You either convert (atleast give yourself a nice hindu name on this blog) or stay out.
Would you actually be pompous and arrogant enough to suggest that Indian Christians (and there are quite a few of them) not post here unless they use a “Hindu name”? Sorry, rhetorical question. [linky]
Mind if I cut in, Eric? Thank you, you are too sweet.
Ah, the politics of nomenclature, a subject I am completely sick ofÂ…whether it involves self-identification or the process and meaning behind my own name, it all makes me so weary.
I wonÂ’t delve into the former, but I will heroically belly flop into the latter. My name isnÂ’t good enough for anyone. Malayalees wonder why I have my “house” name, since apparently thatÂ’s uncommon among my “I-have-two-to-three-first-names-but-no-surname” cohort, people who arenÂ’t Brown wonder why I have an “American” or “Western” name, when IÂ’m obviously part of a more exotic faith and non-Mallus, especially Northies for some bizarre reason, wonder what my REAL name is, because it canÂ’t possibly be Anna, even if I am a Jesus-freak from the dirrrty South (of India. Y’all).
The best situation is when I am rebuked for my “obvious”, self-hatred. Predictably, the disapproval usually comes from non-Desis but I once notably received similar treatment from two recent South Asian immigrants. Here’s what a convo with the unBrown sounded like:
“No, really, what’s ‘Anna’ short for?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, just tell me. ‘Anna’ can’t be your REAL name.”
“I’m not, I have nothing TO tell and I promise you, it is.”
“Come on…you shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are.”
“Do you do this to White people named ‘Anna’ as well? I’m massively curious…”
Something else which leaves me curious: how surprised certain readers are when I tell them Mutineer Vinod is Christian like me (he’s Catholic, in case like Razib, you know about such things and care). Damn it, Vinod. Quit confusing people with your stealthy, appositely-Hindu-sounding name. 😉
It almost seems unfair for any of the 26 little letters (in this language, at least) to bear the burden of so much responsibility…even if they are divided into groups, before being sent out on “Mission: NAME”. So what. Do the letters “A” and “N” look THAT strong to you? Even if I have matching sets of each, in a powerful palindrome formation, are they sturdy enough to bear the crushing weight of history, religion, tradition and parental devotion? Pah. Be serious.
:+:
In 1994, I discovered the Internet. Yes, that would make me the tech-tard among my co-Mutineers, half of whom told Bill Gates what to do after he hired them straight out of their Montessori preschools. 😉 Pine was aight, but IRCÂ…ah, the hours I wasted on reality-numbing IRC, absorbing all that “Channel” Kerala had to offer this uber-Bounty Bar of a sorority girl. I also played around on various newsgroups, like ACK. THAT is where I learned what a “flame” was, ladkas and ladkis. And I still remember a particularly fiery comment or email, which burned like fresh habanero paste applied to the eyes. It was something likeÂ…
”What do you know? You’re not Hindu so you’re not a real Indian, now STFU.”
Shudder
Eric, I wouldÂ’ve been so happy to respond back with an answer like yoursÂ…
Eric, what u christian (assumption from the name) understand about us Hindoos.
A pretty lame assumption. Both of my parents are officially Jain, and in reality (like many Jains) practice a syncretic blend of Jainism and Hinduism. Ever heard of Indian immigrants giving non-Indian names to their kids? [linky]
But I couldnÂ’t say that. Both of MY parents are officially Jacobite, and in reality (like practically no Mallus) they practiced a syncretic blend of the Indian and Greek Orthodox traditions.
And that’s when the “confusion” first reared its shitty, unwanted head. Could I be “Indian” without being Hindu?
(IÂ’m skimming through this after writing it, and as I read that last question, I heard Sarah Jessica ParkerÂ’s voice instead of my own, while picturing the letters getting tapped out on her fake Mac screenÂ…go on and enjoy that wee bit of random if there are any SATC-heads out there)
Could I be a “real” desi while introducing myself with a boring, biblical name? If I didn’t partake in any of the rituals or festivals that the ISA would have held at UC Davis, had they not been banned the year before I commenced studying there, could I still be down?
