Sepia Destiny

Ever since I got my nano, I have been obsessed with downloading podcasts. Since there isn’t a Sepia Mutiny podcast for me to download (ahem) I do the next best thing and listen to a Desi Dilemma, a podcast by a woman named Smitha Radhakrishnan. This week’s series on ‘Desi Love’ perked my ear up- seeing as how the search for a ‘suitable mate’ is always at the forefront topic for most mutineers (or so it seems).

“There was a clear message from the Indian community about dating, that it was somehow inextricably linked with the most dangerous, scary thing that could befall an ABCD kid; an identity crisis.”

As has been mentioned before on this blog, as an ABCD youth one often had to deal with the projection by your peers that the only people you were expected to date is that one other desi in the school, even though you had nothing in common with them. Forget the fact that you weren’t allowed to date; if you had been, there was no one there for you to date, in the often confusing bi-cultural high school years. For me, this reminds me of senior prom. And prom reminds me of how my mother wouldn’t let me go to prom unless I went with my gay guy friend because only then would she know nothing would happen to me on prom night. How’s that for bi-cultural confusion?

Though in the realm of desi pride now, growing up there was also the conflict of trying to fit in and be as American as possible. I recently received the following e-mail:

I came to US at a young age, I faced discrimination from those who were born here… they acted like they were too good for me…Then as I made closer friendship with Americans to avoid all the bulls***t south Asians were giving, the new comers from south Asia started giving me the same crap. Eventually I became this “white boy” among SAs..Of course, I have learned to deal with such issues as I’ve grown up …But this question has always lingered in my mind… why do SAs hate each other? What makes US born’s better than those who come here? And how is it that those US born’s turn SAs so quickly during college years, and see those whom they disdained for being SA in the first place still as different?

Now that I’m older and in the ivory tower I can use big words like assimilation and racialization to analyze the divide in the generations, but really, when you’re just a kid in school, all you are trying to do is fit in. Being able to analyze this factor of bi-cultural identity now doesn’t make dating for a 20-something female any easier. In fact, knowing the internalized identity issues simply makes searching for love all the more confusing. There’s desi chick lit trying to manuever around it, and I regularly read a various group of blogs by single desi females all talking about similar issues. We are bombarded with desi dating websites, as well as pressure from family. Until that tab for Sepia Destiny is created, what’s a single girl got to do?

As Smitha asks in her podcast, and I’d like to further pose to you on this lazy Saturday afternoon,

“Are there things about being desi that give us a different set of expectations about our love life and our marital lives than our non-Indian peers?”
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About Taz

Taz is an activist, organizer and writer based in California. She is the founder of South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), curates MutinousMindState.tumblr.com and blogs at TazzyStar.blogspot.com. Follow her at twitter.com/tazzystar

441 thoughts on “Sepia Destiny

  1. Another thing to mirror espressa’s view, the dope-ass alterna desis are just really good with their disguises πŸ™‚ because the burden to carry it outward on their sleeves and have to deal with a whole other shit load of problems/questions is far too much. It’s best to carry it in privacy, wear the J Crew sweater on the outside and sport their tats, piercings and wild side in private.

  2. JOAT — hell yes, I’ve got to test drive my Vikram or Brad or whoever the hell it is! No other way around it.

    Left up to my mom, I’d be saddled with some nerdy virgin with bad hair and big ears. (Although, looking at my last ex, that ain’t so far off the mark — and let’s just say the test drive made me take that baby home!)

  3. Milli, It’s funny because while I’ve been almost neurotically secretive about most of my relationships, with the most traumatic heartbreaky one, it couldn’t help but come out and my mother was not just supportive, but incredibly insightful. Especially given the weirdness of the relationship itself – it floored me that she was actually all “been there, done that”.
    Sometimes I guess I forget that so much of the raving is just a lot of rhetoric and boundary-pushing and when you least expect it, they are full of support and good advice and concern.
    This of course doesn’t mean that it’s been any kind of lasting change, haha. On a daily basis, it’s somehow still stressful and awkward with the dating issue, despite the frequent “so… meet anyone nice?”.

  4. I have a question for the females who have dated a white boy. Do other desi men get upset when they see you with a white boy or they don’t have a problem with it. I know in some races men really get upset when the girl of there race is with a man of a another

    Since most of my best friends are white males I have no problem at all with this. Infact a once I even have had the role of the desi information guide for my white malefriend who dated desi girl and would ask questions about indian culture.

    However when it comes to this topic, one must bring up the sad story of Amandeep Atwal who was stabbed to death by father for dating a white girl.

