In ‘Girlhood,’ Teens Across The Globe Write About Their Everyday Lives

Masuma Ahuja can vividly recall what she wore on her first day of school in the United States: black jeans and a gray and orange T-shirt.

It was the early 2000s and her family had just moved from India to Pittsburgh. She remembers a boy at her middle school asking her, on that very first day, about what she was wearing.

“He was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize that you wore [Western] clothes in India,” she says. “He thought India was very much a place where there were snake charmers and elephants on the street.”