I once dated for a few months a desi sister who remained my friend. She had separated from her longtime boyfriend, who was African-American. Her familyÂ’s disapproval was one of the big stresses on their relationship. So it was quite a step when they got back in touch and rekindled. I was honored to be privy to this, and with it, to R.Â’s management of her parentsÂ’ anxieties.
The next year they married, in her familyÂ’s backyard in Orange County. The aunties were in full effect, all gossip and jewels and rolls of flesh. They inquired hungrily as to my status. The uncles were hanging out. R. and W. sat before the pandit, soaked in sweat from their garments, the fire and the summer heat. No one was paying any attention. Except, that is, for W.Â’s family, a cortege of beautifully turned out Black folks from Arkansas and Texas. They sat for hours in the sun, sole occupants of the front row, wearing looks of deep confusion. I believe I was the only guest to attempt to explain the proceedings. The aunties looked right through them.
The wedding was a triumph for R.; her parents, lovely people, had come around. But it said little for the community’s readiness to miscegenate in the blackward direction. That pesky little problem, which many mutineers will be at least anecdotally familiar with, is not one of the themes of Lavina Melwani’s article “The Color of Desi” in the January 2006 edition of Little India (shout-out to Cinnamon Rani).
The article is a positively giddy celebration of desi mixitude:
Think Halle Berry, think Tiger Woods, think Saira Mohan, think Lisa Ray, Sarita Chowdhury.
These are the faces of the future, faces where cultures and races blend, where different essences combine to create a new fragrance — haunting but youÂ’re never quite sure of what it is. Musk? Attar? Tuberoses? Or a mix of all?
Welcome to the brave new world of children of intercultural unions, families that defy the old rules — hopscotching over national borders, criss-crossing cultures and a babble of languages to create a new race, a new reality. It’s almost as if the great showman in the sky, sitting in his director’s chair and bored with the same old, same old, is experimenting and bringing some pizzazz to the leela or celestial play.
In fact, it turns out, desis are straight-up cultural pioneers:
What will surprise Indian Americans, however, is that they at the front of the ranks. According to the 2000 US census, 220,000 Indians — almost 12 percent of the total Indian population of 1.9 million — identified themselves as multiracial, i.e. they listed themselves as Indian and one other racial group, which is five times the national average of 2.4 percent. Nationwide, almost 2.5 percent of all Whites, 4.8 percent of Blacks and 14 percent of Asians identified themselves as multiracial.
The story goes on to introduce us to a variety of mixed couples or children thereof. (Like the white-desi couple who named their kids Britteny, Bradley, Brijesh and Bhavika.) Each one tells us of the stresses or joys of balancing their two cultures. The one sister we meet who has married a Black man, Nisha Kutty, lives in the biracial paradise of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Kutty is self-aware:
America is still so much about race – even though it likes to think it’s not – so will she face any special challenges bringing up Surya? Without blinking an eyelid, Kutty says, “Yes, definitely I will. I think if I had married someone white the whole story would have been different.”
The article refrains from developing that angle, lest perhaps it upset the ambient happiness. Instead we move on to a half-Scandinavian sister for whom “The white and Indian issue is not a big deal in terms of being a problem of identity.”
There’s more here than a single blog post can handle – long held ethnic and racial prejudice, notions of immigration and assimilation, the dreaded Model Minority question, a whole lot of class issues, and intergenerational stuff as well. I’m not going to pretend to develop all these themes, some of which have been touched on here before.
Still, being biracial myself (my moms is Jewish American) IÂ’ve always held a special interest in these topics. During my guest residency here, IÂ’m going to try to assemble some thoughts, throw out some questions, and hopefully report on some experiences that folks are having out there. The politics of mixing are my concern. If youÂ’re half-Black, are you desi? If youÂ’re half-white, are you a person of color? Are there desi quadroons, octoroons?
And beyond the labels, which anyone can put on or remove at will, what do these identities mean to you politically, living in the United States, or in the other multiracial societies where Mutineers dwell?
Peace.
awesome post, and i haven’t even read the article yet. this truly is fascinating topic. maybe more after i’m done reading. but thanks for the heads up, and the great commentary.
