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 
.
Hello Fei: Your post #35 and #130 characterize you as the typical malcontent, alienated, antiestablishment misfit that has a high propensity to turn terrorist. Or perhaps you are nothing of the sort but just a lazy bum who can’t even survive in a country like America.
If nothing else, this op-ed in the Washington Post is a good sign ™ in that, its a discussion of our place in the US. Its quite a feat for an ethnic minority in a country to have that kind of space, and it indicates, I think, on the part of the WaPo as well as the writer, and the people on this site and other places, that we are all on a similiar page. That page being, lets make this a fair-minded society in which ethnicity and difference are discussed and analyzed rationally
Ajit’s #138 “Besides do you really WANT to be accepted as just another American, I think our parents and their Indian values give us something to be very proud of and its better to be seen as Indian first and then American.”
Wah, beta, wah! I am proud of you. But in the same breath, I would disagree with you heartily. People like me made a conscious choice to come to America. Our children did not. This is their natural habitat, and that is precisely why it is important for them to be accepted as Americans. They cannot drop out of their own society to find refuge in some country called India just because there are a billion people there who look like them.
Anyone thought of working/living in India for a trial year/two year period (especially if you work in IT)? If you want to be accepted with ease then I think there’s no better place in the world for us.
so you’ve done it?
When I was going through a really tuff time in India regarding being a minority female and becoming vocal about my oppression, some Indian friends suggested I leave and go somewhere where I felt more “safe” – physcially and psyhchologically. Even a few posters on this site asked why I am there if I am experiencing such negativity.
Well, I did end up leaving and staying away for a good amount of time, thus gaining a perspective on things and a renewed strenght to deal with hardships.
If one feels terribly oppressed in one region of the world why not just move? I know alot of people come to America to make more money than they might in their birth country, but are material possessions really worth feelings of isolation, prejudice, loneliness, etc?
Of course then there are those who will stay on anywhere to fight the good fight and improve conditions and unjust mentalities in their new land, thus contributing greatly to the forward march of equal rights and oppurtunities. That is kind of what I try to do in India in my own way, but when it got to be too much I just threw in the towel. Nothing is worth personal un-happiness.
Wow, you as an expat white person were staying in India to fight for the oppression and equality of white people in India.
Gandhi would be so proud.
PS: thank you Taz for doing a post on this article. Very timely! In general, thank you SM crew, your articles are usually very appropriate for the events of the day. Its quite nice.
Day-to-day living in India is such a struggle that people are constantly rude to each other. Americans are more polite, because day-to-day living does not frustrate them. Material possessions are important too.
I think its important to note how diverse and fractured we are as a community. We’re divided by religion, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians, and everyone else. Then we’re divided by language, regional differences, class, gender, generation and immigration status. Growing up, the Indians I met and the ones my parents interacted with were all Hindi speaking Hindu North Indian professionals. The nice Siddharji cabbie who my parents loved talking to on the way to the airport never got invited to the same parties as them. Yet at the same time, American society sees us as a largely homogenous group.
So does anyone have any idea of how to come up with a platform for a community this diverse that is considered homogenous? The platforms I’ve seen from PACs and other organizations never seem to fully reflect our diversity. They seem to either be slanted towards Indian professionals who have citizenship and six figure incomes or towards younger desi political activists (like me). I thought that the immigration debate might unify us around an issue with us having a large number of undocumented immigrants and the overwhelming majority of us being immigrants or the children of immigrants, but our interest in the debate was spotty at best. Maybe its just ridiculous to try and organize a community this diverse around any single platform.
Taz, please tell me you made that pickup line up. Please. And if not, please tell me you replied with ‘I’d rather bin laden by anyone else. Now f*** off.’
Having taken numerous lengthy trips to India, I can corroborate what is being said about racism against whites. I’ve heard people say (in Bengali) that they are dirty and that they are difficult. I’ve heard people say they smell funny. I’ve heard people say they’re ugly – in fact, an old lady once walked up to my bf and said ‘you know, most of you are ugly, but you are good looking.’ One of my bfs and I spent a day being chased by this crowd of men, yelling and taunting us, in a small town (we were both very modestly dressed and acting propah). My cousin said it was because there was a white guy hanging around with an Indian girl.