We all know the answers to all of that pookel/thooni-gazing NOW, but when I was 18-19, I wasnÂ’t anyone close to the adamantine terror I am today.
All of this emotion, brought back so quickly it made me light-headed, by a careless comment that has now been…recanted? It was apparently meant sarcastically? Look, I do not doubt that the person who was having that dialogue with Eric was sarcastic; if he says he didnÂ’t really mean it, IÂ’ll buy that and IÂ’ll take a case of it, thanks. What I donÂ’t feel like purchasing is that icky, “you donÂ’t belong here” vibe, which I hate, like all mammals do. I especially loathe it in this space, where I want everyone to feel welcome, jackasses, bores and eeyores excluded.
Even if you don’t mean stuff like “either convert or get out” or “use a Hindu name as your handle on SM”, I’m left preoccupied by what sort of history nurtures such sentiments, which are tossed out sans souci. None of us is innocent; we all have to brawl with very powerful inner forces, which threaten to ruin the best parts of our souls. We all have thoughts we would never admit to, in public, especially on the Internet, where nothing ever goes away.
I’m not singling anyone out or expecting admissions of guilt, but I hope that deep inside each of “you”, the “OnlyHindusAreIndians”-monster doesn’t lurk in the dark, lush emotional rainforests within. I’ve read criticisms of this blog which insist that such terrible demons do exist, that SM smells like mean spirit, nationalism, J-I-N-G-O and Jingo was our name-o. That people who are not
straight
affluent
Y-chromosome-carrying
descendants of that famed post-1965-era
of immigrants from India
aren’t welcome. I heard that and first I was bothered, then I was saddened and finally I was serene. IÂ’d prefer to affix the prefix “Polly-“ to my non-Hindu, Indian first name and believe in the best of our little Sepia-colored community.
I do apologize for the lame assumption.
Apology accepted. Sorry for not noticing the sarcasm.
Ah, and there it is. My faith in the collective goodness of SM’s readers (which never wavered) is vindicated. 🙂 Doesn’t Pollyanna sound like it could be a desi name? Especially if given to a Mallu child whose siblings are Paul and Penelope? 😉
desi is as desi does.
anyway, anna, out of curiousity, why was the ISA at UC Davis banned? what’d they do?
what a truly rare group of brown people this is, that no one has asked about THAT yet. 😉
i heard that the ISA was banned in the spring of ’92 b/c of the mini-riot which went down after the fashion show at “India Night” that year. apparently, one of the models walked down the runway, pulled an Indian flag out of his pocket, threw it on the ground, spat/stomped on it and then screamed “Khalistan Zindabad!” or similar.
the other version of the story is that he pulled out some type of “Free Khalistan” banner or flag (?) and started chanting before being, ahem, removed from the stage. no matter which version is true, a mad melee resulted. damage to facilities due to desi drama meant that Davis would ban ISA until my Senior year (1995-96).
i participated in Bhaisakhi night and wore my first lengha ever in ’93 or ’94, in a fashion show where i had to walk down the aisle with Cami Bains. 5’10, aquamarine eyes and pale golden skin. truly Yuba City’s foine-est. lucky me. 😉 suuuure. put me next to the most gorgeous girl in the show, i’m just an insecure, scrawny (5’6, 110 lbs) 18 year-old who’s hoping her Dad doesn’t catch her strutting about in a black northie outfit when she’s allegedly “studying”. 😉 that was my one “cultural” event from my freshman year until the mid/end of my senior year.