Goddamn half-castes.
Nobody’s kicked me off here, so I guess I’m sufficiently desi. I’d be interested to hear your own experiences Sid, and other people’s, as I’ve never spent more than a few minutes thinking about my identity. Communities who are not the mainstream norm (i.e. whilst in the West, anyone who isn’t white) spend an inordinate amount of time mulling over their label, their place, their identity.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the next fad in filmmaking moves on from ABCDs saying “where do I belong?” to mixed race kids saying “to whom do I belong?” Zzzzzz.
I don’t know how I’m defined and to be honest, I don’t really care.
to me being open to marrying someone of a different ethnicity is good because it says you think of people of other ethnicities as similiar enough to bring someone of another culture into your family
Great post. There’s also alot of intra-desi mixing going down. Punjabi-Tamil, Guju-Malyalee, Bongoloid-Marathi–and that’s just this past wedding season. They be busy making beautiful mixes too.
That’s an interesting point Eddie – when people say Indians mixing, most assume Indians marrying non-Indians, but I suppose different Indians marrying is also mixing. However Indians marrying people from other parts of the country has been going on for centuries, it’s far more common than Indians marrying black people, for example.
What interests me about this topic is the ease with which some folks of mixed heritage are quickly claimed, even embraced as being desi – Norah Jones immediately comes to mind. (I’d love to know – how does she think of herself?)
And then there’s these two lovely little girls I know – their parents come to the temple every year during the main pujas, promoting their business – they seem to be invisible – there can’t be any other reason than while their mother’s desi, their father is black.
It’s been said to my husband – who isn’t desi – that he is “…a little bit desi.” Why – because he’s married to me? Because he’s Caucasian, but tans easily? 😉
No kids yet…not sure how we’ll handle it if we have any.
Good topic!
Amandeep Atwal was a 17 year old punjabi girl in western Canada who dated a white boy and when her father found out he stabbed her to death in 2003. The amazing thing was that her brother had a white girlfriend and the father didn’t say anything.
When the father went to trial many people in punjabi community in the Vancouver area came to his defence. Yet nobody in the punjabi community spoke out for amandeep atwal. Thank god the judge gave this sick man 16 years in jail.
Here in North America in the punjabi community, if boy dates outside his own race, the family may disaprove but after a while they family will give in. But if a punjabi girl does, the family loses honor and the girl is disowned or sometime worse.
Having lived in Vancouver for the last 3 years, I just don’t understand the way punjabi boys are allowed to do anything they want, and punjabi girls have to be perfect.
How is it in the rest of Canada and the U.S for non-punjabi indians? Are they more advanced then the punjabi community.
To PearlJamFan: I don’t know if i’d use teh word “advanced” thats a little touchy.
I’m Guju, living in Toronto. We have some family members who have married white people. I just got out of a relationship with someone I thought I was going to marry and he is actually bi-racial (neither parent is desi or white). I would’ve been breaking the mould with that.
I don’t think it depends on your region in India, but the attitudes of your own family members. Despite having some interracial couples in our family, no one in my immediate family (1st cousins) has married yet. I know my father wouldn’t approve. It’s interesting because prior to meeting this person I wouldn’t have pursued it just because of the complication but now after experiencing it, it’s something to meet a special person and fall in love.
Perhaps how long they’ve been exposed to western values and lifestyle? Level of education? How they were raised and the particularities of their own marriage? Life experience?
I’ll be back after I read the article.
PJ fan… rest of canada is quite different… i have more than a passing contempt of the dipshits out there… that’s the culture that nurtured the air india bombers after all … head up the ass regressive morons living in their own little zoo … remember the kids who were drag racing last year and killed someone… anyway…
out here in T.O. the stats seem to hold, i only know four indics under 35 who are married (i’m not counting casual dating) … and of them two are married to non-indics… one of them got out of an abusive relationship with an indian tho’.
nice post. it is a big world. to each his own.
It is the Jatt culture – Jatt ‘pride’ – tribal honour – macho posturing.
