Just over a week ago SM commenter DesiDancer returned from a trip to Colorado and emailed me the following about a wonderful experience she had there:
I was invited to come teach dance classes at the East Indian Heritage Camp, last weekend. The organization, Colorado Heritage Camps, Inc. offers a series of ethnic camps (Latin American, Chinese, Korean, Desi, etc) every summer, for adopted children and their parents. They draw on members of the ethnic community to volunteer and help engage the families in culturally-minded activities during a 4-day camp, up in the mountains. In addition to fun stuff, there are also panel discussion with several different age groups, dealing with cultural identity, issues that may affect adoptees and their parents, and several child psychologists contribute to the curriculum. In addition to the dance classes I taught, I sat on a panel for jr. high aged kids, discussing reclamation of culture, biculturalism, and other issues…Over the course of 4 days, several of the activities included Ayurvedic medicine, traditional dance, Bollywood dance, Rangoli drawing, traditional vegetable painting/block printing, games like Cricket and Gilli-Danda, yoga, cooking classes, music lessons, and lectures on Indian holidays, Indian weddings, travel to India, Indian history–with a weird specialty class in Freedom Fighters, and a book group. We ate desi food, and every night was a party with desi music. The closing night of camp, all the little kids (and big kids) performed dances from their classes, and the parents in my adult class performed a dance for the families, too. I’d spoken to one of the Directors of the camp about getting a DVD of “Calcutta Calling” to screen at the camp, one evening, but I think she is going to arrange it for next year instead. Though she said she watched the video stream at PBS…They loved the documentary.
Some of you may recall the “Calcutta Calling” documentary we blogged about some time ago. In it several adopted Indian children who grew up in white families came together for the first time and took a trip to India. According to DesiDancer these camps might help to fill in some of the missing pieces for these mixed families by bringing them together with similar families:
Nobody was looking at the kids or the parents strangely, nobody had to explain, “yes, she IS my daughter” or any of the usual weirdness or unkindness that these families may encounter in their daily life. And all of the families are there because they support their child’s biological heritage and culture, and they want to include as much of it as they can, in their families, even if the parents don’t quite know how to go about it. This camp is a start in the right direction.
Sounds like they are always on the lookout for volunteers as well:
Year after year, children tell us that their counselor was the MOST important part of camp for them! Many of their parents agree! Our counselors are enthusiastic young adults, some adoptees themselves, some not, who have the same ethnic background as the adopted children at each camp. They participate in all of the camp workshops and activities with the kids, but MOST importantly, serve as positive role models for the children and families who attend camp. [Link]
DesiDancer, I’d love to hear more about these camps, and how to volunteer. Email me? 🙂
Just be careful because although this camp sounds fine (and DD is smart enough to know what’s what), there are many “heritage camps” that are designed to push Hindu right political agendas. For example, this this article:
See more here.
Saurav this organization seems to offer camps for adoptees from different heritages it’s obviously not VHP. I doubt they target adoptees anyways.
saurav, please read carefully the post and breadth and width of the organization.
you are loosing it. VHPA is one extreme, you are soon becoming another.
Kush, Saurav said “Just be careful because although this camp sounds fine (and DD is smart enough to know what’s what), there are many “heritage camps” that are designed to push Hindu right political agendas.”. He’s not “loosing it (sic)“, just drawing attention to something that he thought of when reading the post. Perfectly legitimate, if the point of all of this bloggage is to spark dialogue.
Thanks, Yeti–I appreciate this.
Yes, that was my point, not to say that this camp is hindutva-related. Which I thought would be clear from my having stated it directly. Next time I’ll put it in all bold-face and in caps lock.
but yes, the issue I raised is tangential, so hooray for good camps that help adoptees and their parents! 🙂 Carry on.
it certainly sounds interesting. of course what would be interesting for social research purposes is to follow these kids when they are older and try to understand how it impacted them – whether positive or negative etc. i can imagine it could well go in either direction. also i’m interested in ‘bi-culturalism’ – why stop at two?
“with a weird specialty class in Freedom Fighters”..
ahem!?
Saurav’s point was interesting – not essentially to ‘diss’ the idea of the camps but its certainly worth realizing that there are always folks out there waiting to hijack agendas when it comes to setting out ‘culture’ – after all – isn’t that a pretty powerful position to be in – to say ‘this is indian culture’.
personally i think its a bit funny if they didn’t do a bit of ‘mixing’ up their camps into something like an ‘international heritage’ camp. Ha.
