I am often surprised at the propensity of hyphenated identity discussions that we have here at Sepia Mutiny. If you read this blog long enough, it often feels like the topics in the comments are repetitive, and in some ways it does feel like beating a dead horse. But on the flip side, the fact that we still have so many people participating in such a heated discussion on race, being South Asian, and manuevering through the complexities of this uniquely diasporic culture simply proves the need to have this safe space online to have these relatively anonymous discussions that we wouldn’t be able to have elsewhere.
In yesterday’s Washington Post, John Thatamanil talked about the juxtaposition of being South Asian American in this country, and the lack of ever fully being American.
The Allen incident offers evidence that America is not now or likely to ever be a color-blind country. How are South Asians to live with this truth? Resignation is not the answer. Vigorous political participation is. My youthful intuition that what makes me as American as any Mayflower descendant is citizenship — not race or ethnicity — was only partly on the mark. The piece of paper that validates our identities as American citizens can do only so much if we do little to struggle for recognition.There is also a second lesson to be learned from this incident. South Asian political engagement cannot be driven solely by the private interests of a single racial or ethnic group. America’s obsession with color has a long history that South Asians forget at their peril. Indian Americans and other affluent immigrant groups would do well to remember the civil rights struggles of African Americans and others without whom a racially inclusive American nation would have been impossible. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which opened the door to people from the Eastern Hemisphere, must be recognized as the fruit of a larger struggle to expand the meaning of the term “American,” a struggle fought on our behalf before our arrival. [link]
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p>The idea of what it means to be an American, through a South Asian lens is something I probably spend way too much time thinking about- if only because I am constantly challenging myself on the importance of voting and what exactly voting means in the scope of creating a South Asian American political voice. Are citizenship and voting merely parts of a false border created to divide our community? Are we aspiring to honorary whiteness as Thatamanil suggests? Is it true that we’ll never truly be American?
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Personally, I wouldn’t be able to do the work that I do to make our community politically engaged if I believed that it is impossible to overcome these barriers. In my world, I’ve redefined what it means to be American to include my hyphenated experience and I see the work that I do as to define my ‘American experience’ as on par with the civil rights that we as human beings deserve. For myself, I’ve redefined what it means to be a ‘patriot’, a ‘revolutionary’, and ‘political’ to include my experiences as a South Asian American and how I perceive that identity needs to be treated. With Macaca-gate still thriving and Traveling While Asian causing more problems then ever, I challenge everyone now to make some redefinitions of their own. And of course, I challenge everyone to go against the status quo and to also go register to vote 
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btw Taz rockz. she should run for office.
Dude. I didn’t appoint her an oppressor becauss she was white. I felt unsafe in this thread because anytime anything was said, she jumped in with her expereince which somehow was supposed to cancel mine (exotification topic) and to me, it is oppressive to come to a space where almost all the desi women on this space understand and know what it feels like to be exotified, and to have it negated by a white woman in India as a parralel experience, but she liked it. So I should like it too. Well. that to me feels like an oppressive statement. And THUS I acknowlegde that it must be due to her white privelege and lack of having a cultural sensitive training which is giving her a benefit of a doubt. (after all, she could be beligerant troll).
White or not, if my voice is diminished, I feel that it is oppressive.
BY the way…. I’m glad that SM has embraced you Taz. It’s been a few months since you joined as a poster, but I just wanted to say you were a good choice; as you can put into words what I feel, but sometimes I just don’t have the social science education/training to put it into the right words. And lord knows I would NEVER be able to find the literature you do, which definitely helps when you’re trying to express yourself or make a valid argument. You make it all make sense, and that feels GREAT 🙂
guest gori (#253):
This is the first time I’ve ever sincerely typed this:
LOL!!!
I don’t think the citizen/non-citizen border is as divisive and as big a barrier to conversation and political engagemment between as you might perceive. A large percentage of non-citizens, who are here on non-immigrant student/work visas and also those who are permanent residents but not citizens yet, do want to and will become naturalized citizens. They are not totally uninterested in American politics. There is variation in the degree of that interest of course, but neither the mean nor the variance is that different from any group of citizens anywhere else in the world.
The challenge is to not just focus on register-and-vote-now (which they can’t) but to engage them in topics which affect them now and which they can affect in future – immigration laws, public schools, hate crime, US-India trade and co-operation, outsourcing, small business ownership, race issues etc. Personally speaking, I am intimidated and eventually disengaged more often by trivialities like accents, clothes and lack of knowledge about US history (particularly when someone like razib is around) than by the fact that I can’t vote, yet.
Razib – My Egyptophile premik wanted to add something over in the other thread but comments are closed. Can he post them on your site? If so, send me a link where they would be most appropriately posted.
Jai – You are correct in saying that I should choose my words more carefully. I will try. I won’t change my moniker though because Siddhartha asked that I stick with one and he is one of the moderators of this site, if I understand correctly.