Sid,
Fascinating topic! Brings me back to the issues of identity and belonging that were discussed in previous post about a certain beach cough and some interractial tension. A friend of mine is half-Indian, half-Australian. I was the first Indian friend he’d ever had, he didnt know much about India and he didnt really care. Infact, he was very conscious of being recognised as Indian. He admitted to me that me recognising him as Indian the moment I met him scared him a bit. Once he even said it was hard for him being ‘stuck’ between two races so he’d made a conscious decision to embrace an identity that made him feel like he belonged better in the wider Australian community. Dave never told anyone that his middle name was Krishna and when we both lived down the hall from eachother at Uni, he’d come to my room to chat about what he didnt chat about to anyone else, his feelings of what India was like, Hinduism- which he was dying to know more about, social justice, and a range of topics that made him feel like only another Indian would understand. Then one day, I met Dave’s sister, Jen. Whilst Dave could get away with saying he was Australian, Jen looked just like me, dark skinned, strong South Asian features, if I hadn’t known about her parents, I would have assumed she was as Indian as I was. Jen was very proud to associate herself with India and was quite open about what India meant to her. Unlike Dave, she wasnt comfortable with being as white as she was brown and only had Indian friends and felt the need to be attached to India in order to belong. Dave and Jen were as unhappy as eachother. Neither could accept themselves wholeheartedly for what they were. And they remain that way to this day.
As far as I’m concerned, race is an inherent acceptance of who you are. Its not about genetic or biological difference (don’t think they exist), nor is it further embracing or shying away from where you come from, its a fine line between knowing yourself, that is your character and personality, and being able to assert that without fear or retribution, through the filter of your upbringing- whatever that might be.
Sid – you’re a champ:)
Forgot to mention: when I said Dave didnt care about India or being Indian, I meant to say, in public, he felt he had to be that way to feel more accepted 🙂
I’m a jatt punjabi sikh who grew in area 7 hours east of Vancouver. I did not have any indian or punjai culture in my life till 3 years ago when I moved to Vancouver. It was quite a shock.
The punjabi people are so backward here it is sad. Most of them don’t mix with anybody who is not punjabi. They still think they are living in punjab.
As for the spoiled young punjabi male. 3 more of them were killed this year already in brown on brown gang violence. I call that addition by subtraction.
I may have been born a jatt, but i don’t act like a jatt.
I hear the gangster culture is rife. It is sad. Jatt pride and Jatt culture needs to be tempered. Hopefully with new generations like you coming up this will change over time.
I have be called whitewashed so many times I have lost track. I guess my username said’s it all. If anybody in Vancouver and see 1 brown guy at a rock concert it’s me.
the statistics in that little india piece are the ones i’ve bandied about for the past few years. brown on non-brown aktion is just as typical (differ by multiplicates, not orders of magnitude) as brown on brown aktion. this high rate of outmarriage makes racial dynamics today in the post-hypodescent era (for non-blacks) a different dynamic that the sort of situation (in addition to many other variables) that typified the first awakening of non-white civil rights in the USofA. if i had to bet i think that the brown american experience will be between that of an italian american and a black american in that like an italian american there will many interethnic marriages if you move out to cousins, but like black americans the physical difference from pure brown to pure white will be salient enough that a pure brown racial identity will persist despite continuity.
I have Jewish, Pakistani, English and Danish people all married into my extended Punjabi family. My Jewish nieces (daughters of my first cousin) who live just outside Copenhagen are aged 16 and 14 and they love coming to London because where they are, there is not such a big desi community. So when they come here it is like they feel special and can learn that side of their culture much more by being with their family, taking them shopping, just hanging out with us.
Predictably the only real massive ‘ostracism’ style opposition to marrying out came when my other cousin married a Pakistani girl. But when the first children came they got over it. Religion is the big issue there. But it can be overcome.
I think Indian families have an absorbing effect – non Indians eventually get absorbed by our samosas and ladoo.