I almost wish they had camps for the 1.5, 2.5 kids and their parents…It’s a different world, and a lot of the tensions I have with my parents and the world even stem from the fact that the world I am dealing with is SO foreign to the world my parents come from, so different than the one they can/have prepared me for…
People will always criticize. I think the camp sounds great. Good for you DesiDancer you’re doing a great seva.
This one story makes it all worthwile. Suffering your blog that is… No seriously, a great story. Thanks.
This sounds great- I think one of my friends was a counselor for this last year (the description is similar) and she said it was an amazing experience.
I do have to agree with Saurav, to just do your research and be careful, since not all camps are what they say that are… Back in high school I was a counselor for an HSS camp. I am not saying that all HSS camps operate the way I experienced it- my caveat for anyone who might take offense, but this camp was quite the fiasco… we were treated like and even called an army, learning commands, in straight lines, with strange automated movements… At first my friends and I thought it was funny, but then even a teenager knows (hopefully) that a line is crossed when derogatory comments were regularly made by the ‘leadership’ about other religions, and absolutely nothing negative could be said about India- even for a constructive discussion. I distinctly remember a 10-year old saying that Hinduism was tolerant of all religions and one of the teachers said that shouldn’t be the big picture, it was more important to keep India a Hindu country. To a 10 year old! That wasn’t the worst of it by any means…
This is no way is meant to bring down DesiDancer’s camp- this one is a heartwarming story, and it doesn’t at all sound like there was a subversive agenda. Just wanted to put my 2cents in for the tangential topic 😉
i don’t mean to pick on you saurav, but it’s really not fair to claim that ‘hindu heritage’ camps have hindutva intentions… VHPA may be a very unique exception, i hadn’t even heard of it before now. i have volunteered as a counsellor for hindu/indian camps before and at a ‘hindu heritage’ camp last summer… hindutva promoting never occurred.
there are far greater things to give to the kids and learn from them… i was so surprised by the ‘issues’ and ‘questions’ brought up by the kids… and it is not so important what kind of camp it is, all children in the teenage years are going through an identity crisis and and find communication gaps with their parents. all kids feel ‘different’ compared to some socially-accepted reference. and they are very aware and inquisitive, so they’re really looking for older peers who understand the issues/questions and offer some guidance, or just listen! they asked questions that i hadn’t even thought of, it was a great learning experience for me as well. the kids take away skills/lessons/impressions that they can apply in any social interaction and the counsellors also learn so much awareness, patience and understanding. oh and the very important lesson of keeping a large group of kids away from sugar after 4pm!!!
anyway, i just didn’t want the impression of hindu heritage camps being political to prevent anyone from going out and volunteering… it is a very rewarding experience for everyone involved.
well said Sumiti, and well done.
From your blog, I take it that you are Canadian. Can you share a little about these camps?
I am interested in promoting wildlife conservation, outdoor activity and nature awareness among south asian Canadian youth and would like to know if others have taken the lead in this.
very funny. ha ha.
hairy_d: these camps were actually in the states… there are camps held by the vishnu mandir in Toronto as well… it is a good camp from what i hear… check out their website. the problem i have observed with camps in the GTA is that there aren’t many peer counsellors, the camp days are organized and run my uncles and aunties… and well that defeats the purpose. but maybe all they need is a greater interest from the youth and things can change.
the camp i go to every year is in rochester NY, and they often invite speakers/ guests to talk about different issues. we run a nature and environment awareness session every year. there is a huge property behind the temple where the camp is held and we take the kids for a hike and point out animal habitats, ecosystems, talk about conservation etc… if you are interested, you can come and speak next year. just leave a msg on my blog.
you know it is funny to notice how scared some south asian kids are of the outdoors, an impression put forth by over-protective parents perhaps… and there is a big lack of environmental awareness, so you should defn approach the camps in the GTA as well if you have time… it is needed.
I agree…
perhaps the saddest thing to me was reading about the youngest of the Toronto 17… and he lied to his parents … he had never been to summer camp and used that as a ruse to get permission to stay waya and then the nutters took him to some terror training camp near orillia – … i was thinking … this kid is looking for god in all the wrong places… he never had a chance once the longbeards got to him.
well, i agree about growing this in the GTA – will launch it in the next couple of years
The first hindu heritage camp I attended was run by white people. Can’t get much more un-hindutva than that.
For real, Kenyadesi, for real. Not just for kids though: my mom could still use a lecture on “Why it’s not cool to remind your daughter that you were 23 when you got married.”
