the program ended and the supplies were distributed. An older woman came to me, kissed my hand, and called me amader meye—our daughter.”
“The belonging I had spent so long searching for wasn’t something that would swoop down and find me. It was something I had been building through the work, through showing up,” she continued. “Belonging isn’t about claiming a place—it’s about letting yourself be shaped by it, about becoming responsible to it.”
What made the experience powerful wasn’t just where she was, but how she showed up.
“Service, at its best, asks for nothing more than your willingness to be present and to be real. When you meet it with humility and care, something shifts. You’re no longer just a visitor. You’ve planted something. You’ve been planted.”
Maleeha’s journey didn’t stop in Susua. She’s continued to partner with Human Concern International to help distribute Eid food packages in Rohingya refugee camps—another experience rooted in dignity, listening, and care.
“Service is not just giving. It is not charity. It is an invitation to become entangled with a place and its people in ways that leave you accountable. And through that quiet, steady commitment—you are transformed.”
For many diaspora women, the discomfort of duality—of being both and neither—feels like an identity crisis. Maleeha’s experience offered a reframing.
“You can’t change who you are. I will always speak Bangla with an accent—it is woven into how I learned it, how I grew up. I am a Bangladeshi woman from Indiana, of course I sound different. But that’s who I am, both and equally. You don’t need to apologize for being neither one nor the other. Let the rooms get used to the fact that you’re both—and that you always will be.”
She also spoke of legacy—the quiet weight of the women who came before her.
“I am a culmination of all of the women who have come before me. There’s no beauty in sacrifice, no glory in carrying burdens that were never meant to be ours. There’s beauty in joy, in freedom, in comfort—and that’s what I want to give. This project, though small, is my defiance. It’s just one step in a much larger fight against the idea that womanhood must be synonymous with suffering.”
And for anyone longing to feel more rooted, she offers this:
“The answer to feeling connected to my roots wasn’t just about tracing ancestry or visiting the land—it was about figuring out how to become of that land. It’s about asking: How do I show up for this place? How do I contribute to it in a way that makes me feel truly connected?”
She didn’t wait to feel like she belonged—she acted. And through action, she found connection. Her service was never about performance. It wasn’t for social media, or for resume lines. It was an offering. An attempt to return something to the people and the place that made her possible.
Now, that spirit is being carried forward, Brown Girl Mag’s Trisha Sakhuja-Walis is also raising funds to continue this work and expand its reach to other underserved communities across Bangladesh.
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Friends have followed suit, like Maesha Shonar from Eva Collective, she too is raising funds to help address this crisis in Bangladesh, her home country through Human Concern.
“We’re not just feeding families — we’re investing in sustainable solutions led by the very communities affected.”
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There’s something powerful about service when it’s done without ego. When it’s not about saving, but staying. When it’s not about being from a place, but of it. That’s what Maleeha found in Susua. Not a perfect fit. Not a full-circle ending. But something better: a beginning.
Maleeha gives us hope because stopped asking how to belong. Instead, she showed up. She listened. She returned. And slowly, the place responded—not with ceremony, but with recognition. A nod. A word. A hand outstretched.
We don’t always find belonging waiting for us. Sometimes, we build it with our own hands. And if we’re lucky, in the act of giving, we finally get to receive.