Why Bhaisakhi? it was the only place where i was “welcome”. i got filed under “Sikh” after the Indians at UCD bitterly divided down Hindu/Sikh lines, apres the disaster of 1992. oh, and it was not b/c i was monotheistic; it was b/c my college sweetheart was a hulking Jat. that and since i wasn’t Hindu, the overwhelmingly north indian population at school weren’t quite sure what to do with me. for a while, i might have been the only mallu/christian among the brown kids at davis. mind-blowing, right? silly, trifling, college drama. sigh. 😀
the Khalistan issue was huge back then, all the punjabi boys i knew had pictures of the victims of “police brutality” up on their walls, with the words “never forget” scrawled on them, bumper stickers which shouted “India out of Khalistan!” etc. now you know where i got the title for my last post. 😉 Davis was full of Sikhs, since it’s the closest UC to Yuba City and it’s the only Ag school in the UC system. (once upon a time, davis was uc berkeley’s farm school. go bears!) we had all the scions of Yuba City farming/central valley orchard/vineyard empires there, studying ag econ or enology.
by the time i was a senior, the rabidly-pro-khalistan jat sikh kids i mention above had all either graduated or transferred. in ’96 the ISA/ICA was back and that stupid, imaginary line between hindu and sikh kids had vanished. thanggod.
There’s a girl’s name that’s spelled the same in Hindi and Celtic (but pronounced differently)…
Anita/Anita?
I work for an MNC headquartered in the USA. People call me ‘manju'(fullname Manjunatha) without much difficulty(though Chinese find it hard to pronounce). However, my colleague being ‘manu’, people generally get confused with our names while writing or addressing. Just other day, my manager asked me to change my name(it was teleconference and I’m not sure whether she was really serious). Couple of years back my Korean manager advised me to change my name to some Western sounding name so that whole world would be comfortable with it. So I started wondering about my Western name(or Christian?). And I found it. Till now I was using first half of my name as my nickname. How about using the later half, ‘natha’. Add another ‘n’. Nathan. Oho! You see nobody can question my Indianness as Nathan is an Indian(mostly Tamil) name. Nathan is a Western name too. But I suppose not very common.
Trivia: Manjunatha is quintessentially a kannadiga( Kannada speaker)name. Since linguistically I’m a Malayalee, by Malayalee convention it should be ‘Manjunathan’. So actually, I don’t have to add that extra ‘n’. No change at all. Shiva would be really pleased to know that one of his names can be used very harmoniously with two cultures.
you should’ve never posted this, now EVERYONE is going to try and guess it and it’s going to drive them (and me) nuts. 😉
It is Tara isn’t it?
Does…not…compute…. You mean to say there is life outside desi-ness?!
hehe
Siobhan is pronounced like Shivan(i) which is infinitely prettier but the bastards don’t have in their database.
hm, a girl’s name. Then Surajananranganathan is out…
Great post, Anna. Reminded me of the first time I encountered the confusing (and for a little kid, a bit scary) “What’s your real name” barrage. All thanks to my Malayalee parents’ decision to give me a very Celtic-sounding name (no, it’s not Tara – that would have been confusing on many levels!).
You poor little desi yuppies. How you are being victimized and the world doesn’t seem to care.
Thank god you at least have a blog to discuss these neanderthals who assume you are this or that. How dare someone assume you belong to a particular religon just because 85% of the people from that country belong to that religion. And how cruel of them to even ask the question. Don’t they realize that it might leave an indelible mark on your tender psyche. After all you want to be accepting of everyone and everyting but these guys are just too rude.
And some of them are even your own kind! Well , some people in the desi community do change their names to more western sounding names, but don’t they realize that you are not one of them.
Get out your BMW and have a frappucino from the nearest starbucks.
“Could I be “Indian” without being Hindu?”
‘course you can. I’ve been one all my life. Here in Mumbai, most people dont give a shift. Most of the guys in my basketball team – St.Peter’s Flying Apostles, are Hindu. They celebrate Christmas with me,heck, some of them can sing ‘A man will live for ever more…’ better than me.
Hi to everyone at SM.