I have a little domain expertise here, both on the subject of adoption as well as youth camps sponsored by the numerous RSS “avatars” in the US. I heartily endorse both.
First of all, being an adoptive parent (is there such a word?) does not feel any different than being a biological parent, and even though I will never be able to get inside the mind of my adopted daughter, I don’t believe she feels “different” either. We talk about it openly. Her e-mail address starts with the word crazylilbengali because she was adopted from Kolkata when she was six months.
We have tried to give her as much exposure to Indian culture as possible without becoming didactic and controlling. I have missed a lot of Sunday football games because we are at Bal Vihar, the Sunday School every Hindu temple in North America seems to have. She has done her share of Bharat Natyam, trips to India, Hindi class, fasting on religious occasions and everything else. She recently got a job offer to sing in a group that sings bhajans on Saturdays. We declined because her Saturdays are quite filled with movies, IM and parties. We are not particularly religious as a family but I do believe in T.S. Eliot’s theories espoused in “Notes Towards the Definition of Culture.” Eliot was a poet and certainly not a man of the cloth. He believed that religion and culture were intertwined. At this point I would like to invite razib the atheist to say a few words.
As an ardent supporter of Indian culture, I have had some exposure to the right wing elements and their obvious willingness to get involved with our children. I will categorically state that I have not witnessed anything that preaches dislike or disapproval of other religions to our youth. They do emphasize pride in one’s religion, and perhaps there is a need for pride in the American context. In fact, I have found them politically correct even by American standards. There are certain camp games and activities that seem to refer to military discipline. They are disturbing to me, a first generation, RSS-phobic Indian. On the other hand, they could pass for physical ed, and what the heck is wrong with that! I am surprised that some Indian with a Christian name was insulted by some Hindu fanatic. I doubt if this fanatic would be given a responsible position even in the most conservative Hindu organization in the US. These guys know that the Indian brand of Hindutva does not work in the US. The second generation Indians just would not accept it.
Anyhow, with a daughter still only fourteen, it is still too early for us to brag. Only time would tell. Let’s hope she becomes a good human being first, then a good American or Indian or Hindu. Becoming a doctor or a lawyer wouldn’t hurt. I just had to say that.
thanks for the offer… i’ll drop by yourblog. i’m not a speaker, but i can show a bunch of kids how to get by and have a good time in the outdoors.
On anoter note, i need to come up with a plan for an npo which i hope to launch after discussion with my accountant – sumiti, your profile suggests you work in the ngo sector – how would you suggest i start putting an org structure around this – do you have any guidelines on setting up a sustainable, successful ngo in respect to organization, vision etc. actually, anyone else on this forum who is in the know, will appreciat eyour input.
but Hindu encapsulates something more shared.
…by most, but not all. Perhaps if you were a first-gen Indian, you would’ve grasped that, had you been able to learn more about the partition riots and such. On a funnier note, there are posters on trains going into Kerala in which Kerala calls herself “God’s own country.”
It’s a heritage camp for international adoptees and their families, period.-Unless the VHPA/BJP/SpoorLam had already gotten to these kids, when they left India as babies, there’s probably no interest or even knowledge of such extremist organizations. I’d bet the kids would rather play cricket or make rangoli than listen to some propaganda.
We have tried to give her as much exposure to Indian culture as possible without becoming didactic and controlling. I have missed a lot of Sunday football games because we are at Bal Vihar, the Sunday School every Hindu temple in North America seems to have. She has done her share of Bharat Natyam, trips to India, Hindi class, fasting on religious occasions and everything else.
Floridian, can she get by in Hindi? My new daugher is 1/2 Andhra and 1/2 Punjabi,–generation 3.0– and the only common language for mom and dad is English, so we’d like her to learn something else. I’ve also heard that Bal Vihars are good for Hindu instruction, and that many of the senior teachers are teenagers.
This is a fantastic post btw, congrats and thanks to desidancer.
Lovely..
If you gotta ask…
right on! That’s all you need to say about that, Forrest.
desitude, I’m not sure where you live, but in NYC the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has some amazing language instruction (as Cica and I have spoken about before), and I’d be willing to guess that they have a large rolodex of people around the country who could offer equally great language lessons, in different states around the US (they also have a UK branch)… good luck!
Thanks for the post, Abhi, and thanks for the comment-love, y’all! Heritage Camps is a fantastic organization, and the experience was beautiful beyond words. Anyone interested in volunteering can get on board via this form, whether you’d like to be a counsellor, a presenter, or sponsor a family’s attendance.
hmm… i didnt see a skill box for ‘the avant garde movement in chapati making: the cubist movement’. peoples’ minds are so closed, no? 🙂
nice job DesiDancer.