Regarding Jai’s comment in #227 regarding pardesis who travel to India with an “exotification” agenda, I call that “over-romanticising” India, and it is a phenomena I have amongst some members of my spiritual group who come to India for the first time and also for short visits. They read many wonderful things (some of you might consider it “mythology”) about ancienty Bharatiya sanskriti (Indian culture), and with the bright eyes and enthusiasm of small children who look at the world with wonder, embark upon a trip to India. It is completely innocent. I was something like that too years ago before reality set in and jaded me. It’s easy for people to see either the completely bad or the completely good about a country/culture upon a first visit. It’s when you settle down and make the place your own that the many subtle nuances come out. Still, I look back upon my innocent “romanticising of India” days and wish that I could go back to that mentality because it was a time of great peace and happiness for me (albeit through ignorant eyes perhaps). Not knowing the langauge also helped as I was not able to really tell if locals were speaking badly of me. I was in a type of bubble. That bubble has since burst but that’s OK, at least I’m not as ignorant as I was before, but sometimes I would like to trade knowledge for peace of mind.
Desitude in # 221; “Our parents came here for the money, because India did not offer them any opportunities. They knew very well that this country was founded on the graves of Native Americans, through broken treaties, treachery, and “Manifest Destiny,” and is considered by many to be morally illegitimate; they also knew that in large parts of the country, blacks were treated no differently than the lowly pariahs in Tamil villages.”
Gandhi expressed in his auto-biography that he felt Indians faced oppression and prejudice in South Africa as a type of collective karmic reaction to the oppression and prejudice they meeted out to other Indians back in India through the medium of the caste system and all that it entailed up to that point in India’s history.
Krishna explains in Gita that Karma and Karma-phal (actions and the fruits of actions, or reactions) are so intricate that they can be compared to a Banyan tree. A Banyan tree appears to have roots growing from the ground up, and then from the top of the tree down. In otherwords, it is extremely entangling and difficult to decipher where the roots begin and end. Hence the cycle of Karma and Karma-phal, actions and their reactions. Although the Gita does not neccessarily speak of collective karma for groups of people, communities, societies, etc, perhaps in Gandhi’s research of scriptural texts, he found such a concept, or perhaps he intuited that individual karma and collective karma crosses over at some junctures, so that although specific Indian individuals living in South Africa at the time and experience oppression may have never personally oppressed anyone else, still, as a whole collective karma may have crossed the boundaries into individual karma in their circumstance.
The same theory could be applied as to why white people in America seem to take the brunt of alot of negative feelings regarding oppression, slavery and colonization, despite the fact that they may never have oppressed any living being in this current lifetime. It may be collective karma at work.
“so that although specific Indian individuals living in South Africa at the time and experience oppression may have never personally oppressed anyone else, still, as a whole collective karma may have crossed the boundaries into individual karma in their circumstance.”
Wow. I’ve heard of ridiculous theories to justify prejudice, but Collective Karma really takes the cake.
“The same theory could be applied as to why white people in America seem to take the brunt of alot of negative feelings regarding oppression, slavery and colonization, despite the fact that they may never have oppressed any living being in this current lifetime. It may be collective karma at work.”
Furthermore, this part of your theory is not a logical extrapolation. If you had said something like “white people in America are now paying for their past practises of slavery, etc. and now they are experiencing slavery and prejudice” (which is obviously not a fact), then maybe your theory would make sense. But what you said, is not an example of your theory of Collective Karma.
Well, didn\’t take long to ban me, did it? and what did I say that was so offensive? How, exactly did you feel \’unsafe\’ was the computer screen going to explode in your face? In any event, since real, open discussion isn\’t tolerated here, I\’ll move on but I will say this, your post exemplifies exactly what I said, diversity and freedom don\’t mix. You don\’t want discussion, you don\’t even want to hear the opinions of people, who offer them honestly and without hostility. If you won\’t listen, and brand anyone who makes you feel unsafe fit for \’sensitivity training\’ (re-education) then as you are as much admitting your intolerance of other views. IF there were some assimilation ethic, there might be hope but as we can see, there is not. BTW, \”multiculturalism\’ has offically been declared \’dead\’ in the UK and France, and there will probably be a similar wave of reaction throughout Europe. God knows that the bureuacrats in the EU will think up next.
i don’t know taz, in many ways she has less power than us. is a white woman in india really powerful by virtue of being white? i suppose if you look back at the history of colonization you’ll see the white privledge; but look forward a bit. asian countries are quickly developing great economic, military, and even cultural (bollywood, indian writers) power. she a minority in a rising power and the sexual mistreatment of especially white women (who are stereotyped as willing sexual partners) is commonplace in india. And you’re the one feeling unsafe?
at the end of the day, the most vulnerable minority is the individual.
Pardesi Gori:
Please don’t start being sensitive. We’re not children here.
This entire thread has been an experience for me: I now realize I am oppressed.
I am a doctor. But I am brown. Oppressed! I am an American citizen. But I am brown. Oppressed! I am educated. But I am brown. Oppressed! I am a woman. But I am brown. Oppressed Oppressed!
*Okay, sorry, that’s kind of mean and I respect that some of you are offended, but really. Jump the Shark comes to mind with this thread….
**Advice to people who read Pat Buchanan: Stop. He ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. And this from a registered republican, too…..
And I know Pat’s not a Republican anymore. But, seriously, stop reading him. Waste of time.