Taz’s post today had one of the strangest statistics I’d ever seen — that 25% of South Asian Americans had, in 1990, identified themselves on the U.S. census as “white,” while 5% identified themselves as “black.”
It made me think of a post by progressive Muslim blogger Ali Eteraz from last week, where he discussed his own variant of an identity term crisis, not on racial but religious terms:
I onced asked a little kid I know what he was. He was like, um, er, I am a Pakistani-Muslim-American. I was like, what the hell, thatÂ’s messed up, little kids shouldnÂ’t have to hyphenate their identities like that, man.
Then one day I was typing up a post and I was like dammit I am really tired of having to write out the whole word “American-Muslim” or “American-Islam.” It’s just tiring.
So I decided that we needed a new ONE WORD term to call ourselves. . . In the end, I decided IÂ’m going to use “AmeriMuslim” – it is easy to understand, and it sounds like “A merry Muslim.” So from now on, thatÂ’s what IÂ’m going to use as my identity, thatÂ’s what IÂ’m going to teach nieces and nephews to say, and thatÂ’s what IÂ’m going to use even in my actual publications.(link)
Given that Ali Eteraz is (I believe) of Pakistani descent, my first thought is to say, “well, why not South Asian?” If we want to limit it to just one word, why not “desi” or “deshi”? Of course, in a sense I already know the answer: if religion is the most important aspect of one’s identity, one obviously privileges it over ethnicity. (Analogously, I also know a fair number of conservative Sikhs who are adamantly “Sikh American” and not “Indian American” or “South Asian American.”) Within individual states in the Indian Subcontinent, the term “South Asian” is rarely used. The progressive magazine Himal Southasian attempts to move beyond national identifications to a more regional, South Asian focus, but it’s the only enterprise I know of that does that. If “South Asian” exists mainly in the imagination of the diaspora, does that make it less meaningful?
Finally, I’ve noticed that more liberal Indian Americans in my acquaintance (of any religion) usually don’t bother with “South Asian” except when talking about someone whose national background isn’t known. It’s “Indian American” or just “Indian” (sometimes you even hear the slang term “Indo” — as in “there were a lot of Indos at the club”). In the comments at Sepia Mutiny at various points, people have also disparaged the term “South Asian” — mostly Indian nationalists, who’d rather deemphasize any association with Pakistan or Bangladesh. (On Pickled Politics, Sunny posted that conservative Hindus and Sikhs in England have been making similar arguments.) Is “South Asian” one of those terms that exists mainly in the abstract, to describe large groups and populations — but not necessarily individual people?
Bidismoker,
Quite well written (#.306). More than often, I diagree with you, as I with Razib too many times but assimilation is one of the biggest rackets of our time.
I guess Cornell education paid off :).
i’ve posted this before, but i’ll restate….
the ‘future’ of ‘our folk’
three groups
1) assimilation (intermarriage, etc.) 2) a pan-south asian/brown identity (generally determined by indian identity and cultural touchstones) with local flavors contingent upon personal history 3) close identification with specific local traditions and cultures (kashmiri pandit, ismaili gujarati)
i think the rank over of the size of the streams will be 1 > 2 > 3. but, there are parameters which effect this
1) number of immigrants coming in 2) size of the population in relation to the majority population (i.e., what is the percentage of south asians vs. non-south asians in a local area) 3) % of community that is first gen 4) the nature of the immigrant stream (e.g., what if 90% of immigrants over the next 20 years were gujarati patels? i think #3 becomes far more viable and numerous)
and of course, bits and pieces of all of the “3 options” can be found in most people. i guess i’m mostly #1 with a little bit of #2.
People voting against their own interests is the core of the Republican ascendancy. Read “What’s the Matter with Kansas.” If Indians are supporting blockhead candidates, they are no different from other Americans.
So if you get a day off for Diwali, is that evidence of having been assimilated and therefore a bad thing? Assimilated groups have their days on the school calendar.
Agreed. There is no excuse not to learn someone’s name.
The connection between “savages and heathens” and India isn’t a given, even in some racist conversation. Yeah, people hate other people, but whether or not to call racists on their crap is up to you.
What the hell are you ranting about? What makes you think I am not south asian?
Whats really disgusting is desis making fools of themselves trying desperately to claim identity with peoples who despise them. Maybe you dont, but I find this racial self-loathing very pitiful. A desi desiring to be classified as arab deserves to be ridiculed.
Ditto for bangladeshi psuedo-intellectuals pandering to nordic racism….