    For those of you don’t know, Amandeep Atwal was 17 year old punjabi girl who had a white boyfriend. They were able to hide from her parents untill one day they had minor car accident. After that her father told her that he wished that she had died. And a few months later he stabbed her to death. The amazing thing is that at same time Amandeep brother had a white girlfriend and yet his father had no problem with that.

    Amandeep sick father get 16 years in jail for his crime, yet the rest of there family and sikh and punjabi coummunity leaders spoke at the trial for him saying he just made a honest mistake. Nobody in the punjabi coummunity spoke at all for Amandeep at all. And there are many punjabi who think Amandeep father did the right thing. That’s just sick

  5. I confess I’m shocked with the comments here. I always believed in the mantra that a good decision is any decision where one is willing to deal with all its consequences. Once you are onboard with this idea then all the issues of identity, cultural pressures etc. melt away, and you just go w/ your instincts. I suppose its a little easier for guys considering that most of the comments here are from women. I once summarily dismissed a friend when she expressed precisely the confusion discussed in this thread. I feel awful for her now. Anyway, now that I’m wizened up I’d like to throw a rant at the desi women-Test drive your Vikrams all you want but please don’t give us the “not exclusive” bs or is this just true in Manhattan? In any case, its downright insulting! Thanks.

  6. This only dawned on me recently when I was having a discussion with my friend John who is considering going to India to get married because he wants to marry within his community and hasn’t found someone he’d like to marry on his own yet. When I brought up the sex issue his take was “She’s from India she hasn’t been around like the girls here and doesn’t know better, and she’s a woman how hard can it be to please her?”

    Wow. This whole “go back to the desh and bring me back a woman” phenomenon is v. interesting to me. I don’t see this really being an option for us women though.

    I met a cute guy at a wedding in India a few months ago and my aunt was joking about setting us up together (I was secretly thrilled, but I have a feeling an arranged date bodes differently in Gujarat than it does in Illinois) and my OWN MOTHER said “Absolutely not, that would never work out.” Meaning, all of my cousins gave up their jobs and became housewives at their in-laws’ homes after marriage, and my mom knows there’s no way in hell I’m doing that. Meanwhile, my mom was stalking a pretty girl at the same wedding because she wanted to introduce her to my older brother.

  7. Once you are onboard with this idea then all the issues of identity, cultural pressures etc. melt away, and you just go w/ your instincts. I suppose its a little easier for guys considering that most of the comments here are from women.

    Yay for educating yourself πŸ™‚ In general woman are expected to be the bearers of culture because we have the babies, so … yep.

  8. Do other desi men get upset when they see you with a white boy or they don’t have a problem with it.

    yes.

    So I had a group multi-ethnic (South Asian/Asian mainly) friends when I lived in DC, and I found out a year after I broke up with the white boyfriend that everyone had strong dislike for him. Hate in the, “taking our women” sense…they secretly called him a “chadbrad”. It was slightly obnoxious in my eyes, (if they didn’t like him they could have told me sooner) but, not due to the peer pressure but due to the reasons stated in this thread, these days, I would prefer to not date a chadbrad, and have strong preference for the “alterna-desi” type…

    I’d like to throw a rant at the desi women-Test drive your Vikrams all you want but please don’t give us the “not exclusive” bs or is this just true in Manhattan?

    I dunno about the non-exclusive thing- I think it’s just living in an inner city with this heightened sense of anti-commitment indicitive of the liberated Sex in the City generation of women. My gurls in the suburbs do not act that way…Shoot, since when are guys about being exclusive anyways? πŸ™‚

  9. but please don’t give us the “not exclusive” bs or is this just true in Manhattan…

    I think Manhattan/NYC is messed up and the worst place for people looking for more then a roll in the hay. They say the chances of a woman dying in a plane crash are higher here then finding a man. Hehe go figure. The problem is that this city makes people addicted to short term relationships and the abundunce of too many available people makes it difficult I think for people to commit. Everyone is looking for something “not exclusive”. Maybe it’s a big city thing. Your guess is as good as mine.