Duh, that’s because of the vast amount of tradition shared by Muslims, Jews and Christians. Most of the characters of the OldTestament are metioned in Isalm traditions too – eg: Abraham/Ibrahim. Jacob/Yakub. Joseph/Yusuf. Adam/uh, Adam. Ishmael/Ismail. They are all ‘Nabi’s (prophets) in Islam. Heck, Jesus is also considered a ‘Nabi’ – Isa Nabi.
And yes, Anna, Im a Mallu Catholic who has an Indian ( not necessarily Hindu) first name. Okay, it’s Ajith. My second name is, like all true-blue Mallus’, my father’s first name, which is a Biblical name. Since I came over here and has started mingling mostly with North Indians, I face this smirk Is he really Indian? smirk thing a lot. This was never a problem back in Kerala, which has only actually 23% Christians, ( Whatever else I hate abt the place, I have to say Mallus are the best in terms of rligious tolerance. Seems like its not gonna last, tho) or Bangalore, where I used to work. I have to say that most Hindus do think that you have to be Hindu to be Indian. But hey, we Xtians have it a lot better than the Muslims. A lot of Hindus truly believe that they belong only in Pakistan.
Heh, what about names that don’t give you a clue about gender? The number of times that I’ve had folks send me email that starts with:
Dear Ms. Madhu
that leads immediately to an exchange in which folks are informed that Madhu is as gender neutral as you could want it to be. And more often than not, desis get it wrong.
people never know how to pronounce my full name, so i cut it to its appearing version…and people still pronounce it wrong.
i hear the violins…for my problem
i’m going to cry, while driving my bike to the public bus, and then the public metro to my low-paying job….and then i’m going to steal my co-worker’s tea bags and drink tea with DC tap water….yes, because this is one of the only way my concerns with my name are legit.
man.
I have the exact opposite problem, that is, can I be Hindu without being Indian?
I have been informed (by peoples of all hues) on many an occasion that I can not.
Never mind that “Indian” is a national identity (and that too a colonial construct*) I don’t identify with, never mind that when my ancestors left the sub-continent there was no “India,” never mind that I’m third generation BORN in East Africa.
Am I desi/South Asian (or just plain Asian in some circles)? Yes. Hindu? Check. Gujrati, even? Check. I am also Kenyan (not African), East-African Asian, and both fiercely so 🙂
The question here is that in this increasingly global world, where individuals/families migrate multiple times in the span of a few generations, can we really be tying ourselves down to identities that aren’t as fluid as our lives, or as diverse as our names? How many times do we/can we hyphenate our identities before it becomes ridiculous? Am I now Kenyan-American? Does that make me African-American (I think it’s a loaded term that I have no right to claim, not to mention that most immigrants from Africa (black, brown or white) will name their respective countries, not the continent as their identity marker).
I grew up celebrating Eid and Diwali with the same gusto. I went to Catholic school, sang hymns (that I still remember), went to mass and took communion (gasp, shock, horror!! The priests and nuns never told us we couldn’t/shouldn’t, and we assumed it was like prashad, food blessed by God, to be eaten by all). My friends (or all religious persuasions and hues) and I could never understand why adults who did not live in India or Pakistan (and had no real connections with either country) felt the need to divide up in support of these countries based on religion…
Identity is such a complicated thing. Made more so as people traverse the globe in search of their fortunes. I wonder what people will say when I name my first girl Ayesha Nyashie**? What will they make of her? Identity politics on a whole ‘nother dimension.
/random musings *The argument can be made here that Kenya is also a colonial construct, but it’s one I CAN identify with.
Nyashie is a Luo* name
***Luo is a tribe in Kenya
Will you kill yourself if your kids turn out to be more brown than you are 😉
honestly, if i stay with my current gf she is much more likely to inculcate brownness in them than i am because it seems likely she’ll be the one interested in teaching them bengali (she’s good with languages and has learned some bengali, and i speak baby bengali anyway*). so i’ll have her to blame! but as long as they don’t go get religious i doubt i would care too much about what identity they created.