Razib, I’d say (from whatever I’ve gleaned on this site) that although you may not embrace #3, you actually are well-versed in #3 (i.e. you know a lot about Bengali Muslim society and culture, even if you don’t want most of it to form any part of your identity). You know what you are rejecting. BUT, a lot of people don’t have any of #3 because they are simply ignorant or were never exposed to it.
What the hell are you ranting about? What makes you think I am not south asian?
i assume you are, and so you are well aware of how inferior and despicable others perceive you as.
you actually are well-versed in #3 (i.e. you know a lot about Bengali Muslim society and culture, even if you don’t want most of it to form any part of your identity
book learning isn’t the same as what you imbibe from your social environment. gujarati patels have a particular self-conception which i think is qualitatively diff. than many other US brown groups have because of their density on the group. or, consider my friend aziz poonawalla’s life as a dawoodi bohra ismaili, he is embedded in a tight knit community.
on the group
on the ground.
I hope all you macacas are getting ready to go vote!
mail in brown, mail in.
Its interesting to note that its the blacker ethnicities (bengalis, tamils etc) that are so insistent on the use of the term brown. While the browner ethnicities (punjabis etc) are keen on being seen as “fair” non-indians, period. Both seem desperate to enhance their status with their respective delusions. Which means they have all bought into the status=colour dispensation, hook, line and sinker. Pathetic really.
I am Tamilian and frequently refer to myself as brown. I’m not delusional — my skin is the exact color of delicious drip coffee with just the right amount of whole milk added! In fact, some of my friends will say that they prefer their coffee “milli brown.”
Now as for your thought that the “browner” indians want to be “fair” — my own mother is Tamilian but so fair that I tease her constantly about being white. She doesn’t even have the undertones of an Indian person. She would give anything to have my skin color ’cause after all, it is brownie goodness.
milli, FYI, that is a troll.
Yup I got a Casper for mother too and she found the brownest man in the land to marry and breed! 🙂
Yup I got a Casper for mother too and she found the brownest man in the land to marry and breed! 🙂
once you go brown you never turn it down.
I love that description. When I was small, I would describe my dad as the one who was the color of a hershey milk chocolate bar. My mom, who is American, would always joke that she didn’t want to be called “white” because it would be more accurate to call her “pink.”
But my all-time favorite description of skin color comes from a comic strip called “get fuzzy” where a siamese cat corrects his owner (Rob) when Rob refers to a friend as “black.” The cat, in his brilliant wisdom says something like, “He’s not black, he’s umber or something. Let me get a J.Crew catalog and I’ll figure it out.” The owner tries to explain that “black” and “white” are descriptions of ethnicity, to which the cat replies “Whatever, Pinky. You’re just jealous because I’m black AND white.” So really, color is relative to context. If there are two people with the same skin color and one wants to use the description “black” and the other wants to use the description “brown,” so be it. The world is big and there is plenty of wiggle-room when it comes to self-description.
cats would be insulted, even offended, at the comparison.
Only if aforementioned cats had no sense of humor and didn’t know that comics are meant to be entertaining and are often invoked in an effort to lighten the mood.
No offense intended to cats or otherwise. I just thought it was cute and kind of on topic.
No offense intended to cats or otherwise. I just thought it was cute and kind of on topic.
i for one await and welcome the reaction from our new cat overlords at your impudence.
The last 20 odd posts prove one thing. South Asian as a unifying concept is a joke. It is not the rhetoric that disheartens me. I am reading between the lines and seeing so many diverse cultural identities, a typical “old world” trait, that melding them into one pan-something would be futile. That is not to say that the entire diaspora couldn’t thrive as a loose aggregate of many fragmented parts.
I don’t think assimilation should be equated with intermarriage! Speaking as someone who intermarried, I don’t think it has made me or my future family less Indian. In fact, because I married a Jew whose family has resisted attempts to assimilate, we will never have Christmas tree in our house. We eat Indian food 50% of the time, which is more than any other 1st or 2nd gen Indians my age that I know of. Because he feels it is important to celebrate Jewish holidays, I’m more likely to celebrate Hindu ones to balance things out for our future kids. And if they decide not to identify as Indian, or South Asian, or desi, well, they might have done that anyway. My extended family, whom I think of as very Indian, consists of white, black, semetic and the other kind of Indian. More of my first-generation Indian friends are dating or marrying other ethnicities because my 2nd gen friends were raised to believe that marrying out was assimilation That’s how Jewish people are too, and it is just wrong. My husband is more religious than 90% of the Jews I know who married other Jews, but they compare intermarriage to the holocaust. I hope the South Asian community as a whole can avoid that trap. After all, the identity of a group is constantly being reinvented.