Sure, sure.. But more importantly, Siddhartha, your nose doesn’t look that huge…
running away, running away, running away
Two other factors – religion and the diaspora sensibility engendered by the internet and a globalised desi sensibility (Bollywood, Bhangra, the general and increasinly high profile of India) will keep the distinctive and collective sensibility together over time. Religion, whether Hindu, Muslim or Sikh will be in its distinctiveness a source of differentiation for future generations, even if their connection is semi-detatched these cultural quirks will be sufficiently non mainstream to keep the connection afloat.
As I understand it, the story of Indians in America is one of mixing from the start – those Sikh pioneers in California who married Mexican ladies a hundred years ago and gave birth to a Mexican-Punjabi community.
Pearl Jam fan, actually you’re not alone, there’s quite a few punjabi jatt sikhs who are treading unique paths. it might seem that you’re doing it on your own but just keep your eyes out for other guys and gals like you! they (we) are out there! shabash though, I know you might not hear it right now, but by staying true to yourself you’re actually doing “your” heritage proud. bhagat singh was the original rebel in that regard
Religion, whether Hindu, Muslim or Sikh will be in its distinctiveness a source of differentiation for future generations, even if their connection is semi-detatched these cultural quirks will be sufficiently non mainstream to keep the connection afloat.
this is a good point, re: religion.
1) religious conscious muslims will not, i believe, have a strong brown identity in the future. they will identify as muslim. i have seen this first hand with people i know, they shed their parents religion south asian islam for a international arabicized identity. often they enter into interracial marriages with arabs, indonesians, etc.
2) i think jewish americans might be a good analogy for sikhs and hindus. the religious difference does keep a core going, but there is also a fluid edge that is always in flux with the surrounding culture.
Ahh. . . finally, something I can speak about. Please excuse my verbose, dull ramblings. When my family came to Toronto in 1960 there were no desis around. So what did we do? Assimilate, baby! Without exception they married whites (I call them Reflective-Americans) and had a whole crop of beige babies, among which I number myself (this is not a really huge surprise, as they were painfully anglicised in India; it was only my grandfather’s choclaty qualities that prevented me from being devoid of a Canarese name). So the big question of my life (I’m all introspective and shit) has been: which the hell am I?
There was no question, growing up first in rural Ohio and later in semirural New Hampshire, that we were different. Like all of you I was subjected to the comments about the curry smell, whether my mother had a dot on her forehead, whether I was going to have an arranged marriage. . . and on, and on. I had a certain kinship with the other two semi-brown people in my high school – one Cambodian, one Korean – which grew from pained looks, shared in reaction to the usual inane and ignorant comments. My brother got the worst of it – he’s older – and was called “spook,” “nigger” (get the @#)(*& insult right!) and such with varying degrees of insult. So in some ways, to the community surrounding us, there was no way that I was anything but brown.
An artificial barrier was raised which I became a master at ignoring – I assimilate like a champ. If you met me in winter, around all of my reflective-american friends, you might think that I was simply a dark-skinned white boy. I preened when a friend told me “I don’t think of you as anything other than white.” I speak with varying degrees of accent – in TO, I follow sentences with ‘eh?’, in Boston, I flatten my r’s. . . but I never have a trace of Indian accent unless I’m speaking to a waiter in an Indian restaurant. It’s sort of inevitable, then. Like many ABCDs I struggled and struggled to fit in. And then, finally, I met other Indians (well, other than cousins) while I was in college. Lo and behold, people who knew the story!
So now I’ve changed my tune (ten years later, as I approach thirty). I’m shamelessly Indian and shamelessly white. (OK, a little shame in each, but. . .) I can’t cook Indian food for scheiß but I manage a good Italian. Well, my soji isn’t bad. On the other hand, I run by family rules, and am obliged to acts of hospitality that make my white friends think I’m insane. I’m a Western classical musican – like Zubin – just as my uncle is an influential rock musician. Where does this leave me? Well, if nothing else, in an ideal place to observe the differences between desi and Reflective-American culture. Thank god I didn’t grow up eating Kraft Dinner. I’ll take biryani any day.