You are more motivated by learning about the other/s, than about yourself? Is it possible to “know thyself” through investigation of the other? This is not a merely quizzical line of inquiry. I am interested in your answer based on your experience and not on the kinds of data (very valuable) you disseminate in the course of a discussion.
chris, it’s a hard thing to say, i’m not a particularly introspective person 🙂 i also have a somewhat underdeveloped “theory of mind” so i tend try to understand people by systemetizing their outward behavior and identifications (ie; i can’t intuitively make character judgements based on speech, manners, etc. very well). humans are social creatures. operationally i’m an egoist, but that egoism is not really relevant outside of a social context. like many people i’m a bit strange, so i’ve learned i can’t naively extrapolate from myself to the rest of the world to model things, i have to ask, read and observe people around me. humans are embodied in social reality, i might personally not under evangelical christianity and find most apologetics and religious experiences a ludicrous waste of time, but as an american it has great salience for my life and i meet people who identify as such, so i take an interest so that i can understand what they are trying to say when they talk to me.
here is census india’s report on the % of christians per state. kerala is 19% christian.
here are the % of some north indian states
haryana 0.1% dehli 0.9% rajasthan 0.1% uttar pradesh 0.1% bihar 0.1%
i think the trivial frequencies in these states explains the north vs. south divide on whether “christian indians are really christian.” the syrian christians of kerala have a 1500 year history…certainly it is offensive and ludicrous to ask if they are “indian” after all this point, but, north indians’ reflexive association algorithms have been feed indian != christian because of statistical realities.
Razib, you sure you don’t have Asperger’s?? 🙂
Razib, you sure you don’t have Asperger’s?? 🙂
well, that syndrome is all over the place diagnostically. but in general, i don’t think so, i’m really outgoing and i get along with people and i am really good at maintaining the illusion that i’m a mundane 🙂 ie; i don’t have “marked deficiencies in social and communication skills,” only in very close relationships do my peculiarities manifest themselves. if you want me to be precise, i have serious difficulties with empathy, and one reason i do well in social situations is that i’m very unself-conscious and the only person whose opinion matters to me is me. to give an exemplary contrast, when someone dislikes my gf she tells me that she wonders what it is about her that person X might dislike. i don’t get this, my first response when someone dislikes me and i find out about it is to simply confront person X, utter a stream of profanities and invective and simply assume they are jackasses for not liking me and of course i never speak to them again. i’m told that my behavior is atypical. for me “self-esteem” is a pretty plain tautology.
btw, as i’ve said several times that “american brown is being made here,” it might be interesting if SM had an online symposium on the topic with the people making that identity. mostly to make things more explicit in my opinion and have an easy link for those not in the know, i think that a lot of people get into arguments precisely because they have different ideas in their head and are talking past each other.
I was just teasing you Razib 🙂
I was just teasing you Razib 🙂
and in the process added a data point for aspergers, huh? 🙂
I was genuinely and sincerely curious.
and in the process added a data point for aspergers, huh? 🙂
cough!no, me?cough!!not at all!cough! 😉
“american brown isn’t going to be made in south asian studies depts, iz going to be made by people like manish, vinod, abhi, cic and anna”
nice, great to see the revolution is taking the form of an artificial counterweight to academic pettiness. wow. let it rain!
Did you mean this blog? Or are you referring to the fact that american brown is still in a formative stage.
hi, long time reader, first time writer. love the blog.
just a question for the southies out there that have lived with this “father’s first name is my last name” deal. my husband, a southie, and i are expecting our first child and were wondering whether to continue this tradition. over the course of his life (and even prior to it), the family name has changed several times due to immigration and other reasons, so we are not particularly attached to it. plus, the last name gets confused with an american boy’s name – nathan (which is understandable, but annoying since everyone assumes the first name is nathan and the last name is the obscure indian name). since the whole nathan thing gets confusing, and since i love my husband’s first name, why not just give the first name as my child’s last name? any thoughts? just want to know if a child can adjust well to the tradition being raised in america, or if it will be just as annoying as keeping the last name as nathan.