  10. massive props to all the sisters speaking here. thank you for having the conversation in a space where we can all hear and learn from it.

    there are clearly fundamental differences by gender in life experience for ABCDs/1.5s etc. this thread contains evidence and also some good lines on explanation. no need to repeat them here as brownfrown, espressa, metric ang and other have been breaking it down right & exact.

    i’m not surprised that alterna-desiness expresses itself far more in women than in men. i think the SM readership extends into the alterna-desi world but not as far as it might. particularly those who are in same-sex relationships, and those for whom the universe of potential partners is not limited to “desi” and “white.”

    i think we’d stand to learn a lot from people with those experiences and i am always hoping they will manifest themselves on these threads. anyway, a big shout-out to them.

    a couple months ago when i was guesting here we had a thread on the politics of mixing, i’d recommend it to any more recent arrivals. speaking for my own mixed-race self and, i suspect, others who took part in that conversation, i just want to give the (i know, incredibly profound) advice that either way, it can be all good… as long as you have “that (what?) knowledge of self, determination” that espressa, channeling mos def and talib kweli, spoke of.

    that’s the real work there.

    peace

  11. Do other desi men get upset when they see you with a white boy or they don’t have a problem with it.

    hahaha… to answer this i reference comment 97 [which i wrote–i’m such a dork quoting myself]:

    right now the biggest advocate for me dating desi guys… is ironically not my parents but my 21 year old brother. he thinks that half the reason my relationships don’t work out is b/c i don’t try hard enough to meet indian guys so i end up settling for white guys. we’ve been warring about this particular topic for a couple months now.

    to elaborate: my brother calls my b/fs ‘goras’ behind their back in an incredibly rude “if-you-were-dating-an-indian-guy-i’d-respect-him-more” kind of way. i think its obnoxious and totally uncalled for–seeing as he hasn’t actually met either of the 2 guys i’ve dated since i’ve moved to ATL.

    in my opinion, if desi guys want to criticize my choice in men, my question to them is “WHERE ARE YOU??? AND WHY AREN’T YOU DATING ME???” oh wait that’s right… you don’t actually like me, you just like to criticize me. well boo to that. boo!

  12. in my opinion, if desi guys want to criticize my choice in men, my question to them is “WHERE ARE YOU??? AND WHY AREN’T YOU DATING ME???” oh wait that’s right… you don’t actually like me, you just like to criticize me. well boo to that. boo!

    Ha! Ha ha ha!! I feel like desi guys aren’t into me too. Maybe it’s because I’m so freakishly tall. And…that’s all I’ll say about that before this degenerates into a “misadventures in dating” thread.

  13. metric ang made a good point about desi vs. white vs. people of other ethnicities. I’ve dated guys of different ethnicities, but I do live in a very multicultural society and I haven’t felt any weirdness about it yet (then again, I’m only Meena’s age and I know I have a ways to go before realising the ‘implications’, if you will, of my relationships). From a teenage perspective, the friends I hang out with don’t really see interracial dating as anything out of the ordinary, but the desi friends I have, I’ve noticed, are much more judgmental about it. It also has to do with how long they’ve been living in a Western society, and where (by this I mean growing up in an average neighbourhood vs. a somewhat ‘ghettoized’ one).

    I have to say that I do somewhat understand what Meena said, although she may not have meant the following exactly. I think it would be easier to deal with parents and broach the concept of dating with them if I were white. I’m proud of being desi and I’m very comfortable in my own skin, it’s just the cultural implications that come along with it. Instead of dating being a normal thing to do, it becomes something out-of-the-ordinary that everyone jumps on. I realise that this may be a comment specific to how long your parents have been abroad, or how open-minded they are, but still…sometimes I wish that it was easier, and that everything I did/want to do wasn’t or isn’t a stretch beyond these invisible boundaries.

  14. but immigrant parents have to deal with an extra set of complications: an unfamiliar culture, an unfriendly society, a menacing melting pot. no one wants to get lost in the melting pot. to our immigrant parents, preserving desi culture is crucial. but while society is changing back on the Sub Continent, most of our parents are clinging to the culture as it was at the time they left.

    Well said espressa. This is true not only with Indian parents..but also with FOBs like me (who’ve been in the US for 3-4 years). When it comes to Indian values, culture etc, most of my friends are stuck in the 90s. They’ve not experienced the seeping change that has been occuring in India over these years. They’ve been in the US for 5-6 years now and visit India once a year. All of them do realize the changes that have taken place in the Indian society..taboos have vanished, people are more “open-minded”, parents are not that “strict”. But the sad part is that they haven’t changed….for them, the benchmark is still the 90s. In a few years, these very people will get married …and I can imagine the kind of friction that they’ll have with their kids πŸ™

    For FOBs like me (..been here for 6 yrs..so I’m not that fresh), it’s necessary to get oneself “updated” with the contemproray desi tradition..changing face of Indian society…its rules and morals. The best way to do this is to keep your eyes and ears open (the next time you visit the homeland) ..and not dismiss everything as “western influence”.

