Monthly Archives: September 2006

American Babel

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Back in the day, I had an Italian co-worker who had the oh-so-Italian name “Enzo” coupled with the deadly, oh-so-Italian accent. The amazing thing about Enzo was that it didn’t matter one bit what was actually coming out of his mouth – the ladies in the office always had the same swooning reaction, “oh Enzo, say ‘operating system’ again. It sounds so sexy.”

Blech.

Despite having a pretty American accent myself (with an occasional touch of TX), I knew enough about how the world worked to know that one day, just once, I’d love to hear women swoon at the Indian accent. And on that day, my proverbial ship would finally come in and perhaps a few perceived ethnic slights would be righted. But, as Russell Peters once quipped, the primary thing the Indian accent is good for is cutting the tension.“The primary thing the Indian accent is good for is cutting the tension.”

The lesson? Enzo’s Italian accent evoked the exotic beauty, power and grace of a Ferrari the same way DesiTalk brought forth the rugged manliness of Apu.

So, the following commercial didn’t really move my meter much. TV Junkie that I am, I’ve usually got the boob tube on in the background while working. And, as a result, I probably get more than my fair share of 30second pop culture. So like many of you, I’ve come across a series of TV commercials for L’Oreal Cosmetics starring none other than our own Aishwarya Rai… Continue reading →

We Are Perfect (Thanks to Our Humility)

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Here we go again:

They have funny accents, occasionally dress in strange outfits, and some wear turbans and grow beards, yet Indians have been able to overcome stereotypes to become the U.S.’s most successful immigrant group.

Another season, another self-congratulatory article about desis as a model minority. At least this piece — by “BusinessWeek.com columnist and accomplished businessman” Vivek Wadhwa — drops the M-bomb from the outset. It’s titled “Are Indians the Model Immigrants?” and after the self-exoticizing intro (funny accents! strange outfits! turbans!), goes through the usual recital of achievements: median household income, hotel ownership, doctors and academics (sans supporting data), Indra Nooyi. All of which leads to this burning question:

Census data show that 81.8% of Indian immigrants arrived in the U.S. after 1980. They received no special treatment or support and faced the same discrimination and hardship that any immigrant group does. Yet, they learned to thrive in American society. Why are Indians such a model immigrant group?

I’ll let you read the article to find out the incredibly profound answers, which Wadhwa offers “in the absence of scientific research” (i.e., by pulling out of his butt) and “as an Indian immigrant” who has “had the chance to live the American dream.” You’ll learn, for instance, that such uniquely Indian traits as education, family values, humility, and “determination to overcome obstacles” account for the community’s great fortune. But let’s jump to Wadhwa’s 12th and final explanation:

12. Integration and acceptance. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, which conducts worldwide public opinion surveys, has shown that Indians predominantly hold favorable opinions of the U.S. When Indians immigrate to the U.S, they usually come to share the American dream and work hard to integrate.

Indians have achieved more overall business success in less time in the U.S. than any other recent immigrant group. They have shown what can be achieved by integrating themselves into U.S. society and taking advantage of all the opportunities the country offers.

Again, this last claim (more success in less time) is devoid of any supporting data, let alone its assumptions about the meaning of “success,” but hey, fuzzy math is only one of the characteristics of the “model minority” argument, which also trots out sociological traits that are somehow supposed to be specific to the group in question, and doggedly avoids any contrary evidence. But what makes the argument noxious isn’t so much the grab-my-nuts boosterism or even the total disregard for socio-economic difference within the community in question (dirty laundry for us to hash out in places like this blog), but the implied statements about other immigrant or ethnic groups, which, if they are not as “successful” as Indians are, must therefore be inherently lacking in the bootstraps department. After all, Indians “received no special treatment” and “faced the same discrimination and hardship that any immigrant group does,” yet “they learned to thrive in American society.”

Those who wish to engage these assertions on the issues might start with the fact that selective immigration policies aimed to brain-drain skilled professionals into the US is very much “special treatment” from the get-go. I’m sure that claim about Indians having faced the same discrimination as “any immigrant group” could use a little data-driven scrutiny too.

Still, Wadhwa has done us all a favor, by deploying the “model minority” argument in such candid fashion. We know these views are prevalent in some sections of the community; now we have a complete statement of the case and its underlying logic. You be the judge. All I can say is: Macaca, Please! Continue reading →

Caste no bar

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Has everyone heard about the Indian government’s new plan to help erase the scourge that is the ages-old caste system? If I may offer my humble opinion…I think it is sheer brilliance. Check it:

THE Indian Government is offering 50,000 rupees (£580) to higher-caste people who marry spouses from the lowest castes in its latest controversial effort to dismantle the ancient Hindu social hierarchy…

The proposed bonus is a small fortune in a country where average annual income per capita is £280, and where official corruption is rampant. [Link]

This new incentive is making me consider taking a trip to India to find my bride. Let’s face reality. I have a lot of factors working against my search for a bride/girlfriend here in the U.S., and frankly, they are making my life miserable.