He means right here at our headquarters. We’ve got a beryllium laser, a belt sander, some beer and some members of the opposite sex. That’s all it takes 😉
We in the poorer parts generally leave out the laser and the belt sander. No issues with the beer and members of the opposite sex.
as someone who played tecmo bowl, i remember a football player named tony nathan. i don’t think nathan is that strange at all, there are people with messed up german and polish names that don’t anglicize them. you can do a yahoo people search or something for last names like nathan, they even show up in idaho (i looked).
Get Mirza to infuse the gene pool
I’m not south indian but tamils in sri lanka do the same thing, i dont plan to though, i dont see the point
oh and chai theres one plus about having a hard name, teachers never call on you in class
oops, the above was in response to niralis question about name switching
kenyan Desi –> Your situation is much simillar to Teresa Heinz Kerry, Portugese by origin, born in Mozambique, went to college in South Africa, later became the famous wife of John Kerry. Well does that make her an African American being a white. Will she accept such a tag with her name ?
How about Whites from South Africa, do they like being called African Americans, if they are in America.
I am sorry, if I am deviating from the topic…kind of curious…like to have some inputs on this…
Many tamilians take their fathers first name as last name. Back in the day, the grandfather usually had a longish first name like govindarajan, muralinathan, thiagarajan etc. the father has a longish last name. But nowadays many people have short first names like Rajesh, Kartik, Murali, Prabhu etc. Thus, kids nowadays have two short names – their first name, dad’s short first name. ex. Rajesh Mani, Murali Kartik, etc. Some people retain just the nathan part or the un-nathan part (keep nathan or murali last name instead of keeping the whole muralinathan)
Am curious about one thing though. In your view, does the identity of American Brown (I have no experience of what that means) differ from that of an Indian?
I am not sure how you (and your friends here) perceive the difference.
That difference (or similarity) may be key to many things.
Am very interested in knowing how you perceive these differences(or similarities) as related to desis from desiland(namely India)
To add to it, what takes precedence in defining the Brown American identity, the similarities or the differences, or both?
I’m surprised that no one (including Anna, razib) has responded to this.
It seems to be central. The questions are composed with the sophistication (not sophistical, however)of a professional interviewer conversant with the issues.
Is anyone willing to treat this line of inquiry?
chris, it’s a hard thing to say, i’m not a particularly introspective person 🙂 i also have a somewhat underdeveloped “theory of mind” so i tend try to understand people by systemetizing their outward behavior and identifications (ie; i can’t intuitively make character judgements based on speech, manners, etc. very well). humans are social creatures. operationally i’m an egoist, but that egoism is not really relevant outside of a social context. like many people i’m a bit strange, so i’ve learned i can’t naively extrapolate from myself to the rest of the world to model things, i have to ask, read and observe people around me. humans are embodied in social reality, i might personally not under evangelical christianity and find most apologetics and religious experiences a ludicrous waste of time, but as an american it has great salience for my life and i meet people who identify as such, so i take an interest so that i can understand what they are trying to say when they talk to me.
Hi razib,
What you are describing here is not the Socratic “know thyself.” You should be aware of this since you quoted the exhortation. In fact the Socratic process probably describes the opposite – renunciation of knowingness.
Introspection is a psychological behavior. Self knowing includes but is not limited to this. It also includes the soma (since I am a classically trained musician, I have spent a lifetime acquiring this kind of knowing), the emotions, and being.
You might be interested to read the American philosopher Charles Taylor on this. In Sources of the Self he discusses identity via social knowing with insight.
very best, Christopher
“There’s a girl’s name that’s spelled the same in Hindi and Celtic (but pronounced differently)…”
Sheila?
like many people i’m a bit strange,
razib,
In my view, this is the starting point for self-knowing, not any organized or systematized body of external inputs (helpful, necessary, limiting).