  15. @27, puneet,

    Studies and Razib have shown

    ah, nice!! πŸ™‚

    while i don’t think i have had much problems in this regard, it has been very interesting for me to read this thread.

    for various reasons, there was not enough family around me or involved with me to pull me in different ways. not just in this aspect but in almost any matter. frankly, i did not like it when i was younger. but i have grown to like it, and now when i see some of the relatives i have—thank god for the way things turned out! and going by the comments on this thread, maybe i have other hidden benefits too. well!

  16. Hey, Doc Rupa – how tall is “freakishly tall” ? I went to school with a 7′ Pakistani female basketball player, but I don’t think that’s what you mean …

  17. Brownfrown said, “I’ve been wondering about the queer brown thing too – and I wonder if this a queer-positive enough space for queer desis to post? I’d be interested to know about that particular struggle too. And I bet there are a lot of dopeass boys and girls among ya…..”

    The gay community is very specific as to what turns them on physically. There’s “chubby chasers” and “silver fox chasers” and “rice queens”. I can vouch for the presence of “basmati queens” among the general Amrikan poulation. But what physical/ethnic traits turn desi gays on? instinctively?

    Am i still “on thread”?

    Neale

  18. I’ve been wondering about the queer brown thing too – and I wonder if this a queer-positive enough space for queer desis to post? I’d be interested to know about that particular struggle too. And I bet there are a lot of dopeass boys and girls among ya.
    i think the SM readership extends into the alterna-desi world but not as far as it might. particularly those who are in same-sex relationships, and those for whom the universe of potential partners is not limited to “desi” and “white.” i think we’d stand to learn a lot from people with those experiences and i am always hoping they will manifest themselves on these threads. anyway, a big shout-out to them.

    wow, this is a fantastic discussion… to tack on to it a little: I think the queer faction is as varied as it is…anything – experiences hinge on how our families react… I have a friend who came out last fall, to the ‘rents and all.
    They’re fine with it, his mom says “as long as he has a good education” etc, (some stuff never changes!) I’ve got an uberconservative family that nearly disowned my straight-shootin sis. for deciding to marry her sweetie (who’s a self described backwards oreo), so I’m in enough closets that I’ve cancelled dating altogether. my mum’n’dad have aged a lot over my sis, and i think if i let loose my inner alterna, bi-style, I don’t think they could handle it. So, really, it depends, like it seems to in all other instances.

  19. NinjaQ:

    WHOA. I’m only 5’10” barefoot but that seems to be freakishly tall compared to all desi males excluding all the ones I’m related to. But I think your friend wins that contest!

  20. Um, wow Neale – when I was responding to your post before, I thought you were actually seriously “wondering” about the gay desi community. It looks like you have it all figured out – what with the chubby chasers, rice queens et al.

    You’re not serious when you say The gay community is very specific as to what turns them on physically. You aren’t presuming to speak for the entire “gay community”, right? No, I thought not.

    But what physical/ethnic traits turn desi gays on? instinctively? Instinctively? Like what is the magic formula that fits the needs of someone with both the gay gene and the brown-skin gene? Like what kind of man would a gay desi baby frantically crawl to if given half a chance? Don’t you think that individual agency, cultural upbringing, one’s specific sexualization process and personal taste have anything to do with? Or are you suggesting gay men and women are spared from/devoid of all these factors and just blindly follow the “instincts” specific to their respective ethnicities?

    Clear as Mud – following on the um, sex-discouraging families (to say the least) many of us come from… I often wonder how one would explain the term “bisexual” in a sanitized way so as not to freak the parents out because it’s so in-you-face and undeniably about sex. Parents of straight or gay – identified kids can still delude themselves that it’s just about “friendships” before marriage. But bi… I would think that’s maybe even harder than coming out as gay. But then, again parents also don’t have to be privvy to every one of our sexual exploits – which goes for most families, desi or non.

  21. I don’t know if this is taking things too off-topic, but I’d like to raise a question about abortion related to dating. I had an abortion when I was 22. The father was a white man. My parents knew we were dating. At the time, the main reason I had the abortion is because it was simply not the right time for me. I would not have made a suitable mother; I couldn’t imagine giving them (it was twins) away; and I (foolishly?) didn’t give my boyfriend any say in the matter. Were I to become pregnant now, I would want to keep the baby, but the one and only thing that would stop be would be my parents’ disapproval. I would shame the entire family, it would be horrible if I got pregnant by a non-Indian, and I honestly believe my mother would be driven to suicide. She’s very emotionally fragile. If any of you, males or females, feel comfortable discussion your own possible experiences with abortion, or with the way your family’s view of your relationships would affect a decision like that, I’d love to hear.