The reasons Indians are often so concerned with secularity is because we’ve seen first-hand for at least two generations how violent the alternative is. Copying Christian and Jewish fundamentalism/chauvinism is not the way to go. Hindutva and Wahhabi (and other “fundamentalist” movements) Islam in their current manifestations are both inventions of the modern era, reactionary responses to colonialism. We don’t actually need to copy oppressive ideologies to “match” or “beat” them.
On a completely different (and more topic-relevant) note: I’m particularly interested in language camps as well. I’m Marathi, and my (currently nonexistent) children will almost definitely not have an expatriate community of Marathi people with whom to learn our language, unlike Mallus, Gujjus, Punjabis, or Hindi speakers (from what I can tell). Hell, I could use a language camp myself. I hope that the 2.0 generation (me) does a good job in preserving our language and culture.
Bravo DD I know you’d touched on this earlier when we emailed last week but it was wonderful to hear details. That is absolutely fantastic. I’d love to hear what it was like for you coming from a dual cultural background and what your experiences were like growing up and how you related to these children.
To the earlier comments about VHP and Hindutava influences I can understand some of the negative reactions to heritage camps. I had a terrible experience unfortunately with the Swadhyaya in the US when I was young and it is quite possible that the political structure in the US and perhaps eve NYC for this organization was messed up but I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy to let their children be part of that organization. So I can understand the sentiment of being weary of such organizations.
Yes- sorry about my off topic post.
Yeti- I would totally be in on a Marathi camp, if one existed! However, since I’ve yet to be so lucky, I bought a computer based Marathi learning program before I went to India a few months ago and it did help- more of a conversational module, but I was a fan at any rate. If you’re interested, it’s called “My Marathi”, and it’s also a nonprofit project (even better!) – here’s the website http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1xqrx/mymarathi/
DD – what a great thing to be part of. Kudos! You must share some more about your experiences at the camp with us some time.
DesiDancer, what a wonderful opportunity to teach at this camp. I would love to hear more about your experiences, either here or off-blog.
I am also curious if/how our generation will pass on desi language skills to the next generation of desi-Americans.
What happened to MoorNam? Did the monkeys ban him? I kind of miss him.
This was definitely one of the more uplifting posts of recent memory. A big hand of applause to the parents and counselors for giving these kids some insight into their origins.
Talk to me seriously. I’m really interested in setting something like this up and have the resources (other Marathi peeps that speak Marathi) that would help as well. I can speak read and write it and would love to organize something even small scale but don’t know how to go about doing it alone because I’m not very involved with the Maharashtrian community.
childÂ’s biological heritage and culture
wtf is that supposed to mean???
yes, looking a particular way influences the way people perceive you. but culture is not in the blood. and what if the adoptee is from a muslim background? sending them to a camp with a hindu orientation might be going against their “biological heritage.”
sorry to be this way about it, i know the intent addresses a real issue in these kids lives. but if you are adopted by a english american, but are genetically brown, you happen to culturally be an english american who is genetically brown. parents and peers inculctate culture, it isn’t passed via some race soul. of course, very few here believe in a race soul, but there is to my mind too much tacit nodd to that sort of thinking in our culture today (though only for non-whites).
Razib — I thought you were all about genes. Frex, suppose that Aboriginal (native american) children were more vulnerable to alcohol addiction becuase of genes. Wouldn’t education in aboriginal cultural practices aimed at avoiding alcoholsim be a good idea?
Are there qualities Desis have that are passed along genetically? A propensity for Chick Flicks? Excess religiosity (haven’t you talked about religiosity being genetically influenced?). Stinky pits? Difficulty in relating to the opposite sex? Cultural practices that help mitigate these flaws may benefit adopted kids.