Nirali-
As far as I know, other than Tamil Brahmins who use “Iyer” or “Iyengar” as a last name, most Tamilians have one name preceded by initials. Depending on which caste you belong to, the initials usually denote your place of origin and/or father’s name, grandfather’s name etc. As you pointed out, when migrating it sometimes becomes necessary to have a last name because it is the norm, so a lot of Tamilian families, mine included, just take the father’s first name as a last name (my dad’s name is “Muthiah, so now our family name is “Muthiah”). I guess my point is that I don’t think its a traditional thing (I could be wrong). As far as adjusting to having your father’s name as a last name in the US, I’m not sure how that works, but from my experience from living in Australia and PNG, it didn’t really make a difference, people just thought my dad’s name was Muthiah Muthiah.
Also a long time reader who just popped my writing cherry – nice blog.
thanks for the comments on the nathan last name thing.
my issue with the last name is that my husband and i pronounce it “naa-than” – the way it is meant to be pronounced, but here, people will pronounce it “nai-than”. like i said, it is understandable that people assume it is pronounced “nai-than” in this country, but i think eventually i will feel sad when my kids start referring to themselves as ‘rahul “nai-than”‘, or whatever first name we decide on, simply to make it easier on themselves.
i know many eastern europeans names are not anglicized, and i like that they retain their own spelling/proper pronunciation. it makes the whole immigration experience more real.
i don’t want to anglicize our last name either. it may seem like a small thing to most people, but the meaning and ancestry of the name is lost when it is pronounced improperly. regardless of whatever intermixing that may happen in the future generations of our family, it would be nice to realize the last name has a tamil ancestry. for this reason we thought if we followed the southie tradition of giving my husband’s first name as the kid’s last, the name that will be retained for generations (if the southie tradition is no longer followed) would have a more authentic link to the subcontinent.
hmm..it’s a loaded question, though asked innocently enough. I think no one wants to tackle it for fear of triggering yet another ABCD vs. FOB (NRI vs. Resident?) debate.
Here’s my thought on the matter: I’m Sri Lankan, not Indian. There’s a difference, and one that I’m sure the Pakistani and Bangladeshi readers/lurkers here will appreciate.
I lived in SL for 13 years before moving to the US, and remember thinking, when my ‘American brown’ cousins came to visit, that they were Sri Lankan by virtue of their parents only. Now after living in the US for a long time, I can’t honestly call myself Sri Lankan in the way that I used to…I’ve adapted to my new home. It’s changed me.
A direct, “this is the difference/there is no difference” answer is impossible. But I think, if anything, that American Brown means a sort of across-the-board South Asian acceptance. (Hold the outrage until I’m done? thanks!)
I know more about the subcontinent now than I ever did while living a sneezing distance away from it. And the Indian-American kids I’ve met seem to know quite a bit more about Sri Lanka, in turn, than Indian FOBs. So that’s one pretty great thing about American(and Brit! let’s not forget our Euros) Brown-ness. But yeah, given the variety of influences, American Brown means not knowing all the details that come from living in India (or Pakistan/Banglades/SL). It’s filtered through lenses – parents, America, visits and trips back and the memories each generated. It can be more detached. It can be cluelessly (ahem) rabid.
In short,I don’t think it’s an identity tied to a location as much as that of the person living in India.
Much has been said and argued about this question, from name-calling here to academic conferences, but the bottom line is that this is all murky. Who can judge another’s identity? We all know how we view ourselves, and would prefer others to view us. And that really is the only certainty. Although maybe some of us are confused. And visit SepiaMutiny for answers 🙂
Roger: Well, I’m not… I’m not at all surprised they feel that way. Phoebe: You’re not? See, that’s why you’re so great! Roger: Actually it’s… it’s quite, you know… typical behaviour when you have this kind of dysfunctional group dynamic. You know, this kind of co-dependent, emotionally stunted, sitting in your stupid coffee house with your stupid big cups which, I’m sorry, might as well have nipples on them, and you’re all, like, “Oh, define me! Define me! Love me, I need love!”
touché, R.S.V.N.K. Padigondla. Tou-effn-ché.