  22. To clarify: my parents did not know about the abortion and they probably believe that I am a virgin.

  23. brownfrown, On the queer thingy…

    No, I have not figured out anything and thank god for that. There is so much fun in the chase. I just think the gay folk are more forthcoming and specific when it comes to what floats their boat. If you have not, check out the gay personals. Inspect the “drop down lists”. But after that? Like you, i am wondering what is next thing? Does cultural upbringing matter when you are so far removed from the expectations of your family and friends? And therefore, does it lead to less interference and more honesty ?

  24. Does cultural upbringing matter when you are so far removed from the expectations of your family and friends? And therefore, does it lead to less interference and more honesty ?

    Dude, I dunno. I mean, I can see how you are trying to angle the question, but there is a huge cultural componenet to the queer South Asian movement. There the organization Trikone, an LGBT org for desis, and I’m on the listserve for Desi Queers in So Cal, a list that basically exhanges messages of activism type stuff affecting the queer desi community in L.A.They just had a Kulture Kulcha show on Oakland (trikone did). There’s also the young Kashish Chopra who I blogged about earlier that is gay and a Miss India congeniality. I don’t think that being gay and desi makes them further removed- I think it’s just another thing added to their list, and that they are trying to figure out how to come to terms with their race and sexual identity, the same as the rest of us confused desis.

  25. woman’s burden: be PERFECT in the eyes of the future mother-in-law. the dude’s burden: don’t knock up that white chic.

    Um, no. Guy’s burden: pay the rent. Girl’s burden: expore her free-love-art and marry someone with money.

    I think its this difference in burden that yields the imbalance between dope-ass girls and boys.

    Exactly.

  26. Taz, I am referring to more personal choices. If a gay desi gets his jollies from messing with sweaty truckers, it does not matter how many desi cultural organizations he belongs to. If he is to be honest with himself, won’t he be happier (assuming it is legal) hanging out at truck stops than coffee shops discussing activism?

    Neale

    PS. Have you checked out the NYT mag. article on the Spanish writer Goytisolo?

  27. Temporarily-in-disguise: I haven’t had an abortion, but a close friend (non-desi) had one and it was a very painful experience. Can’t imagine what it was like for you at such a young age. My only comment to you is – do you want to spend your whole life hostage to someone else’s emotional fragility or twisted sense of what is shameful? You’d be surprised what people can deal with if they have to. In the meanwhile, don’t make yourself pay for others’ weaknesses or stupidity.

  28. Once those aunties see those light-eyed gorgeous creatures, its possible that all may be forgiven…

    Ech. This hypocricy and racism always gets to me. I hate that babies get turned into consolation prizes. So tough on some bi-racial kids–idealized by one parent’s culture and exoticized by the other parent’s culture. I don’t know enough of them to generalize, but in my experience the half-white half-desi kids have ended up either as extremely offensive individuals who learn to co-opt and exploit both cultures in the worst ways, or they end up as the coolest people in the world, acutely aware and expressive of their identity politics in ways that are artistic, respectful and dignified.

    And another thing about these “light-eyed gorgeous creatures”- Why do we always assume the spouse is white? What’s the consolation when the baby ends up darker than you, with a wide nose and burly hair? Seems to me that desi women, if they’re dating non-desi men, are dating only white men. Why is that? Do non-desi men of color have their own cultural baggage that we don’t want to deal with because our own is quite enough?

  29. Taz, Go to nytimes.com (free registration). The article is in this Sunday’s magazine section.

    Neale

  30. Temporarily-in-disguise:

    Please ignore the nasty judgmental idiotic ranting of Not So Much – who is simply too much. I love the way nutcase fundamentalists rant and rave about selfishness and callousness while exhibiting both qualities to the nth degree.

  31. As I grow older however, I think my eyes are being opened to the existence of brown guys who are just as interesting, as queer-positive, politically aware, feminist, critical and with just as great a taste in music as the whiteys I’ve been with – and with a wealth of knowing stories about mom to share to boot. I’m not making any decisions either way with this whole bi-racial issue because the older I grow, the more complicated it all becomes, but it’s been gratifying and a relief to know that there are sexy brown boys with sexy brown brains that I had just never encountered before, thanks to the circles I moved in. Payal brings up a very good point about us “inbetweens”. What do you do when you’re both a FOB and an ABCD and neither? What do you do when no matter which side of things your partner is on, there’s always an entire set of issues about which you feel alienated from them about? And why are we so issue-laden as a community? Aaak.