In my defense, I was quoting a cartoon siamese cat living on the east coast, who happens to be known chiefly for his impudence. maybe he is among the new regime.
You got me figured all wrong fella. That kind of talk may impress Razib and his ilk, not me.
Heres a reality check for you: in Malaysia the indians, who are mostly tamils are called “blacks” by the brown Malays and yellow chinese. Ditto for the bangladeshi laborers moving there in large numbers. Similarly the gulf/peninsular arabs who are mostly of a brownish hue look down on bangladeshis as inferior because of their blackish complexions. As the Bangladeshi haji lamented: “They see our skin and don’t need to see more.” Razib and others chanting brown, brown, brown ad nauseam will not change the fact that the stereotypical desis are seen as blackish by many if not most non-indians.
There was a time when indians weren’t ashamed of their blackness. The characters in the epics are described as black-skinned and beautiful, shyama sundara. Now even Krishna is painted as pinkish. This sort of servile self-loathing is not healthy.
And yet all those posts were made on ONE website that embraces the South Asian tag that all those “diverse cultural identities” you speak of visit daily. The irony of your words!
desishiksa,
time is finite. in the descendent generations people pick & choose from a discrete set of culture defining traits. e.g., there are many individuals who are 1/4 native american genetically but identify mostly as native american. i have a good friend whose father is african american, whose mother is the product of a mixed jewish-christian marriage. like her mother my friend identifies as a jew and attends jewish services.
jews who assert that intermarriage is assimilation are right. the historical record speaks clearly to this. moses mendelssohn, the great jewish german philosopher who pushed the doors open for german jewish assmilation into gentile culture as full participants had no jewish descendents after one century. of children raised as jews who have a non-jewish parent (i.e., of the 40% from mixed-marriages raised as jews) the overwhelming majority marry non-jews. f you are a small minority the numbers are inevitable, no matter the personal counter-arguments.
Let me add to that list. Assimilation looks like when browns show the same attitudes towards other groups that they themselves subjected to before.
“And yet all those posts were made on ONE website that embraces the South Asian tag that all those “diverse cultural identities” you speak of visit daily. The irony of your words!”
Abhi, you got me there. I guess the proof is in the pudding after all. Still, the term South Asian leaves me cold. I personally visit SM because it is desi and never branded as South Asian. In fact some might say SM is very India centric. Try doing a demographic study of your bloggers someday and you might find out that it isn’t as South Asian as you think.
Sigh!
When I see blonde-haired blue-eyed Americans who are devoutly Jewish, I find it hard to believe that intermarriage led to assimilation. If there had been no intermarriage throughout the history of the Jewish diaspora, Ashkenazi jews would not look so much whiter than Sephardic ones, Indian jews would not look so Indian, etc. In fact, even in the Torah there are many instances of intermarriage, notably the story of Esther who was married to a Persian king. Clearly the Jewish diaspora has survived thousands of years of intermarriage. I think the anti-intermarriage movement is an American invention, because America as a whole is opposed to intermarriage.
. If there had been no intermarriage throughout the history of the Jewish diaspora, Ashkenazi jews would not look so much whiter than Sephardic ones, Indian jews would not look so Indian, etc. In fact, even in the Torah there are many instances of intermarriage, notably the story of Esther who was married to a Persian king. Clearly the Jewish diaspora has survived thousands of years of intermarriage. I think the anti-intermarriage movement is an American invention, because America as a whole is opposed to intermarriage.
yes, there was genetic assimilation, but the founding “gentile” mothers of these jewish communities lost their identities. aside from exceptions like the beta and bene israel until the 19th century there was a common cultural thread of rabbinic judaism throughout the diaspora. also, another point, the intermarriage rate looks to be on the order of 1-2% per generation. if you do the math over 80 generations (2,000 years) one can replace almost the full genome (genetics) of a jewish population through just this level of intermarriage, but, cultural continuity can be maintained. but it was maintained not through synthesis with the majority culture much as separation and specific proscriptions against cultural mixing.
When I see blonde-haired blue-eyed Americans who are devoutly Jewish, I find it hard to believe that intermarriage led to assimilation.
and of course, you ignore the fact that many, many, many more gentiles have jewish ancestry and have been ‘lost’ to the jewish people. look at spain or eastern europe (by some estimates 40% of the spanish titled nobility has an appreciable amount of jewish ancestry). the german jewry was actually disappearing in germany even before the rise of nazis because of assimilation (and these jews were reinforced by emigration from poland, the 18th century elite and middle class jews were almost totally christianized in the 19th century).
