Prachi Gupta, author portrait
© Ruben Chamorro

Prachi Gupta

Prachi Gupta is an award-winning journalist and former senior reporter at Jezebel. They Called Us Exceptional was longlisted for a PEN/Open Book Award. She won a Writers Guild Award for her investigative essay “Stories About My Brother.” Her work was featured in The Best American Magazine Writing 2021 and has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine, Marie Claire, Salon, Elle, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City.
They Called Us Exceptional

Books

They Called Us Exceptional

Books for Women’s History Month

In honor of Women’s History Month in March, we are sharing books by women who have shaped history and have fought for their communities. Our list includes books about women who fought for racial justice, abortion rights, equality in the workplace, and ranges in topics from women in politics and prominent women in history to

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MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR: Prachi Gupta on Breaking Free from the “Model Minority” Myth

Contributed by Prachi Gupta, author of They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us, in which she articulates the dissonance, shame, and isolation of being upheld as an American success story while privately navigating traumas invisible to the outside world.  By chronicling the specific experiences of my Indian American family, They Called Us

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Prachi Gupta’s They Called Us Exceptional

How do we understand ourselves when the story about who we are supposed to be is stronger than our sense of self? What do we stand to gain—and lose—by taking control of our narrative? Family defined the cultural identity of Prachi and her brother, Yush, connecting them to a larger Indian American community amid white

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