(PS can anyone give me a better definition than my grandmother’s – and this might be a southie thing only, we’re from Mangalore, ultimately – of the difference between pulao and biryani? She mutters about nuts and apricots, and then refuses to give me any sort of recipe, or indeed to allow me to do anything but chop cucumbers for the raita. Thin. With a dull knife.)
pulao and biryani? She mutters about nuts and apricots, and then refuses to give me any sort of recipe, or indeed to allow me to do anything but chop cucumbers for the raita
yeah. nuts and apricots sounds right to me (bengali). pulao is a pretty non-descript, if not as non-descript as batdh. but biryani has all that oil and nuts and junk. clogged arteries man.
Religion, whether Hindu, Muslim or Sikh will be in its distinctiveness a source of differentiation for future generations, even if their connection is semi-detatched these cultural quirks will be sufficiently non mainstream to keep the connection afloat.
Any desi Christians here ? Are your parents/families more fixated on race or religion ?
Religion is more dominant in my family…a Catholic non desi would be accepted quite easily..a non Catholic desi..less so… The rate of intermarriage in the community seems very high and since our religious tradition is pretty much in line with the majority, I really doubt the desi Christian identity is going to survive in America….
It concerns me …that we will just melt away….
Ah finally, a post that is meaningful to me. No offense, but there had been a spate of inane movie related and other less absorbing posts.
Anyway, this is a fascinating topic for me with much I have to learn. I am married and fully committed to my white husband. But I haven’t yet made complete peace with my babies being white. Like TheUnfacistDivya suggests through her story, one’s coloring can determine how and where one chooses to belong.
Race may not be about origin, or vice versa, but the need to belong is intense. And where can one belong ? Yumrika is still euro-American or black-American… there’s still some generations to go before people can commonly claim themselves as American by virtue of their multi-racial character. How do I get my striped babies to belong to both places when I feel so strongly that I don’t belong in Yumrika and belong in Des. And my husband, thanx to Bushy boy, also doesn’t feel as great an attachment ?
Related to this topic is the even more fascinating topic of what constitutes “Indian”. How Indian is Indian when you’ve never lived in India ? What about when you have the biological roots, but there’s nothing necessarily Indian in your home ? Are you more Indian if you’re born abroad but visited more often ? After 10 years of living outside of Des, I wonder how Indian I still am ? Does origin account for the whole story ? But then there’s nothing else I’d rather be… (except maybe Spanish, but I don’t think I want that option without living there).
Now I’m a DCBA = Desi confused by America. Not an F-1, not an H-1, but the strange set of spousal green card holders. If my own need to belong is being challenged despite my strong roots and strong origins, I cannot imagine what counsel we can give our striped babies to resolve their issues.
check out dippu, these brown christians are down with brown. some of them were arguing against interracial marriage in one thread, and using biblical justification for arranged marriage (i know that daycruz doesn’t go along with these opinions necessarily, but it shows that these sentiments are not non-existent). but i would bet you are right.
er, sorry for my troll-ish comment earlier. This is turning out to be a superserious thread.
PearljamFAn and Anados, you’ve come to the right place.
Anyway, clearly, I should leave before I jam my foot further down my throat. But just FYI, half-breeds are hott.
I’m half-Irish, half-Tamil (on my dad’s side). I’ve been brought up basically in the “white” irish-catholic culture, although we’re in the Bay Area, my dad’s community is really not around, or was something he wanted to be involved in (I guess. I don’t even know). It’s only now that I’m in college that I’ve realized how much I missed out on. I only started to visit India three years back (for my sixteenth birthday… the first time in twelve plus years), and even though I identify as desi, I’m always mistaken for mexican or (occasionally) italian. It’s not too bad, except when on campus, the Indian culture club tells me that the Latino Students Association meets the next day.
It’s embarassing, because even though I’ve gravitated towards “Indian” things, I know that wearing salwar kameez and watching hindi movies aren’t going to make me Indian, or more to the point, make me a part of my culture—which, not knowing the language or having been raised with anything more than a vague understanding of Tamil identity. It’s really not enough for me to be American, with all that entails, because quite frankly.. I don’t look or feel American, family background aside.
I love it how all these parents say that they’ll leave their kids to define their own identity. So, for me, almost everything I know has had to be from books, or Bollywood, or the internet. It’s very lonely.