  1. I am not getting any younger
  2. I have a mountain of debt from my undergraduate years
  3. My parents insist “it is time”
  4. I blog

I do have one HUGE advantage working for me however. I am Brahmin. Why not use it? I am sure there are quite a few lower-caste girls with “good features” that will do just fine. If it helps pay down my college debt then I am not going to complain about it one bit. Besides, I hear that lower-caste girls aren’t nearly as uppity and are FAR more reasonable. Just listen:

Meira Kumar, the Social Justice Minister, who is from a lower caste, defended the plan yesterday before meeting officials from the 28 Indian states to persuade them to approve it.

“Yes, I know this is not the only way to end the caste discrimination, but one has to start somewhere,” she said. “All proposals have initial hiccups. That does not mean that we give them up.” Ever since independence in 1947, Indian governments have tried in vain to break down the complex caste system, which divides society into hereditary hierarchical groups. [Link]

There is one additional advantage that I possess which makes this plan especially appealing to me. I’m Guju:

But the amount differs from state to state – in Gujarat a couple gets the full $1,100 (50,000 rupees) – whereas in West Bengal state the amount is $45. [Link]

Ha Ha! Sucks to be an upper-caste West Bengali.

Continue reading →

Meat gets Pressed

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Tim Russert, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, has been doing a great job of late on Sunday mornings. My TiVo is always set for 8a.m. Did any of you catch his interview last Sunday with The Prince of Dar… Vice President Dick Cheney? Here are some choice quotes for those who don’t have the time to watch the entire episode which is still linked to NBC’s website (it is a great hour of Must See TV):

MR. RUSSERT: Pakistan has now a peace pact with the terrorists in the area where we think bin Laden is, creating what Richard Clarke, the former White House adviser on terrorism, calls a “sanctuary.” And reports from the RAND Corporation that the Pakistan CIA, the ISI, are in…

VICE PRES. CHENEY: ISID.

MR. RUSSERT: Yeah, are in cahoots with the Taliban. So if the Pakistanis aren’t willing to seek bin Laden, and have a peace pact with the terrorists, where are we?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don’t buy the premature question, Tim. I, I think it’s wrong and I think the sources you’ve quoted are wrong. The fact is we’ve captured and killed more al-Qaeda in Pakistan than any place else in the world in the last five years. President Musharraf has been a great ally. There was, prior to 9/11, a close relationship between the Pakistan intelligence services and the Taliban. Pakistan was one of only three nations that recognized, diplomatically recognized the government of Afghanistan at that particular time. But the fact is Musharraf has put his neck on the line in order to be effective in going after the extremist elements including al-Qaeda and including the Taliban in Pakistan. There have been three attempts on his life, two of those by al-Qaeda over the course of the last three years. This is a man who has demonstrated great courage under very difficult political circumstances and has been a great ally for the United States.

So there’s no question in that area along the Afghan/Pakistan border is something of a no man’s land, it has been for centuries. It’s extraordinarily rough territory. People there who move back and forth across the border, they were smuggling goods before there was concern about, about terrorism. But we need to continue to work the problem. Musharraf just visited Karzai in, in Kabul this past week, they’re both going to be here during the course of the U.N. General Assembly meetings over the course of the next few weeks. We worked that area very hard, and the Paks have been great allies in that effort. [Link]

This Sunday Russert will be hosting a live debate between Virginia’s Senate candidates: Senator George “Macaca” Allen (R) vs. former Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb (D). Russert is the master of using damaging quotes in the middle of his grilling and so you better believe that he will go after Allen and his use of the term “Macaca.” He may also ask a question or two about this “Ethnic Rally” that Allen recently held. You have to listen to this introduction:

The Macaca who is speaking on stage explains to the audience that if Allen were a cricket player he would dominate the Indians, and if he were a Bollywood actor he would be cast as a “God.” Rrrrright. Now I don’t mind so much that I don’t watch Bollywood.

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What would happen if things were upside-down?

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The Public Policy Institute of California released a survey today that is making all sorts of headlines. The survey sheds light on voting trends in the most populous state in the Union. Given the coming demographic shifts within the U.S., it is fair to wonder if these results apply to the rest of the nation as well. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The growing diversity of California’s population isn’t showing up in the voting booth, where people who are richer, older and whiter than their nonvoting neighbors are making the decisions that will shape the state’s future, a new study shows.