The best story was when I got into a pitch dark train at night, backpack strapped to me and in a foul mood – the train was late and I found someone in my berth. I shouted at him but he just mumbled at me to go find his berth. So I stumbled through the dark, after yelling at him again. By the time I got to my berth, I realized half the train had heard this irate North American voice. The floor felt damp and so I just climbed up to my upper berth, resolved to sleep with my head on my backpack. Keep in mind it was pitch dark and no one could see the colour of my skin.
One person says in Bengali: ‘Did you see that? Went up with her shoes on.’ Another: ‘Well, everyone knows they’re filthy over there.’ Me: ‘What? What do you mean, filthy? Have you looked out the window lately? Now that’s filthy!’ First person: ‘You understand Bengali?’ Second person: ‘Well go back to where you came from then! No one here wants you!’ Me: ‘Look, you started this by calling me filthy!’ This shuts up second person. First person: Heh heh, she got angry.
Shoulda seen their faces the next morning.
It would be more efficient to restrict the comparisons (americans in india v/s indians in america) to the people we interact with on a regular basis. The opinions of random people in trains in an Indian village cannot compare with the guy you work with for several years and will not pronounce your name correctly or will still make cracks about arranged marriages. Or ,when discussing weekend plans, he/she goes on about washing his/her car and you tell him you wanting to see KANK and he is not interested in knowing why. He/she still thinks of you in some temporal fashion. That waht he/she learns from you will not serve him/her. Imagine an American in India and his/her colleagues would have hundreds of questions. Annoying, perhaps, but at least there is a give and take.
Me thinks the Indian instinct is to connect with as many people as we can , however spottily. But the American way is to be more picky. Four wheel drive people DO NOT hang out with two wheel drive folks. Makes it a little less messy – but isn’t life supposed to be?
I can’t wait for the day they sell samosas in those vending machines.
John Thatamanil is telling the godawful truth about our status here, which is probably why its upsetting so many people.
America is an idea, a state of mind, a shared belief that doing your own thing, even ridiculous things, is your right. Sure it is a geographical area with its own confining traditions, but the mind of America is still one of the wonders of the world
C’mon mate. That type of anthropomorphizing of ‘nation’ is characteristic of nineteenth century essentialist thought. We, as citizen’s do not need hagiographies. How about the rising inequality? The disaster that is New Orleans? The misery of the African American underclass? The hate crimes against Sikhs and Muslims and against Hindu temples? The creeping Christian Nationalism? The high suicide rate among elderly white males? The nativist insecurity of the ‘majority’ community because of their declining population? The declining importance of America as financial center (Check out who is doing the deals these days, it’s Londonians, not New Yorkers). Let us see things for what they are.
Oh Please.
Give me a goddamn break, already.
Also: Kindly stick to one moniker per comment thread. It’s pretty clear in this case that all the different versions of “pardesi gori” are the same person, but not everyone realizes, for instance, that “The Other Pardesi Gori” is actually the same one. Anyway, it’s a custom of courtesy here that while aliases are allowed, people stick to one moniker per thread. Forgive me if that oppresses you.
“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, if it often feels like the topics in the comments are often repetitive”
Hey Taz- did you intentionally use the word “often” too “often” to make a point? 😉 Great post…
This is the wrong thing to say to people from “The Mystic East”. Nobody knows exoticization like an Asian woman does. Exoticization is othering, and not welcome when when you don’t want to be an Other. And even if you do want to be an Other, exoticization doesn’t allow you to do it on your own terms, because it’s always somebody else’s appropriation of who you are based on their imagination of what you are. No matter how enchanting and flattering it may seem at first (and believe me, I know), is ultimately dehumanizing, especially for women. I’ve gone through a period in my life (as many other desi girls I know) in which I have used my race and ethnicity to exoticize myself in hopes that it would get me attention. My word, I got a lot of attention. But I quickly realized that what they saw in me was a stereotype that I had no hand in creating, and everytime I played into that stereotype I allowed my identity, and, in a way, the collective identity of my fellow South Asian Americans to be essentialized–and who can argue that the essentialization of an individual’s identity based on his/her race or ethnicity is not dehumanizing?