Yumrika is still euro-American or black-American
where do you live? on the west coast blacks are #3 minority behind multicolored latinos and diverse asians. i think it is a different world on the coast with better climate.
I cannot imagine what counsel we can give our striped babies to resolve their issues.
i suspect my “striped babies” will not need my counsel, i will probably look to them for advice in the new america of the future. i will be the alien, not they.
trix… dont worry … the thought has crossed my mind off and on that i’ve to be very selective in choosng a mate … with the prodigious punjoo honker i have , and a skinnier but equally elongated proboscis my then gf had, there was the worry at one time that my progeny would come out swinging
Thanks, Siddhartha (what a fantastic name!), this is a thought-provoking and layered post…
Isn’t this making quite a huge generalization? I live in Vancouver and I’m not Punjabi. Neither do I live in Surrey where almost the entire Punjabi population can be found. Your comment is like saying that a few violently-inclined Sikhs represent the entire Indian community in Vancouver? I totally disagree. There are several other Indian communities here which are extremely well-respected and successful and integrated into general Canadian life, unlike the Surrey/Punjabi Market area. Its beyond stupid to say that “the rest of canada is quite different”. I used to visit Missisauga, Ontario quite often and believe you me, the Punjabis there are not very different from the ones in Surrey, B.C.
That’s pretty presumptuous. Or perhaps you haven’t ventured to look around you? I’ve been to plenty of indie concerts where there have been many young teenaged brown kids in groups having a great time. Again, its totally fallacious to generalize observations about the Punjabi community in a Vancouver burb to the rest of the peoples from India or Indian origin in the city.
tara… have you considered tracing your family roots and reaching out to the people … not as an american or an indian… but as a family member… we all need to know our roots, however bland our lives may be on a day to day basis… i did it this past month. i found one of my uncles was born in a refugee camp on the indo-pak border in 1947… i found mum’s roots going into myanmar… i can apply for a burmese citizenship for what it’s worth… 8-o … each life’s an adventure and ive just begun the documentation… the sad thing is these people are now at an age when i dont have much time left to get to know them better… good luck and godspeed.
ahoy luscious mooncake… yea… i was venting… but where did i generalize to the point it felt i was painting you nutso… i remember tara singh hayer among others and what he did for meant to the community though you are probably too young to remember him… and how the Indic (non-denominational) community rallied when he was murdered…
and yea… i know the east is no better. remember farah khan.
just venting… just venting…
Anandos, are you (part) Mangie Catholic?
Just had to ask, being that I belong to this community …
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blockquote>ahoy luscious mooncake… yea… i was venting… but where did i generalize to the point it felt i was painting you nutso…
thasscool, its not my prerogative. I’m trying to providing the counterpoint to the generalizations like:
dh- my dad’s mother’s family had a very hard time growing up in Chennai, there were problems with their mother’s mental illness from what I understand. That’s of course, not something they like to talk about at all, and hence it’s very hard to even ask. Additionally, there’s various fights going on at any given time. My dad doesn’t know anything about my grandfather’s family (I was closer with him than I am with my Pathi), and he died from Parkinsons recently, which he had that basically since I was seven or eight, and it was very hard for him to communicate.
I’m training for journalism, and I’m hoping to go on to grad school for South Asian Studies, so it’s something of interest to me, but again, another avenue that’s closed off.
tara… been there… the quadriplegic, the cousin with down’s, the hermit, the schizophrenic, the bipolar, the assassination, the murder, the bankruptcy, the cancer deaths, pain and suffering … all been explored… and the thing is … no end to it
have heard it is only the most obdurate, the greed and breed kind who dont seek beyond the basest needs… so your q’s are natural … had the same … and probably no different from others on the board… i suppose we all deal in individual ways. good luck with the journalism course…
btw… i used to think bollywood movies were unreal… and then i found out about my extended family. it’s all real – there is that much sadness out there. 🙂 so maybe you are on the right track with bolly cinema
What a rich thread this is turning out to be, thanks, Sid for bringing it up.