Further, the plans and priorities of the Californians most likely to vote and those of the nearly 50 percent of adults who don’t participate in elections are as different as their bank accounts and racial backgrounds, said Mark Baldassare, a pollster who conducted the study released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.

“About 15 percent of adult people make the decisions, and that 15 percent doesn’t look much like California overall,” he said. “And that’s even more problematic here because so much public policy is made at the ballot box via initiatives…” [Link]

What these results seem to indicate is that if a larger portion of the population simply registered to vote and showed up on election day, you could throw conventional wisdom out the window. Want an example?

Take the issue of taxes, for example. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Republican allies in the Legislature argue incessantly that Californians are adamantly opposed to new or increased taxes.

A poll last May showed that when likely voters were asked whether they would prefer higher taxes and more services or lower taxes and fewer state services, they split on the issue — 49 percent favored more services, and 44 percent called for lower taxes.

But Californians not registered to vote have far different views. More than two-thirds of those residents welcomed higher taxes and more services, while less than 30 percent called for less government.

“The size and role of government is hugely determined by the shape of the likely voter electorate today,” Baldassare said. [Link]
Continue reading →

E-Tamil-ogy

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This was going to be a post about the dreaded E word (“exotic,” in case you’ve erased it from your memory) and its usage on me the other day, accompanied by excessive and unwelcome flirtation. However, recalling the incident renders me ill and sorely tempted to post the guy’s name and contact information here – bad move.

Instead, I’ll celebrate the language percolated down from my ancestors – Tamil, and its offerings to English – and linguistics in general. No, I don’t mean Tam-glish, with terms like shamachu-fy1 or “An’one see my pie?”2 but actual English words that originate in Tamil like catamaran and orange. Tamil Contributions To The English Language contains a list of terms derived from Tamil. The crux of this post is not glorifying Tamil, as the list seems to (“the great antiquity of the Tamil civilization”), but to celebrate the transmutation of language, all languages, when in contact with another. Our ancestors got around a lot more than the current understanding of history allows for and this is evident in language. While physical proof of such contact has been absent, destroyed or undiscovered, how we communicate via our vocal chords is the living evidence of cultural evolution.

For instance, the Italian word for key is chiavi, also the Tamil word for the same item (chaavi – Hindi, llave – Spanish, taste – German, tecla chave – Portuguese, clef – French, nøkkel – Norwegian, sleutel – Dutch). There is one of two possibilities for this coincidence – that the word was coined in one place and carried to another, or that the same word was invented separately in two different places to describe the same thing. Given that a significant majority of the world speaks Indo-European languages, I vote for the former theory.

Language is fascinating, as are dialect, accent and semantics. I feel honored to live in a part of the United States where so many collide. The ethnic geography of Brooklyn on the Bayou is so intricate that navigating it requires the knowledge of several Romance languages and a few African ones, too. In the end, you get used to the speak and the fact that we’re all in the same pot of gumbo no matter where we originated.

1 Shamachu-fy: To cook. I’d love to go out, but have to shamachu-fy for relatives arriving tomorrow.
2 An’one see my pie?: Has anyone seen my bag? Continue reading →

Down Under Desis

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Crickey. There sure are a lot of desis down under.

Indians have emerged as the fastest-growing group of migrants entering Australia. They are now the third-largest immigrant group behind the British and New Zealanders. The Indians bring with them the expertise that Australia’s booming economy desperately needs, amid a chronic skills shortage. [link]

In fact, 10% of new settlers to Australia are of Indian origin. Though, last we checked, the Desi-American community is growing, I hardly think the growth is comparable.

“The word has got out that Australia’s looking for well-educated migrants with good English, and Indians fit that. So the question is whether those who want to leave India want to come to Australia or the United States or Britain or Canada,” said [former government advisor] Henderson…Trade unions have complained that importing so many foreign workers does not address the root causes of Australia’s skills shortage.

Social isolation and discrimination at work can pose problems. But for most newcomers the migration experience is a positive one. [link]

One of the interesting things that I hear about South/Asians in Australia are the high number of Asian-Australians that are in elected office. The reason for such interest in civic engagement? A large part would have to be in that in Australia, they have mandatory voting — including fines if you don’t vote.

Voter Registration is mandatory for all citizens 18 years of age or above. An individual has 8 weeks after turning 18 to register. Similarly, if a change of address causes an individual to move to another electorate (Electoral Division) they are legally obliged to notify the Electoral Commission within 8 weeks…The one registration covers Federal, State and Local voter registration. In Australia it is a legal offence to fail to vote (or at the very least, attend a polling station and have one’s name crossed off the roll) at any Federal or State election, punishable by a fine. [link]

When you have mandatory voting, issues around disenfranchisement no longer revolve around registration and getting to the polls, but around other issues. Though the article states the reason for the large immigrant influx desi population is to fill skill shortage spots, I would imagine that another large reason is due to the ease with which desis get involved into the fabric of civic life. I’ve never been though, so if we have any South Asian Australian readers, I’d love to hear about your experience. With both mandatory voting and an influx of desis in Australia, potentially, desis will be a politicized population to reckon with down under in the near future. Is mandatory voting America’s solution?