The perception of white women in India is complicated. There is the undeniable colonial legacy of Eurocentrism and white supremacy (please do everyone a favor and do not dispute this here). I’ll grant this though; there is also modern Indian media, which, disallowed from portraying brown women as sexually deviant, began to use white women instead, and inadvertantly created an image of the white woman as a sexual deviant–not someone to take seriously, but as a sex object. (I have a whole theory on why its white women, not any other kind of non-Indian woman, but that’s another discussion). Anyway, when those Indian dudes are gawking at you they’re thinking of … well, let’s just say that the exoticization of humans has historically had a very sexual subtext.
So my question is, if you’re going to “fight the good fight” against those awful, insufferable, oppressive Indians (really, who do they think they are to resent whiteness after all the good its done for them?!) how the hell can you say at the same time that you actually enjoy being exoticized? Your comments outside the Hare Krsna post have only demonstrated how self-absorbed and uninformed you are. If you want, I’d be happy to add a couple more readings to the booklist Taz is preparing for you.
Is there a red state-blue state difference in terms of thinking of oneself as American for South Asians? Did (or do) you feel any less American when you lived in (or visit) a different part of the US of A?
I was born in CO and lived there for quite a few years, not continuously. Not the reddest of red states, but rather the blonde region. I don’t feel any less American, but I did feel a bit uncomfortable after 9/11, because I felt like everyone was looking for me. This only made me homesick for Berkeley, so I guess I’m a BayArean more than anything. :-p
Exotic Girl:I’m sorry you experienced racism in India. It’s unclear what you meant though, since you seem to have enjoyed it, so I’m not sure how sorry I am for you. Racism is bad, even when its against historically powerful white people, even when its in India. Power is not always historical and is often situational. I don’t like it in India any more than anywhere else, and if I see that someone is threatened or marginalized b/c she or he is easily marked out by their skin, I’d hope to help them.
But first of all you seem to fundamentally misunderstand our complaint. South Asian derived culture is not other because we are not other. We are American, just like you–that’s the whole point of this thread. So my sari is not any more other than my friend’s kilt. It may be newer, it may be less demographically significant, but by virute of us being here and us claiming it, it IS American. We say it’s American, and we have every right to declare somethign to be American as you do.
And secondly, it is a logical fallacy to say, “Oh I don’t mind, why do you?” when someone is making a rational complaint about something. That’s like a masochist berating a domestic violence victim.
me too. sincere offer.
Tired and cannot type.
because I felt like everyone was looking for me
looking AT me.
And secondly, it is a logical fallacy to say, “Oh I don’t mind, why do you?”
absurdity, not fallacy.
To the person who wrote comment #154 (“American Pride”) — an IP check suggests that you are the same as one of our regular commenters. We will assume therefore that what you said is satire, though it does not read that way to the monkeys in the bunker. Be aware that this is the kind of comment that gets people banned from the site. Thanks.
Can a common Indian person be browbeaten just like that?
Using Indian villagers and his/ her lack of knowledge of a white (or western) person is highly self-serving and even highly condescending to browbeat them. They have almost next to nil information sans “sexy angrezi” movies (sometimes dubbed/ sometimes not dubbed in local language) and/ or girlie magazines. Their exposure is extremely non-existent in that sense. On top of it, almost 200 years of colonial legacy makes more it complicated. They even have very little exposure to urban centers in India.
For that matter, all the domestic help my parents have – gardener, maid servant or a scooter rickshaw wallah in Delhi – for them west is something they may have seen on TV (if they can afford it or where they work or at the bazaar). I am not justifying them but putting a context. They do not watch CNN or Fox News. For them, there are bigger battles – food for the evening.
Walk outside the airport, you get mobbed. Life is still a struggle for most of them. You have to cut them some slack.
Sexual harassement is an universal phenomena everywhere and sure, in India it is mega-rampant because of the social mores. This needs to get better.
All this said, I know a lot of westerners who spent a lot of time in India and Nepal and found it very satisfying, and were smart enough to navigate (or steer) clear of sticky situations.
As a 1-gen living in Houston for 6 years and traveled all over the US and a lot of Europe, my experience has been that while the US is not perfect, it does immigration and multiculturism better than most places I know (can’t comment about Oz or Canada).