I’m intrigued by the commonalities between these experiences and that of desis/other minorities who grew up overseas, or largely overseas. Of course, the levels of complexity rises still further in interracial experiences. As SIG and my homegirl UnfascistDivya point out, race, as in the social construct, is still a major identifier, and the societies many of us live in – US, UK and Aus are still defined along one – two ethnic lines. Interracial and minority narratives are barely mentioned when describing, for example Australian history and identity, given that in spite of the White Aus Policy, there were still significant influxes of Chinese, Afghans and Polynesians. Not to mention the experience of Kooris. The identity of multiculti and multiracial Australia still sits uneasily in the public sphere, in spite of the fact that up to 25% of Australians were born overseas. Will it take generations before the multiracial experience is a norm? I think it will be the norm. Is that the main issue, that those”original” identities are perceived as exclusively defined for all time? i.e. Indian is thus, Sri Lankan is thus, when they have also been in flux? Perhaps we need to assert these mixed experiences more esp as they are more and more common.
Bah, sorry to rabbit on.
Razib – I’m curious about where you’ve observed the phenomenon you were describing in post #23. I spent a fair amount of time in Cairo and even there I’ve always found South Asian Muslims to have a greater affinity to South Asians at large than to Middle Eastern Muslims (for the record, inspite of my username, I’m not Muslim).
Razib, the high outmarriage will dampen before it increases because of subculture formation. E.g. compare the Punjabi Californian outmarriage rate in the early 1900s (near 100%) with today.
Razib – I’m curious about where you’ve observed the phenomenon you were describing in post #23. I spent a fair amount of time in Cairo and even there I’ve always found South Asian Muslims to have a greater affinity to South Asians at large than to Middle Eastern Muslims (for the record, inspite of my username, I’m not Muslim).
1) college
2) not surprising, middle eastern muslims don’t view south asians as ‘full muslims’ in many ways. in america the situation is different where the groups are clumped together, the situation is going to be different. analogy: in xinjiang chinese speaking muslims (hui/dungan) emphasized their chineseness and have been used as enforcers for the chinese empire/state for centuries against the local turkic muslims. in china proper though they are identified primarily as muslims.
Just a comment on the Jatt Punjabis in B.C. discussion – the community is notoriously insular and has a long painful history of violence that seems puzzling not only to the rest of the desi diaspora, but to Canada in general. I was just in a depanneur yesterday, where they were showing that documentary about the Punjabi girl who was comissioned to be murdered while she was in India by her own relatives in BC. That, along with the heinous Air India bombing leaves a lot of questions hanging in the air.
BUT before we go around labelling any community as “dipshits” or start blaming their somehow inherent “macho” behaviour, it’s important to look at the social conditions that that community has developed in and in which it continues to exist. Funnily enough I was just at a series of workshops on immigrant rights. One of the case studies we looked at in some detail were the Sikhs in BC and the tragic stories that define thier past – such as that of the Kamagata Maru (google it – it’s heartwrenching). Anyway, to cut a potentially very long post short, suffice to say the Sikh community, after having been in Canada for centuries has faced and continues to face some of the most disgusting forms of institutionalised racism in the country’s history. They were ghettoized to begin with. Sikh women were not allowed to migrate for decades, giving rise to a homosocial society that did, perhaps, develop an extremely male-centred ethos. By the time Sikh women were finally allowed into Canada, there was almost an impenetrable culture that they had to try and integrate themselves into – creating a horribly skewed and difficult situation. Canada has a very long and very deep history of racism. And its violence towards groups it finds distasteful has been (and continues, in more subtle forms, to be) absolutely horrendous. The Sikh community is one of these groups and is unique in that it has a long oral history – both in the form of songs and stories (all in Punjabi), that tell and retell the stories of thier struggle in Canada. The awarness of thier isolation, thier perpetual strangness in a land they have lived in for decades if not centuries, is therefore very much a part of the BC Sikh identity. I’m sorry if this is a bit off topic, but it’s unacceptable to see this kind of rhetoric against a tragically marginalised community (that admittedly has huge social problems as a result) go without some comment and contextualisation. The Sikh community that Dhaavak refers to as “dipshits” and “regressive morons” hasn’t integrated itself into lovely peaceful mainstream Canadian society because they’ve had no reason to. The system has used them for labour and treated them like shit, and there is no trust as incentive to trust the authorities or to “conform”. As for the Air Indian bombings, as a non-Sikh Indian, I feel the pain and the outrage too. But if you’re going to stand up for the rights and the dignity of Afghanis (terrorists?), Palestinians (terrorists?) racially-profiled-Hindu-guy-at-airport (terrorist?) you can’t ignore the larger socio-historical factors that have shaped this community too.
