Jurnal Bahasa, Sastra, dan Studi Amerika Volume 29, Number 2, 2023 pp. 10-18 P-ISSN: 1410-5411 | E-ISSN: 2685-4503 DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.20961/jbssa.v29i2.79400 10 The Issue of Racial Microagression in Indian-American Children’s Novel: American as Paneer Pie by Supriya Kelkar Ariza Purnawati 1* , Second Author 2 1 Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia 1* arizapurnawati86@gmail.com A B S T R A C T This research attempts to highlight the issue of microaggressions that occurs in American ethnic minority groups, particularly among Indian- American children featured in the children's novel American as Paneer Pie. Published in 2020, this novel is written by an Indian-American writer named Supriya Kelkar. American as Paneer Pie tells about the story of Lekha, an Indian-American girl who faces racial microaggressions at school. As a minority student, Lekha finds herself marginalized and often feels insecure of being an Indian American girl. This research identifies the acts of racial microaggressions that are directed to the character Lekha in the novel American as Paneer Pie. Lekha, who is a minority child in her school, experiences various bullying as a form of microaggressions by some white ethnic friends. The microaggressions committed by those white ethnic children to Lekha is a form of verbal discrimination which is currently better known as microaggressions. As a literary analysis, this research uses intrinsic approaches by Pickering and Hoeper as the intrinsic analysis and the theory of microaggressions by DeraldWing Sue as the extrinsic analysis to reveal the problems. The research findings indicate that there are found some acts of racial microaggressions faced by Lekha as an Indian-American girl such as mispronouncing her Indian name, stereotyping her Indian physical appearance and lifestyle, and marginalizing her as the minority in the class. These racial microaggressions finally influence her life, driving her to change herself to voice her right as an American. 1. INTRODUCTION Racial microaggressions, recently, are one of big issues faced by students in America. They are caused by many aspects. One of them is diversity in culture. America is known as a country which consists of many cultures and races. There have been some immigrants coming to America to find a better life. They move to and live in America individually or in groups. Some of them finally have kids and send them to public or private schools. For some diaspora children, it is not easy being among the majority. They find themselves different from the majority. They have different physical appearances. Some people often look them in strange or degraded expression; and it can cause racism. Racism can arise not only from differences in skin color but also cultures which are brought to the boundaries of marginalization and superiority of certain cultures (The Conversation, 2020, June 8). The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western origin but is influenced by a multicultural ethos that includes African, Native American, Asian, Pacific Island, and Latin American people and their cultures (Woods, 2018). America has experienced a cultural melting. However, the Western who are called the white dominate many aspects of living in America. In literature, racial microaggressions become the most frequently occurring topics in some diaspora novels recently. The writers like to pour their aspiration of confronting racial microaggressions in their works. Microaggressions are now known as a modern racism and this term becomes special attention to some researchers. Microaggressions, according to Sue et.al (2007:273), are defined as daily verbal, behavioral and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group. Microaggressions possibly happen in school since it is the place where students can meet their various friends. In the classroom, microaggressions are not committed by spiteful and bigoted professors/teachers who want to intentionally hurt students from diverse groups, but are rather undertaken at the unconscious level by well-meaning and caring professors/teachers (Portman et.al, 2013). In a research A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received October 09, 2023 Revised December 06, 2023 Accepted December 21, 2023 Available online December 31, 2023 Keywords: Literary Analysis; Racial Microaggressions; Indian-American; Children Novel This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Copyright © 2023 by Author. Published by Universitas Sebelas Maret.