    brownfrown, this is so right on. About desi guys particularly, I don’t think desi women give the upcoming generation of desi guys due credit for being more open-minded and progressive. Other people mentioned how we sometimes come to believe non-desi appropriated stereotypes about our culture, and I think this is one of them. I mean, the general feeling on SM is that culture is not static, it belongs to no one, etc etc. So why can’t we believe that desi men can evolove, and have done so? I’ve never dated a desi guy, mostly because none of them were that into me, but I’ve come to know many who are as down as any leftist white guy I’ve known, except they’re down with desi culture in a way that a white guy (or any other non-desi guy) could ever be, and that’s always a plus.

    I don’t have a regular desi femme group to vent to, but I have a small group of organizer/activist desi girlfriends who are “inbetweens” like me. I remember that during a meeting for the Yoni Ki Baat performance we were working on, I mentioned that I wanted to include a piece about desi male feminists, and my friends looked at me like, “Shruti, there is no such thing.” This is simply not true. You have to talk to desi guys first. There needs to be a constructive dialogue between desi men and women so that we can form opinions that are updated and accurate. Like I said, I’ve come to know a lot of down desi guys, and I wouldn’t have known they were down if I didn’t dialogue with them to figure out where they stand on all these issues. If they’re not already feminist, they are a lot more open to hearing you out than you might think. (They’re still not into me, but must guys find me difficult, regardless of race.) I’m just saying, give them a chance. It’s a work in progress, so if you want a desi guy to be down with your views, then you have to engage them.

    millivanilli: I feel like I’m looking into a mirror when I read your posts (I’m a tad younger though). Wooo haters fo life!

  32. It’s OK. Anyway, he/she is probably right — it was a can of worms I probably shouldn’t have opened in a forum like this. Guess I was enjoying the anonymity and open discussion about topics that are close to my heart and head. Wish I could take it back.

  33. Temporarily-in-disguise: I echo dharma queen’s comment in 132. No point in getting into abortion politics, unless you want to have a personal conversation (in which case you’re welcome to email me). Just don’t worry about Not So Much’s ignorant comment.

  34. no sense in getting into an argument. i do, however, think that the choices one makes regarding abortion, sex, and a number of other issues related to dating and love go directly to the heart of the question that was originally posted:

    Γ‚β€œAre there things about being desi that give us a different set of expectations about our love life and our marital lives than our non-Indian peers?”

  35. in my opinion, if desi guys want to criticize my choice in men, my question to them is “WHERE ARE YOU??? AND WHY AREN’T YOU DATING ME???” oh wait that’s right… you don’t actually like me, you just like to criticize me. well boo to that. boo!

    #113

    and

    This only dawned on me recently when I was having a discussion with my friend John who is considering going to India to get married because he wants to marry within his community and hasn’t found someone he’d like to marry on his own yet. When I brought up the sex issue his take was “She’s from India she hasn’t been around like the girls here and doesn’t know better, and she’s a woman how hard can it be to please her?”

    101

    well well, i have a completely politically incorrect answer that would gain me a lot of flak πŸ˜€ so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

    Its because desi men want to date non-desi women because of the additonal “perks” (sex, i presume) that they supposedly get that desi women may not want to give. But when marriage comes rolling around, they want a viriginal wide eyed beguiling innocent.

    (I have seen so many FOBS act like that. its disgusting.)

    Hello? Fool around with the “slut” ( not intended with malice) and marry the virgin? Where do you get off with an attitude like that?

    I think its pretty much same here but that the desi community is much smaller here so you get away with less. Desi boys wanting to date white girls and desi girls dating non-desi boys because desi guys don’t want them. And when marraige comes around, they act like your the best thing they’ve seen on two feet

    Its interesting, desi communites and issues never change across borders. Here, you guys are in America facing the same thing I am in Australia. talk about unity huh? πŸ™‚

  36. just to clarify not all FOBS, I’ve met alot of nice ones. =) Just in case anyone here gets offended. But enough idiots to form an opinion =)

    Maybe its just the youth talking , hopefully they’ll grow out of it by the time we are old enough to marry. Please reassure me =)

  37. (I have seen so many FOBS act like that. its disgusting.)

    you are right abt that mentality. however, many fobs (at least in universities) i know who do not have that mentality will not jump at dating abd’s either.