I don’t think intermarriage with the majority community necessarily leads to acceptance. The German Jews had an intermarriage rate of around 50% at the time of the rise of National Socialism. Also, like the American Jews, they were well established in the professions. High intermarriage rates might even breed resentment!
I don’t think intermarriage with the majority community necessarily leads to acceptance. The German Jews had an intermarriage rate of around 50% at the time of the rise of National Socialism. Also, like the American Jews, they were well established in the professions. High intermarriage rates might even breed resentment!
they dominated several professions and were prominent in banking and department stores. but in any case, intermarriage can lead to disappearance. the jews of spain, or the 1 out of 10 mexicans in 1900 who were black attest to this.
once you go brown you never turn it down.
And in the words of my ex (who was not an Indophile, mind you): “If it ain’t brown, I ain’t down.”
Abhi:
I identify myself as an Indian, but I have no objections to being called South Asian. As you have emphasized many times, these identities are not mutually exclusive. I agree that there is a pan-SA culture, which provides strong grounds for a single cultural identity.
But identity is cultural as well as political. And with the world polarizing, the line between the cultural and the political is blurring. Consider the recent veil controversy in UK. Was that a cultural or political issue? Much as I’d support the cultural freedom of a brown sister, it is clear that her attitude is a result of post-9/11 political radicalization.
My point is, people intermarried but the Jewish community as a whole survived, even if the majority of intermarriages led to assimilation. People that don’t marry assimilate too.
I mean, even if the majority of intermarried Jews assimilated.
Razib (you don’t mind the capital R, do you?): I love reading you. How in the world do you know all this stuff?
Manju:
Uh, no, it’s kinda not.
Only you would find a battle for identity between the SpoorLams and the ‘Marxists’ akin to bikini mud wrestling….
As an Indian living in a country where everyone thinks I’m either Fijian Indian or born here, I don’t see why people can’t extend the same level of empathy to people who are from other South Asian countries or even Africa etc. when people call them ‘Indian.’
I think South Asian as a term can work for a lot more people than some commenters think. Being South Asian doesn’t mean you’re not also simultaneously Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Hindu/Muslim/Atheist etc.
It’s just a way of showing that at the same time you have a sense of belonging to a wider group of people too. You don’t have to give anything up, you’re just gaining something new…people calling themselves ‘desi’ is another way of sharing the <3 🙂 The very existence of this blog and the popularity of this post shows that there is such a thing as an emerging South Asian identity.
Why else would the saffron balls of Spoorlam be twitching in fear at this post? 😉
people intermarried but the Jewish community as a whole survived, even if the majority of intermarriages led to assimilation
my point though is that though the jews as a while survived, the jews of spain disappeared except for those who fled to the ottoman empire. the jews of portugal disappeared except for those who fled to the netherlands. without the influx of ashkenazi jews from the pale of settlement many central european communities would have been absorbed in the 19th century. before the first arrival of german jews in the 1850s the small sephardic jewish community of new york city was being absorbed.
as a person of bengali descent i am pretty sure that bengalis will be around 100 years from now. there are 200 million of us! i am also sure that brown people will be around 100 years from now. that doesn’t speak to bengalis in trinidad, or in the united states, who might be assimilated.
whole
(another ex: the jews of kaifeng [china] disappeared, the jews of kerala did not. why? one reason is likely that the kerala jews were in constant contact with the diaspora, and even received an influx of refugees from as far away as germany in the 16th century!)
Every blogger on this site is South Asian. As much as you might hate it, you are South Asian, whether or not you choose to identify as such, b/c you are Indian and India is a part of South Asia. That’s a fact, that’s not me trying to force you to do, say or think anything you don’t want to.
I know what you were alluding to and it doesn’ty matter– this is a South Asian blog b/c of its focus, worldview, attitude and audience, not b/c we created a neat patchwork of bloggers to meet some over-simplified checklist or set of quotas; even if we HAD did that, I hardly think you’d be a convert to the cause.
The people who are concerned about intermarriage are also concerned with Jews as a whole surviving, not with tiny communities surviving, especially if they are Sephardic. You could argue that Sephardic jews intermarrying with Ashkenazi would just as likely lead to the decline of small Sephardic communities as if they married Christiains, or Hindu Indians.