Well – I don’t really believe that shit. But I thought you may be more open to it.
ikram,
do you have to go into explaining what heritability is again? 🙂
the short answer is this: i think that a propensity toward believing in god is partly genetic. but not the particular god you believe in. if a brown kid is into religiosity, christ will suffice just as well as krishna. ask christians from kerala.
the bigger point is that i think many cultural markers are shibboleths which are meant to establish ingroup-outgroup markers. they don’t have functional significance aside from that.
what it’s supposed to mean is that said child, despite being raised in America, by American parents, may still often feel a closeness to their country of birth. The fact is that even if the child walks and talks “american”, reads Harry Potter and woofs down burger king while watching Friends reruns and singing the Star Spangled Banner, they are perceived by the outside world as still being brown, whether the child feels 100% American or not. I think the camp serves to address some of the mixed feelings and questions surrounding identity, as the children become more aware and/or participatory in the world outside of their family homes. The fact is there is no one answer– for some, the Indian culture doesn’t appeal or suit them, and that’s just as ok as someone who wants to embrace every facet of the culture– it’s a personal choice, and unfortunately a lot of children don’t know that the choice is theirs for the making, as opposed to what society will pin on them, and that it’s also a changeable decision, depending on where they are in life.
I can understand your question and where you’re coming from, razib– at the core of it, the point is for kids not to feel alone, and see that there are hundreds of other families like theirs– many of the families don’t live in metros like NYC or Bay Area, where there are desi adults in their community to serve as positive role models or answer the children’s questions about brown-ness. The camp further serves to create a social support network and an environment of kinship and sanctuary, for the families, and the children.
Pooja:
I am also curious if/how our generation will pass on desi language skills to the next generation of desi-Americans.
If both parents speak the language, its obviously much easier. I have some Gujarati 2.0 friends who live close by and the 3.0 youngins are quite fluent in Gujarati; when you have a cross-regional desi or desi non-desi family (and both parents don’t speak a common desi language), it will take some effort. And I have a feeling its best to start young.
desidancer, thanks! I’m not too far 🙂
Very well said, DesiDancer.
I have a friend who has a Korean adopted son. Both the parents are learning Korean language, and plan to many trips to Korea. Even in a small place like Corvallis, they have network of similar families.
Usually, at Delhi airport, I often see girls with white adopted parents. They all seem happy.
there is some backstory here between ikram & i which i will elaborate for future reference if anyone wants to explore this for themselves. basically, twin research shows/suggests that 50% of the variation in religiosity is correlated with variation in genotype. this does not mean that “religiosity is 1/2 genetic,” that’s an incoherent statement. rather, 1/2 of the variation in intensity in the population can be predicted from genetic variation. twins raised apart studies confirmed this 50% figure, but, it also showed that religious denomination was totally uncorrelated. that is, if a twin was very religious, their raised apart twin was very religious as well much of the time, but there was no trend that showed that they belonged to the same denomination. the implication is that religious individuals just need an institutional framework to express their propensity, if born into a catholic family, they will be sincere catholics, if born into a hindu family, similarly.
another point is that the environmental context chan shift the overall social numbers so that those with religion can go from 95% of the population to 70%, but the 50% number stays invariation because we are simply explaining the variation within the population, not any specific number. this is why the heritability for political orientation can stay around .5 in both the upper midwest and scandinavia, with the latter being farther to the left than the former despite genetic similarities. “conservatism” and “liberalism” expressed in a social context. in scandinavia that is farther to the left than in the USA.
anyway, the relevance to this discussion is this: there are some genetic/hereditary diseases and what not, as well as diet related issues, that adoptees need to know. but that is something you don’t need a summer camp to go to. there might be important psychological reasons to expose children to the culture that the society perceives them to be of. but be careful of this logic: if you take it to its conclusion i should have been sent to hindu summer camp since most people assume i’m hindu in my day to day life. sometimes you have to take what society deals you as a hand, but sometimes you need to refuse to budge on principle. just as white americans have the freedom and expectation that they can choose their culture, so should non-white amerians have the same choice and expectation. i have been called an “atheist muslim” by something, but my objection is simply that no one calls richard dawkins an “atheist anglican.” dawkins is given freedom choose.
DesiDancer,
when fully explicated like that i have no issues at all. my point is that quite often background assumptions start to slide in which imply that biology is somehow connected to culture. e.g., black social workers declaring that adoption of black children by white parents is “cultural genocide.”
Hmm. This actually describes my cousin in Bombay with uncanny accuracy.
The goalposts have shifted.
Oh, of course.
Agreed, but what sort of effort? In cross-regional desi families that I know, for example, the kids (and parents) have learned Hindi instead of either/both of their parents’ languages. The regional languages are basically lost to the children–don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Would love to hear other anecdotal evidence.
In cross-regional desi families that I know, for example, the kids (and parents) have learned Hindi instead of either/both of their parents’ languages.
people from pakistan who are punjabi in my exp. talk to their kidz in urdu.
DesiDancer, in your opinion, would the camp be appropriate/useful for kids adopted by one or two Desi parents?