    in my first years as a fob personally, forget dating, it was walking on eggshells each time i opened my mouth in front of the abd’s i knew—both men and women. and what is worse, most were downright condescending and ridiculously rude—for eg, i was in this group of people (a couple of fobs and non-desis) when this abd walks up, introduces himself to all of us, then invites the two non-desis alone for some party he was going to have right in front of us. this incidentally was my first encounter with an abd in american territory, and so it is unlikely i will forget it.

    it just used to be so much easier then around almost anyone else of any gender, nationality or ethnicity. so, at that point, i wouldn’t have cared to date abd’s or even socialize with them. of course, i met some nice abds later on and i have made my peace since :).

    funnily, and this is not a dating thing—i still find some abd’s to be the toughest to get along—the ones that are also my relatives. ironically, we all think that the other side is provincial. they think so because i am not-born-in-and-not-resident of amreeka. i think so because they can come up with the reason above. well, such is life.

  38. Meena, Just wondering why, if you don’t like being reminded of your heritage, and want to be treated like ‘just another white person’, you are blogging here? Please don’t read any criticism into this question – it just seems to me there must be some interest or need in engaging in these desi-only conversations. For me, there certainly is. I can honestly say that before last night’s cluster of wine-fuelled rants, I hadn’t any concrete sense that other people had IDENTICAL issues as mine. I have sympathetic non-desi friends, but they’re not coming from the same place.

    Wow,I didn’t realise my comment would be taken in such a wrong way. I’m not trying to say I want to be white. I don’t have any desire to be any colour except my own. My point was, there is a time and place for everything. As I have said, I live in a country with very few desi people. 99% of my friends until now has been white, simply because of LACK of desis. I only come to this site to find a bit of understanding. Unfortunately most people here are American, British or Canadian desis and thus their situation is very different.

    I have no aversion to dating Indian men. There simply aren’t any available here. I hope people do understand that.

    Things are very different on the continent. I find that being a European desi comes with it’s own set of problems. Perceptions of us (from Indians outside of Europe) are very different to those that American desis have to deal with. If ABCDs are considered promicuous, snobbish and not connected to their culture, well European desis are considered that and 10 x worse. Plus the age-old “How do you cope with racism?”.

    Personally I think it’s a big step for me already to be posting in this blog, as I have little to no knowledge of Indian history, culture and traditions.

  39. millivanilli and others…one thing I’ve noticed among many ABCDs is the idea that they are “not the average ABCD”. The interesting thing is that this seems to be the norm and not the exception. This is essentially holding (most) other Indians to a stereotype, but not yourself. It seems to me that you may be judging white people more as individuals, while judging brown people more as a group. Why not grant the brownies the same privilege of being judged one at a time?

  40. Excellent observation, Rama. I won’t start a rant about Western society as a whole recognizing and accommodating for white multidimensionality and not extending that courtesy to non-white people, desi or otherwise. I’ll just restate what I’ve already said on this thread: we need to look around and address the evolution of diasporic desi culture in our own time so that we don’t feel so divided and isolated (desi women vs. desi men, etc) when most of us are going through similar things.

  41. bythewords, I know what you mean about the fob-ABD dynamics in school (at least in America). I can’t stand how some of my ABD friends talk about and treat fobby grad students. Yes some fobs get out of control with the sexism, but given how rude–and just downright mean–ABDs are to fobs in general, I’ve always suspected that fobby men are driven into the uber-chauvanistic role in an attempt to prove their masculinity and regain some dignity. Of course, there’s some really fucked up gender politics here, i.e. being degraded=being feminized, and I personally don’t consider it an acceptable excuse, but I do recognize that it’s a globally pervasive concept. I honestly think many fobs become more chauvanistic than they would normally be just because they think they need to be assholes to impress and be accepted by ABDs.

  42. Rama says

    one thing I’ve noticed among many ABCDs is the idea that they are “not the average ABCD”. The interesting thing is that this seems to be the norm and not the exception.


    hmmm.. you might have a million points there

  43. Byte, my sympathies

    Well to be fair, I agree because I think some ABDs like to pretend they are cooler than a FOB but have whole “I’m Indian” thing. Feel like they can strike a balance between being Indian and Westernised and do not have the dreaded “vat do you vant” accent. So the girls like to pretend they’re super hip and too cool to date a FOB. My brother got a lot of flak for that when he first moved here, even though we weren’t born or raised inIndia, so we aren’t FOBs. Alot of ABD guys were being assholes when he came here and started dating a ABD girl, and gave him flak for trying to date above his station and what nots.

    I think FOBS get it bad too but when you look at some others, you think, well, they deserve it.