You could argue that Sephardic jews intermarrying with Ashkenazi would just as likely lead to the decline of small Sephardic communities as if they married Christiains, or Hindu Indians.
some sephardic jews make this argument. and in places like the netherlands and early USA sephardic jews sometimes opposed intermarriage with ashkenazis because of cultural differences (as well as different accent of hebrew in religious rituals). but, my understanding is that religious sephardic jews tend to not have this issue since they are united with religious ashkenazi jews through the common touchstone of rabbinical judaism. in israel there has actually been an assimilation of religious sephardic jews into a very ashkenazi specific ‘haredi’ identity because of their religious affinity.
the point about south asians, and any small community, is that it preserves folkways and what not through cultural socialization. marrying out dilutes that, unless the spouse moves over into their partner’s community. this is one reason reform judaism is growing, the acceptance of relatively easy adult conversion. but this comes as the expense of the ‘culturally’ and ‘ethnically’ jewish ‘purity’ of a reform congregation.
That’s a fact, that’s not me trying to force you to do, say or think anything you don’t want to.
This “fact” can be deconstructed to death but the woeful absence of post-structuralists on this site suggests it would be a colossal waste of time. So let me say this instead – I thought opposing counsels agreed to disagree on this issue and “leave each other alone.” Lets not decide what constitutes a “fact” for anyone.
Uh…wow. May I say no? My oldest best friend (since age 16) is a Persian Jew so I grew up with her family, relating well to how she felt a little bit like “other” even amongst her own. Her (I feel like typing “our”) little sister married someone Ashkenazi and I just don’t see any hint of “decline”. More importantly, I think it would’ve been SO different if her sister married out religiously; can you really separate being Sephardic from being Jewish? They may not be the “same”, but they are a very Jewish couple. She’s part of a large, loving and drop-dead gorgeous Persian clan in L.A. If anything, I feel like he’s getting assimilated, not she. 🙂
Tash:
Don’t you see? Battles for identity and bikini mud wrestling are analogous. They both make balls twitch.
The thing about Judaism, and any diaspora culture, is that someone sits around deciding what you can and cannot do to be part of the community. American jews basically pick which parts of Judaism they want to practice, so who says the child of an intermarriage who keeps kosher is any less jewish than the child of two jewish parents who eats pepperoni? What it really boils down to is that the definition of a culture is arbitrary in some respects, and surviving has to do with reworking that defintion, which most communities constantly do.
Opposing counsels agreed to let each party choose identifiers for themselves, according to what suits each best, after both sides agreed that it was egregiously obnoxious for one side to come to this blog and insult it and its partisans who are pro-SA. They didn’t say shit to me about having to ignore reality, which is what taking India out of South Asia does. I am South Asian and Indian. That is a fact. I can be both. That is a fact. I will be late for the following, if I don’t leave soon. THAT is a fact.
Re: “Every blogger on this site is South Asian. As much as you might hate it, you are South Asian, whether or not you choose to identify as such, b/c you are Indian and India is a part of South Asia. That’s a fact, that’s not me trying to force you to do, say or think anything you don’t want to.”
One may approve or disapprove of an identity, but all such identities are constructed, and none are “facts” in the way that a snowflake is in my book. Whether or not one likes or dislikes the South Asian label, one does the phenomenon of identity-politics/mobilization a disservice by refusing to recognize the provisional/negotiated/constructed nature of these identities.
This isn’t just about semantics: if we think of ideological constructs as “facts” we are more likely to demonize those who disagree with us as obtuse and blind, rather than appreciate that they bring a different, and perhaps no less illegitimate perspective to the table.
Well, we might not be a “jewish couple” but my in laws and their extended family, with only one exception, have been very accepting of our relationship. My husband has several cousins who are the products of intermarriage who were raised Jewish, so they are used to having outsiders around, and I don’t feel like the will treat our kids as any less Jewish. Of note, they are NOT reform; my in laws go to an Orthodox synagogue, keep kosher at home, sent their kids to Jewish school, and have mostly Jewish friends. When we have kids I have no doubt they will accept them as just as Jewish as they are. If they were less accepting of our marriage, I would be less likely to raise my kids Jewish. My point is that blaming intermarriage for assimilation alienates a lot of people who might otherwise be practicing Jews.
So Anna, maybe it would not have been that different if your friend’s sister married out; people will surprise you with what they can accept.
just out of curiosity, desishiksa, would you be able to raise your children as practicing jews (orthodox i assume in your case) and practicing hindus (hypothetical since i don’t know if you are one) at the same time or will this compromise their jewish identity? thanks.