Continue reading →

Montreal slaughter nutcase was desi

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kimveergill.jpgThe individual pictured here is Kimveer Gill, who walked into Dawson College in Montreal yesterday, dressed in black from head to toe and carrying what witnesses described as a “huge machine gun,” and opened fire, killing an 18-year-old woman and critically injuring at least five other people. Gill died in the incident, shot either by police or by himself. Gill, who left a wealth of information about himself at his page on vampirefreaks.com (username: fatality666) was 25 and desi:

Gill, who is known to other users on the website as Fatality666, describes himself as Indian, 6-foot-one, who was born in Montreal on July 9, 1981.

Gill wasn’t just your typical deranged guy with violent fantasies. He was obsessed with guns and knives and posted numerous photos of himself armed online. He enjoyed a videogame based on the Columbine massacre. His “personality quiz” on the site matched him with Adolf Hitler, Satanism, the Angel of Death, werewolves, and other morbid connections. He boasted of his whisky drinking. And so on:

“I think I have an obbsetion (sic) with guns . . . muahahaha,” is the inscription below another picture of Gill aiming the barrel of the gun at the camera.

“Anger and hatred simmers within me,” said another caption below a head shot of Gill grimacing.

The site also has lengthly lists of likes and dislikes. On the “likes” list are: first-person-shooter video games, “Super Psycho Maniacs roaming the streets freely,” massacres, trenchcoats, destruction and “crushing my enemies skulls.”

He also shows a penchant for semi-automatic handguns, combat shotguns, sawed-off shotguns, assault rifles and myriad other weapons.

He dislikes: “The world and everything in it.”

“But to be more specific,” he continues, he hates jocks, preps, country music, Hip Hop, “all those who oppose my rule.”

Gill seems to harbour particular disdain for authority, including police, “all the government on Earth,” “bible-thumping know-it-alls” and God.

The desi angle in this story is, as they say, developing: We know nothing about Gill’s life story yet. But he was desi, and we report the good and the bad here. We’ve also talked about desi goths, though this guy was clearly mentally ill, not a “normal” goth. This story also reminds us of how much evidence of psychopathic or violent intentions resides in plain sight on the Internet. You could look at this guy’s web postings as cries of pain that weren’t heard by anyone other than a small echo chamber of people with similar inclinations. Lots of trees fall in this forest every day; few are heard.

Kimveer Gill put up an image of a tombstone and epitaph on his web page: “Lived fast died young. Left a mangled corpse.” Well, he left two — his own and that of an innocent young woman, with five more struggling to survive. Continue reading →

A Movie About Idi Amin and an ‘Opera’ About Gadhafi

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Chick Pea mentioned recently that there is a new film opening on Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who is infamous amongst desis for summarily ejecting Uganda’s 50,000 Asians in 1972. Most of the Ugandan desis got out, and many came to thrive in places like England and Canada. We saw this discussed in Mississippi Masala, and it’s referenced in the writings of M.G. Vassanji. Unfortunately, the 300,000 Africans (most of them fellow Ugandans) who died as a result of Idi Amin’s various military campaigns and programs of internal ethnic cleansing did not have the same second chance. This is a man who caused untold suffering, and who led his country down a truly catastrophic path.

A new film on Amin, called The Last King of Scotland (in reference to one of Amin’s more fanciful titles for himself), starring Forrest Whitaker, recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, and seems to be generating a fair amount of buzz. The Washington Post reviews the film, and while it’s too early to really get the film’s slant, it’s a little bit worrisome to me that the director is quoted in the article saying how he really wanted to show Idi Amin as a “complex” character, and his actions as partly justifiable:

“A lot of the things he tried to do were very popular,” said Macdonald, highlighting even the expulsion of the Asian business leaders as something that had resonated with Ugandans who became shopkeepers and business owners for the first time.

The Asians, expelled in 1972, had formed the backbone of the Ugandan economy before Amin came to power.

“Amin made Ugandans feel proud to be African, and proud to be Ugandan. He was someone who tried to get rid of the colonial inferiority complex,” Macdonald said. (link)

That last sentence should be a reminder to people that it’s just as easy to commit injustices in the name of fighting colonialism as it is to do so the other way around. I should also note that it’s distressing to hear the director of the film speaking so appreciatively of a truly brutal dictator. (On the other hand, perhaps he’s simply trying to make the film sound non-depressing for the media.) Continue reading →