  44. Temporarily in Disguise, I’m sorry you feel like you wish you could take it back. When you posted your first comment, I really wanted to say something that would express my support and solidarity and commiserate with the fragile-mother-can’t-send-her-spiralling part of what you were saying, but having very little experience with abortion, I thought I’d leave it up to people who had something more concrete to say.

    What I did hope was that given the thrust of the thread up to that point, it would be a safe enough place for a discussion to grow around it that would be constructive and would be supportive of your obviously difficult experience. I’m sorry that someone who had not entered the discussion on anything we had been talking about up to that point jumped in after your post only to be a judgemental freakshow. I’m sorry this thread had to enter the acrimonious instead of continuing to be supportive and warm and funny and personal the way it started out.
    And Not So Much you say this:

    but many times on this board as well as blogs/forums in general, ther eis a mindset that one must.have to be agreeable or one will be painted with labels by people who one may not know, or ever meet. strange that.

    but do this:

    i am sorry, but that is the most calous and selfish thing i have ever heard! almost, but not quite, beaten by a women who got an abortion because it messed up her summer vacation plans to goto india.

    Not all our experiences has been a dappled bed of roses, Not So Much and a lot of us have had to make choices that have been very difficult and very painful and some have been things that we have been glad for and others that we have regretted. We’re not here to judge each other; we’re here to give and recieve support and inspiration and share our experiences that, although sometimes vastly different in their particularity, remain uncannily bonded in our similarity. So the next time you find something on this personal a topic that offends your politics (and I won’t comment on what I think of them) take a deep breath, calm the hell down and think about why you’re here, why people are talking about what they are talking about and the fact that you could potentially singlehandidly just ruin a safe space. Oh and your comment about IP addresses. Yes, very clever. We all know that and yet don’t really assume people we trust enough to share this information with and who trust us enough to have been doing the same are going to have so little to do with their time as to sneak around trying to unmask us if we’ve requested anonymity for some kind of self-congratulatory excercise.

  45. meena,

    Things are very different on the continent. I find that being a European desi comes with it’s own set of problems. Perceptions of us (from Indians outside of Europe) are very different to those that American desis have to deal with.
    Personally I think it’s a big step for me already to be posting in this blog, as I have little to no knowledge of Indian history, culture and traditions.

    it’s true. big step and you should feel good about yourself for doing so. i hope you find that on balance this is a welcoming place.

    i’m about twice your age but i did grow up in europe and i know that not much has changed in this respect: desi communities remain small in continental europe. there are specific working-class immigrant communities e.g. bangladeshis in italy.

    aside from that, you get professional desis who are in a given country for individual reasons. in my case, my academic father got a visiting professorship in paris that was renewed a couple of times, and when a permanent job came up, he and my mother found they liked living there and decided to stay. professors, engineers, etc. — the desis are out there but sprinkled about and not living in much of an ethnic-identified way.

    growing up in that context, much depends on what your parents want to impart to you with respect to indian/south asian culture, including travel back to the subcontinent, exposure to books, music, language etc. i got to go to india frequently as a child, we ate indian meals from time to time, and my dad had a collection of hindustani classical music he’d listen to. i didn’t learn bengali, only basic words, and i certainly had zero desi friends. my mother is american so we were actually stretched across three worlds, not two.

    fast forward and here i am. i’ve always felt indian, but my exploration of desi-ness was mainly a personal thing, not one lived in a group. it’s still personal but having good group conversations is wonderful. i’m sure for you it has and will be a personal thing too, and at the same time i think you’ll be glad to have a space like this one in which to think out loud, share and learn.

    you’re as desi as you want to be.

    peace

    anyway, point is, you are as desi as you wanna be.

  46. amen, brownfrown.

    not so much, your personal experience is as beautiful and precious as everyone else’s, and it would be good if you felt the same way. we can’t force you to do that, but we can ask for courtesy on a thread where people are sharing from the heart.

    peace

  47. one thing I’ve noticed among many ABCDs is the idea that they are “not the average ABCD”. The interesting thing is that this seems to be the norm and not the exception. This is essentially holding (most) other Indians to a stereotype, but not yourself.

    I think this can be applied to any group. Everyone likes to believe s/he is an individual unlike any other. And perhaps at the core of it all on an intimate level we all are very different from each other but on a superficial level we all fall into some level of loosely formed groups and stereotypes.

    Having said that it’s always offensive when someone holds us to a stereotype that we may not conform to 100% no matter whether we are a FOB or an ABD. It was well into adulthood that I learnt to open my heart to meeting people that shattered some of the stereotypes. But unfortunately I found them to be few and far in between. The general stereotypes still remain.