Sorry if this bores everyone, but while we’re on the subject, would someone mind explaining Sinhalese naming conventions to me? (cicatrix maybe?)
When he came to the U.S., my father listed his given name as his “official” last name, and made what I thought was his last name and his “ge” name into his first and middle name, respectively. But then a couple months ago, he said that his last name was actually Perera, which was the first either I or my mother had heard of that being his surname. Then my mother started talking about how they both also had another name given to them by the town elders or something, which was distinct from the “ge” name, the ancestral name (surname?), and the given name. By the time they finished trying to explain everything, it sounded to me like they each had about five different names, half of which I had never even heard them mention before. If someone could explain all of this in terms that an ABCD could understand, I would be grateful.
Oops, I just reloaded the page, and it looks like we’re not on that subject anymore, but I guess I’ll post this anyway.
Anna, you could have the opposite problem, most americans dont even try to pronounce my name and then they want me to change it to something easy..Katie. I have thrown tantrums about it and my fav response is, I can say your name so you might as well learn mine! Its Kajal damn it!
as someone who played tecmo bowl
Ok, you had me there for a minute. When you said Tecmo Bowl, my mind raced to all the teams in Pac 10 and the bowls they go to as I know you are somewhere in the North West. Alas I find out that its a computer game and for a minute I was all impressed that our very own Razib got to play in a bowl game for the Ducks or something. Btw does anybody know of any browns playing college football ?
ads, I think those naming conventions come from an amu Sinhala tradition that I’m too far away from, at this point, to remember very clearly. Let me try a bit now, and get back to you? Hopefully someone more linguistically inclined will have stepped in before then 😉
ge denotes possesion. Just like “mah-ge” means “mine.” So X-ge, means “belonging to X”.. this is pretty remarkably similiar to Tamil naming conventions if you think about it.
The ancestral name tends to indicate a town or village of origin..impossible to decipher (at least for me) in Sinhala because they’re Pali (or some other older form) based. Mine, for example, has the sinhala word for “sun” clearly in it, but actually refers to some village on a stone or a rock by the water near the…honestly, my aunt, a Pali professor, tried to explain but I never remember how it ever made sense to anyone.
By the given name, I assume you mean the name parents actually get to choose. Oh wait, no they don’t. The astrologer does 😉
I don’t know about the town-elder bestowed name. Never heard of that one, but maybe it’s a custom specific to your family’s region?
Perera came from the Portuguese. They went on a naming spree and now we’re got Fernandos, De Silvas, and Correas all over the place. Some families passed down their orginal names, covertly or otherwise, during the periods of colonization. But others held on to the Portuguese.
I’m sorry if I’ve confused you more! It’s hard to figure out without the actual names, so email me if you want and maybe I could give it another crack. At least until someone who actually knows this stuff shows up to correct my mistakes 😉
Dutch last names in SL, btw, weren’t handed out. They’re indicative of mixed ancestry since the Dutch gave their names to any offspring with the natives. Sometimes married. So that explains any Bartolemew, Muller, Van De Whatever names you might come across.
Actually it’s… it’s quite, you know… typical behaviour when you have this kind of dysfunctional group dynamic. You know, this kind of co-dependent, emotionally stunted, sitting in your stupid coffee house with your stupid big cups which, I’m sorry, might as well have nipples on them, and you’re all, like, “Oh, define me! Define me! Love me, I need love!”
Love (whether it is erotic, familial, fraternal, etc.) between human persons presupposes identity. (Though this needn’t be a strict sequence as more personal refinements are acquired – since love requires an object in order to prima facie be – the gross presence of an indentifiable human personality is a priori.)
You were on the right track. Your conclusion/implication needs adjustment.
You need more Friends 😉