Most fellow Indians I find who are disappointed that the US is not as assimilating as they think either 1) do not make a sincere effort to understand American culture/interact with people 2) possess an attitude of superiority regarding the greatness of Indian culture 3) are turned off by a handful of prejudiced people.
Sure, some people are racist, a lot of people are xenophobic, and there are stereotypes and prejudices against brown people at work. Don’t know how it would compare to some of the disgusting attitudes towards Americans (esp colored people) I see among fellow FOBs.
Well, the ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans’ thing will always apply. Sometimes it may be just superficial things (eg: use some f*cking deodorant before you go to work). Sometimes it may be changes in your fundamental values (eg: treat women and subordinates with respect at work).
My point is simply that if you are an immigrant, you have to make some sincere effort to assimilate and you will find plenty of nice and accepting people. That’s my experience. Why should it be otherwise?
If you can identify terrorists so easily then you should have been in that North West flight so that 12 innocent Indians would have been spared the harassment and mental anguish for having the “wrong” name and skin tone.
India has been suffering from Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism longer than these Western states, but has never resorted to singling out people with beards or people having Muslim names. Let’s face it, it’s not me who is alienated but us, the “brown” folks. So, before you proudly say “I’m a proud Amrikan”, wear and fake beard, change your name to Muhammad something and take out your cell-phone in a plane and then see what happens. At that moment, all feelings of “Amrikanism” should go down the drain.
I was starting to feel Amrikan but then this happened…. http://www.asianvibrations.com/cgi-bin/getGigNews.cgi?newsNumber=52&db=AV
Am I American? Yes.
Admittedly that choice is much more obvious and urgent for me than it might be for others here. There is quite a bit of Indian in me. My father’s family are Tamil Catholics. Does that make me a real Indian? I doubt it. My mother’s family, you see, were hicks from a small town in southwest Louisiana. I was born at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans. My parents divorced when I was young. I spent most of my childhood in New Orleans. To be more accurate, I lived in Terrytown, a grubby, blue collar suburb across the river, a place (in the 1970’s at least) where you might see a recognizable desi on the street every other month or so. As a very small child I rooted for the Indians in all of the Westerns I watched. I honestly didn’t know the difference. My dad, when he was still around, did little to help. He was all about the assimilation. (It took his second marriage to make him into a born-again Tamil) Even now my Tamil extends little beyond “Vanakkam” and “Gort! Klaatu barata nikto!” We did manage one extended visit to India when I was seven. I have not been back since. Later in life I tried to make up what I’d lost. I became interested in Indian history and culture… interested to the point of obsession. I am currently… God help me… pursuing a graduate degree in a topic related to South Asia. Yet while I have acquired quite the academic knowledge of India and things Indian, I know that it is no substitute for actually living as an Indian.
There is one further obstacle.. the one that in the end really matters. My skin is light. It’s very light.. well past “wheatish”… to the point where I can very easily pass as white. That is if I’m “passing” at all. It has been suggested in many places… including this forum… that form dictates function. If I am treated as white, then I am white. There is no way I can truly be desi… to absorb that history and shared experience… without feeling its true weight, without facing the difficulties of living in a brown skin. It matters little what I want or how much I know. I’d still be three steps behind some authentically brown kid who’d spent most of his life being raised by wolves.
While I can pass casual inspection from strangers… or even co-workers and other acquaintnaces, who will every now and then spew out nastiness in my presence they’d never dream of saying in front of a “real” brown… there’s no way I can pass muster with a true hardcore racist. Yes, I have had run-ins with a few. If the geopolitical situation ever comes really unhinged… say if some radical faction of the Sangh Parivar decides to show those Al Qaeda mouth breathers what real terrorists are all about… and more sophisticated and pervasive discrimination against Indians/South Asians becomes the norm… I doubt my green eyes will help me all that much.
So what am I? I don’t know. There are times when I long to be Indian, really Indian. And sometimes I wonder if it’s best to accept the obvious, take on my mother’s maiden name and forget this whole, unhealthy obsession. Like all of you I am angered by the slights and insults visited upon desis in this screwed-up, “new normal” post 9/11 society. I come here to monitor the latest dispatches from the Macaca Wars. I laugh at all the jokes and nod at all the pointed comments directed at them. Those lowbrow idiots. Those rednecks. Those goras. Lal Bandaron indeed… I do this for a while. Until I remind myself that as much as I am one of you, I am also one of them.