Oh and on the topic of mixed partnerships? I flip. And then I flop. And then I date someone else who’s not Indian. The grass is perpetually greener on the other side of things 🙂
ayo, boston bombayite. Funny you should ask. My great-grandmother’s great-grandmother (or mother, depending on who you ask (how long ago? long time, bhai)) married a Portugese catholic priest, who promptly and conveniently became Protestant. So. . . kinda. Strange thing is, the priestly habit (groan) has persisted, and various uncles in Mangalore have been Anglican priests, up to and including recently-retired Bishop Furtado.
To make things even more interesting, my grandfather was brought up by German Lutherans at the Basel mission (in Mangalore). Easygoing, frivolous people, them. Yipes. And now I work for a Catholic church (St. Paul’s, Harvard Square). So, um. . . kinda, is my answer to you.
Interesting notes on the outmarriage rate, razib. I continue to wonder if it will slow in my family now that there are other desis around. (So far, it hasn’t.)
brownfrown
Thanks for that post. I did not want to say anything because generally I dislike responding to bigots like dhavaak directly who make generalisations like he did. There are many successful Sikhs in Canada as there are throughout the diaspora. What a shame that generalisations have to be made in such a crass manner. To take the Air India bombings as the benchmark of Canadian Sikhs is as useful as taking the various mass killimngs carried out by Hindus as the benchmark of Hindus. Another thing is that many Sikhs were also killed in that bombing, and many Sikhs battled against, and continue to battle against, the atavistic forces in that community.
On behalf of all those people who make crass and smug generalisations, I extend my middle finger to you all, and commend you for your vulgarity.
Care to expand on this Manish, I’m not sure I follow. In the Bengali community marrying non-Indians is pretty common, whether in India or out (loads of Bengalis in the UK/America marry (normally) white people. It’s positively celebrated in my experience, which is nice. Although I have to say with some people I’ve detected an air of having a chip on their shoulder – they feel as though marrying a white person is a move up in the world. More often than not, their MOTHER thinks it is. Anyway, I realise this is all an aside and not relevant to what you said.
But I give the example as the Bengali community in Britain is certainly sizeable. Far smaller than Gujjus and Punjus, but far far bigger than Californian Punjabis in 1900! So with such a large community and plenty of suitable Bengali brides/grooms, why is there still a large proportion marrying out? Obviously when a community is small, you have to marry out, but are you saying that if there are enough people of one community then they will automatically stick to themselves?
Sorry if it doesn’t make sense, I haven’t slept. Sid this has sparked an interesting debate, good stuff. But I can’t help noticing some (just some) of the commenters doing all this “I don’t know where I fit in” bunk.
You know!
mighty fine post. i don’t have any indian in me – except at certain times of day ;)- but my kids do so it was nice to read this thanks.
and, O yes, half-breeds are hot. (smugly regarding self in mirror and ignoring WAY prominent portuindian schnozz)
tais-toi, mon dieu what a naughty comment, I’m entirely scandalised.
Although it does remind me of the all-time classic chat up line “Soo…got any Indian in you?” I don’t think I need to provide the punchline.
One topic that I do find quite interesting, that I kind of mentioned above and others have touched on as well, is how some desis, predominantly Indian girls, do not date South Asian men as a rule of thumb. I know stacks like this. They have one jerk brown boyfriend and then decide desi men are all bad. It’s all rather amusing. There are still a lot of deep-seated insecurities and inferiority complexes buzzing around the desiaspora.