self. portrait.
Raquel Orendáin Shrestha is an actor + model. Before moving to Brooklyn, she lived on the west coast for the for 7 years in both SF and LA. This past summer she was in a queer coming of age rock climbing indie feature film set in Colorado.
She has experience working in theatre, commercials, and indie films in San Francisco and NYC. Her favorite acting roles center queer, south asian, and latinx voices. She is a graduate of the ACT summer intensive and studied at Freeman Studios in NYC with Alexandra Neil and Scott Freeman.
Raquel grew up in Philadelphia, South Texas, and Kathmandu. When she isn’t working she’s cooking spicy food with her younger brother and visiting her family around the world.
raqueloshrestha@gmail.com
instagram.com/rraquelos
vimeo.com/raquelos
4 — I picture gorillas roaming the streets of Kathmandu pulling on the metal bars in the window. My mother yells at me for misunderstanding “guerrilla warfare.” The civil war continues.
5 — “You’ll have to wipe that off, it’s distracting the other kids,” the teacher points to the sindoor, yogurt, and rice clumped onto my forehead. When I refuse she has me stand at the front of the room to explain it to everyone. I wish I were someone else, maybe Abigail Anderson who wears a simple clean cross around her neck.
6 — Ihi. The fact that I’ve married god means I will never need a man.
10 — At 60 my grandfather has died. My mother buys us white clothes to wear for the year and I explain to the kids in middle school, de facto cultural ambassador.
11 — My kija tells his teachers, “I can’t see my sister right now because she’s in a room that she’s not allowed to come out of for 12 days!” Well. My Bahra coming of age ceremony is a time of reflection. Dark curtain drawn so not a speck of sunlight shows through, I choose Saraswati, I memorize prayers, but I also draw and read fun fantasy and adventure fiction books.
18 — He comes of age, shaved head, orange robes, showered with supplies, our maternal uncles chase after him. Kija is caught before crossing a body of water so we parade through the streets of Kathmandu.
20 — “It’s just a fashion statement.” “I’m just trying out a new thing.” “Isn’t the absence of color really the best color?” Sobbing at 4 am so loudly a girl I barely know comes into my dorm room and holds me for hours.
He is covered in flowers of so many colors. My father asks when we can burn daicha’s body and the woman at the funeral home explains this is just a viewing, they’ll take care of it later, there’s another bereaved currently in the incinerator. For all her confusion she does at least let us wait and she does at least let my father press the red button that takes his body away.
It is not the same as the torch he lit when I was 10 but it is at least something.
21 — Boil an egg, peel it, deep fry it, cover it in spices. Khen, Newari eggs meant to bring good luck. I live in a co-op of 35 residents, they’re happy to have it for finals week.
24 — My family makes piles of momos together. I start to collect recordings of my grandmother speaking in Newari, my generation barely speaks the language.
RAQUEL ORENDÁIN SHRESTHA 