I’ve never thought of myself as a super patriot. I certainly don’t own any “Love It or Leave It!” bumper stickers or any Toby Keith CDs. Nonetheless I am committed to being an American. I’ve drunk the Koolaid and bought into all that hearts and flowers bullshit about equality, freedom, justice, no colors but red white and blue… that wonderful place that, if it doesn’t exist now, might exist someday. It’s not just that I want to be an American. I have to be. If I can’t be an American, what else can I be?
While a lot of people here have been meditating on their own status as Americans or something else… we need to be reminded that this is about more than just brown people. The principles that this country was built on are being threatened on many more fronts than that. It is all too appropriate that this thread surfaced on the day it did. There are many more people out there whose status as “real” Americans is currently under review. You guys might remember that something awful happened in my hometown about a year ago. It happened to a lot of people, black, white and every color in between. Those of my relatives who still live there all managed to survive mostly intact… with their lives, their health, their property. But I fear that many of the folks I grew up with… went to school with, played ball with, hung out with, drank beers with, lived with… went under the wheels that day. If not exactly them than many, many people just like them. And not that many people cared. That’s what I have to assume, given the remarkable lack of effort expended in making them whole… or in the very worst case… honoring their memory. The excuses offered in support of this neglect… implicit or explicit… all boil down to the same assumption. They are not real Americans. They might be too different from “us”… by deed or omission they may have forfeited their citizenship… or they may never have earned it at all.
I find it disturbing that some people here seek to soothe the sting of insults at their expense by lashing out at those they assume to be even lower on the foodchain… or comforting themselves with the idea that their status as Americans can be assured by a lofty enough tax bracket. Embracing the idea that citizenship can be bought and sold… is just as foolish as presuming that it can be easily discerned by color, faith or culture. Careers and financial markets are no more stable than wars, diplomacy or the politics of the moment. They are about as predictable as… hurricanes. We have seen just how dangerous hasty assumptions about any of these things can be. Citizenship shouldn’t be based on a quantifiable measuremunt of class, ancestry or pigmentation. It should be based on a committment to values and ideals that will outlast the next storm or conflict.
For all of us who ridicule “people who dont matter at all”… on the day before 8/29 of all days… shame on you. We of all people should know better than that. Only God knows who will “matter” tomorrow… and who will be left stumbling in the ruins while their “betters” watch and laugh…
If we can’t all be Americans… what point is there in being an American at all?
BD,
that was a very good post. as the likely future father of biracial children i would be proud if they were was eloquent as you!
that form dictates function. If I am treated as white, then I am white.
hell no! it is by belief that you are shallow be known, not your blood or bone.
BD,
Very well written.
I have lived in Louisiana for 7 years (Baton Rouge and Lafayette). I know New Orleans quite well. I have been deep in the swamps, the bayous too.
e shallow be known,
shall be known. sorry, that have be corrected, archaisms are messy….
Branch Dravidian – nice post.
I don’t think desis will be considered to be American by the average person in the U.S. for a long while, perhaps not in our life times. To the average person in this country, American=White. The Chinese have been here since the mid-nineteenth century; they are still viewed as foreigners and cultural others, unlike Irish, Italian and Eastern European immigrants, who were eventually accepted as White and then considered to be American. This nation has been white supremacist for so long, it’s gonna take a good while to see that go away I think.
Malcolm X said it pretty well, (I’m paraphrasing) “Any blue-eyed thing out of Europe is an American the moment he steps in America, but you and me, we still aren’t Americans.”
“Why then do you like it, and I hate it?
One word. Power.”
Taz – HOLLA!
“If one feels terribly oppressed in one region of the world why not just move? I know alot of people come to America to make more money than they might in their birth country, but are material possessions really worth feelings of isolation, prejudice, loneliness, etc?
Of course then there are those who will stay on anywhere to fight the good fight and improve conditions and unjust mentalities in their new land, thus contributing greatly to the forward march of equal rights and oppurtunities. That is kind of what I try to do in India in my own way, but when it got to be too much I just threw in the towel. Nothing is worth personal un-happiness.”
Ummm.. One problem – most of us were BORN here. This isn’t some “new land” – this is where we were born, just like you. There is no throwing in of the towel. This is my “birth country” and material possessions have nothing to do with tolerating isolation and prejudice. Can’t say I have too much in the way of “lonliness”, not with so many fellow macacas here on SM 😉
BD, your post is “inspirational” and all, but you are full of nothing but idealism – let’s get down to Earth and what the situation is really like. The fact is that there are certain (non-white) groups in America who will never be considered “Americans”. Desis, Asians, and Hispanics can attest this fact. Even African-Americans, after living in the US for generations are still treated as second-class citizens. They are not being lynched anymore, but racism against them still exists. Today it is institutionalized and subtle. Hispanics have also been living here for generations but they are still lumped together as Mexican illegal immigrants. Similar stereotypes exist for Desis ( and Middle Easterners) as well (terrorist, smelly etc). If racism like this continues to exist, then how can we claim to be assimilated and call ourselves American? Being first, second, third or 99th generation has nothing to do with this. This is why you get someone who was born here still being called racist names. Let’s face it: the situation hasn’t changed since the first slave ships arrived in America. What makes anyone think that it will ever change? I believe we should forget any false assumptions of us ever being considered Americans. We were never Americans and never will be.
My my, Fei. Let’s just slit our wrists and be done with it then, shall we?
Malcolm X said it pretty well, (I’m paraphrasing) “Any blue-eyed thing out of Europe is an American the moment he steps in America, but you and me, we still aren’t Americans.”
Very well put. I guess Malcolm X knew what he was talking.
In gradaute school, quite who became my close friends are from Europe. They were assimilated the first weekend they were here. I sometimes have a good laugh about it with them.
Not quite, but I don’t agree with Razib either. You’re ethnically half-desi (I assumed “half” from the way you spoke of your father). You have every right to your duality, regardless of how you are recognized. The fact that you have what’s refered to as white “passing privilege” just means that you are also responsible for the white privilege you inherited. My Armenian friend is hella fair, but if you asked her, she would reply firmly that she identifies as a woman of color. Still, being the respectful and informed person she is, does not deny her white privilege, something which comes as a result of other people seeing her as white. It’s true you haven’t faced the kind of racism I have living in my browner skin, so you’re right that you can never fully understand the monoracial desi experience. You should know that your mere recognition of the fact goes a long way, and I do appreciate it.
Dude, as long as your obssession doesn’t stem from you exoticizing your desi half, then don’t abandon it!!! Self-determination is an important part of dignity, and everyone deserves dignity. As I mentioned earlier about othering, they can call me whatever they want, but I have a right to appropriate my own identity, even as I recognize the privileges/disprivileges I have from other people seeing me in a different way. I’m a monoracial desi born in India, and I lost myself in America trying to be white. Came to my senses, but not soon enough. So here I am today, trying to find myself in books written by other people on my own culture, same as you. I have to admit my privilege of access to my desi family, but even then, my family is small and there’s only so much information I can extract from them.
Unlike you, I didn’t want to be an American, but like you, I realized that
I’m still not happy about that, but I live here now. I can’t go back because I’m simply not ready for that kind of a committment. Even if I did, I know I wouldn’t belong there either. It’s sort of a perpetual exile, and I’ve heard multicultural people say the same thing in terms of their cultural identity, but we don’t have to be so fatalistic about it. As long as I live here, I’m a South Asian American and I have to recognize my South Asian American privileges as much as my South Asian American disprivileges. I’ll just have to deal. So I’m an activist. Do your thing, man, but don’t give up on the desi in you.
155 · razib_the_atheist on August 28, 2006 08:46 PM · Direct link
Anyone thought of working/living in India for a trial year/two year period (especially if you work in IT)? If you want to be accepted with ease then I think there’s no better place in the world for us.
so you’ve done it?
I am guessing you are thinking I am one of those people who talks about going to India but never does. Well you are sort of right I visit often and feel a great sense of belonging everytime I go. I realize visiting is nothing like living there. The reason I made the comment was because I have been inspired to go because one of my friends from the UK recently went for a few months and loved it (and talked about ease of attaining belonging). My uncle is currently in the process of permanently moving back to India right now after living in Canada for 13 years (no one believed he would actually do it!). After he is settled there again and my current work term with my company is done here I definitely intend to try it and if I like it stay. With initiatives like pio/oci it virtually risk free for people like us now since we can always come back if things turn out not as planned.
154 · Floridian on August 28, 2006 08:43 PM · Direct link
Ajit’s #138 “Besides do you really WANT to be accepted as just another American, I think our parents and their Indian values give us something to be very proud of and its better to be seen as Indian first and then American.”
Wah, beta, wah! I am proud of you. But in the same breath, I would disagree with you heartily. People like me made a conscious choice to come to America. Our children did not. This is their natural habitat, and that is precisely why it is important for them to be accepted as Americans. They cannot drop out of their own society to find refuge in some country called India just because there are a billion people there who look like them.
I am not sure whether or not you were being sarcastic with your first sentence but I’ll take it that you were not 🙂 Anyway, I understand what you are saying about your children, that is how I used to feel when I was growing up but dropping out of one society to find refuge in one where there are people who look like them is not as far fetched as it sounds. It is unlikely in the US but some other western countries can push someone to do this I believe. At this point I should state that I was born and raised in the UK, not the US and I am currently living in Canada. I was frustrated because I could not understand why people treated me differently when I so stongly felt that THIS was my country, after all it was all I knew. Growing up I have learned why and a big reason is that we are still a minority and therefore relatively rare in this country so we will be seen like that for a while and I really do not think there is anything we can do about this. I think your kids will understand this too and because of this reason try to look towards India and learn more about it. It is not just the west that does this, even in India there are so many east Asian looking people in the north eastern states and they are supposed to be Indian but Indians on the western side often call them ‘chine’. I learned how to read, write Punjabi and Hindi, go to India as often as I could and all this why? All because I was made to feel like an outsider in my supposed own country while growing up. Simple as that. I do not have anything bad feeling towards the UK, as I said in my earlier post I am grateful for having grown up there despite sometimes wishing I had been born in India (perhaps my case is worse than normal because I was severly bullied over my years at school). All of this is better in the US I have found since I often go there for work reasons. So perhaps your kids will feel more American and really feel like its worth pushing for better acknolwedgement. As for me I was pushed away so far that I never even want to consider being part of the country for the long term and I have tried to look towards India to figure out where I want to be long term. Canada, much like the US is very nice however, and I have never felt as much as an outsider as I did in the UK but even so I have had the “go home you ******* immigrant” shouted at me once on the the street while someone drove past in their car and other incidents but nothing too bad. I must stress that I am still grateful for growing up in the west because when i got to India and see how some people have lived such ignorant lives I wish they could see more of the world and understand how it all fits together but parents who move to India must be mindful that their children will inevitably be considered an INDIAN-American.
Someone mentioned the “foodchain” that still exists. White Americans have hard time assimilating with Indian-Americans…they feel that they were here first..and as a result have “higher authority”. Those very Indian Americans (mostly ABDs) “discriminate” when they interact with FOBS. After spending half a dozen or so years in the US, these FOBs (now with green cards) start the cylcle all over again.
no offense, but some of you sound like the white supremacists who troll my sites on occassion talking about how non-whites will never be integrated, how we will inevitably be aliens. perhaps you are both right, but i will pray to the non-existent god you aren’t, and hope for a better day. until then i strive, with realism and pragmatism, but not weighed down by pessimism.
and ajit, i had no idea whether you had or do live in india. but, i encourage individuals with your sentiments to try it out, and stay if you like it. i’ve experienced living as the only non-white in my age group for years at a time. i have lived in areas where the term “colored” was still used. i am not unfamiliar with racism, but there is something in my spirit which simply could never conceive of imagining the resentment and disappointment with my country that some of your seem to feel. my stomach is full, my wallet is thick, my personal life is satisified. my home is filled with books and my days are filled with work which taxes my mind and not my back. there are so many things to live for. i do not deny that racism and prejduice are issues in this world of ours, but i think that when put in context we need to be thankful for what we have as brown americans not make too much of our relatively trivial problems when set next to other groups. i had a friend who complained how he was given extra scrutiny every few months when he was going to board a plane, but i asked if he would trade his shoes for those a black man who walked city streets day in and day out with others fearing him.
p.s. when i visited bangladesh a few years ago everyone was brown like me. i suppose i didn’t “stand out” like i do now (actually i did, i’m a little tall at 5’8 believe it or not over there! :). but i never thought, “ah, here i am with my own people, and no one hates me for my skin color.” i just can’t relate. it was great being back in my country about a month abroad.
brown_fob
There is a neo-caste system presented in descending order:
White American: Bob Sahib ABD: Harry Guppie (his father was Hari Gupta from Meerut) FOB with citizenship: Harry Gupta (used to be Hari Gupta) FOB with green card: Hari Gupta is still Hari Gupta but his wife Kavita Gupta has become Kathleen Gupta FOR on student visa: Hari Gupta and his newly wed wife Kavita Gupta from Meerut.
Entitlement, my man.
Razib, if you ever have time you should check out a book called “Faces at the Bottom of the Well” by Derrick Bell. It’s an amazing, entertaining book in which the author lays out quite convincingly the argument that racism is a permanent fact of American society. If you’re interested in these types of issues, definitely check out that book, it’s a great read. Since the author argues through the use of allegories, you would only need to read a couple of his short stories to get what he’s saying.
Interesting post. I was born in the U.S. and spent ages 4-18 in a 98% WASP college town – liberal haven or jello pool, take your pick. The only times I ever FELT singled out for “Indianness” were when teachers mangled my name the first day (hence the “JAnani like JEremy” mnemonic). I did feel socially maladjusted until high school, but I chalked this up to being the teacher’s pet (and wearing orange leggings and carrying a holographic lunchbox); I wonder, now, how many classmates saw me as That Damn Indian. Since high school 98% of the close friends I’ve made have been white. I didn’t plan it that way; it’s the demographics of the places I’ve lived, the interests I’ve happened to share with people. Occasionally my whitey friends and I will discuss color and culture, but only if I bring it up – their investment is obviously less (the heavy Identity discussions occur with the biracial gay childhood friend, who’s had a harder road than I have). People I’ve met in more rural settings have been quicker to comment on my “foreignness,” albeit in a respectful and curious way. But generally I go on my way and no one makes a fuss. So is this feeling of overall “blending in” the result of genuine postracial amity, multicultural conditioning on my audience’s part – or willful blindness on mine? What do I really Signify to the (98% white) kids I teach at a Midwestern Big Ten university? I’m not positive, but I’ve found that knowing pop culture usually wins them over pretty quickly. Want to show the new generation you’re an American? Know the finalists on American Idol…
tandon,
u krak me up. are you in the land of green pine treez again?
“ah, here i am with my own people, and no one hates me for my skin color.” i just can’t relate. it was great being back in my country about a month abroad.
It might have something to do you are too used to vestern life style and air-conditioner.
I guess you and Muhammed Ali are two end members of minority in USA.
In the end, who is going to have lasting legacy in America……the judgement has not come in yet.
It might have something to do you are too used to vestern life style and air-conditioner.
my family in bangladesh has air conditioner. and drivers and all that other shit. hell, i didn’t have a cell phone then but all my cousins did! (including the one in the madrassa)
razib,
i was in delhi/ north india in june a few months ago (summer in India after 1988), and it took me 3-4 days to make any sense in Indian subcontinent summer heat – this being my 6th visit to India since 1999.
people are too cell phone crazy in South Asia.
ps: don’t take me too seriously. i was using air conditioner in general sense.
rain drops are big in brownland.
not a pitter patter, but a splish splash.
Pardesi Gori, if you’re still reading this: where in India were you?
When push comes to shove as it eventually will (an economic depression, nuclear attack by terrorists etc), the party will be over. South asians will be the most velnerable group.
So if I wise up and decide to join the New Brown Order… you guys will gladly take in a pink-skinned freak like me? [Uhhhhhh] Yeah, that’s what I thought…
If you realy have this much time on your hands… you might want to head down to St. Bernard Parish… and maybe Metarie, Gentilly, Terrytown, Biloxi, Gulfport… and a whole lot of other places… and straighten out all those ingrates and slackers they have hanging around. You can remind them how easy they’ve really had it… how they’ve just been living off of the fruits of their whiteness all this time… Of course you’d better wear a cup. And a pair of track shoes…