As an ABCD, I want things both ways. In the USA I want to be recognized as fully American; hyphenated American to be sure, but still just as American as any pink-skinned Mayflower descendent. This is especially true when I need consular support or when I am re-entering the country.
I once had an INS agent look at my face and tell me that the line for foreign nationals was elsewhere. When I showed her my passport, she proceeded to treat it as fraudulent and grilled me (improperly) until she was satisfied. Ironically, she was a Filipina with a thick accent herself.
But in India, I usually want to pass. I was really proud when a Delhite came up to me on the street and asked me for directions in Hindi. The only time I’ve been amused to hear “You speak English really well” was when it came from an Eastern European tourist at Fatehpur Sikri. [I ruined the illusion by responding “Thanks. I watch a lot of American television” whereupon he recognized the American sense of humor.]
Heck, last time I was in India, I passed too well. I was wearing a khaddar kurta and had my beard open and some guard at the Delhi domestic airport decided I was too pendu to belong and demanded that I produce my ticket. I responded in very American English that my ticket was with my “Daaaaad” (it was) and walked off, having asserted myself as an NRI.
 |
I mean, we don’t even have a word for the opposite of coconut. What would we call somebody who is white on the outside, but brown (and hairy) on the inside? A pickled egg? A rotten egg? What’s the correct term for somebody like Jamie Alter?
A day in the life of Jamie Alter is not easy. He takes the bus to office … and is stared at all the way. Teenagers snigger and point… But Jamie, son of actor Tom Alter, isn’t a tourist or long-term expat. He’s Indian and it says as much on his passport. Having grown up in Mumbai and Mussoorie, Jamie understands references to Chitrahaar, not American sitcoms. When he went to the US for his undergraduate degree, he thought he’d blend in. And he did — as far as appearances go. Until he realised his heart was in India. “I missed the chaos of Mumbai. I love cricket, not American culture. I came back because I’m happier here,” says the 25-year-old. [Link]
<
p>To me, the correct term for Jamie Alter is Indian.
<
p>I know we want to believe so strongly that we can inherit cultural ownership by virtue of our skin and our domestic experiences that sometimes we see people like Alter as a challenge. If they’re Indian, what does that make us? I don’t know but I’m not that troubled by it. There can be both jus sanguinis and jus solis.
<
p>India is a multicultural country. I remember once asking a Tibetan friend where the best Tibetan restaurant in Boston was, and she replied that she didn’t know since she only ate Indian. She had been born, raised and went to college in India before she came to the US, and was far more Indian than I. Her Hindi was not just better than mine, but probably better than both her Tibetan and her English.
<
p>Similarly, my friend S. got annoyed by the failure of other people, especially ABDs, to recognize him as Indian. S. had blue eyes and fair skin. I thought he was Latino when I met him. But he was a hadesi pukka Bombayite, a real Indian.
<
p>So I’m happy to recognize non-browns as being more Indian than I am, just like I’m not afraid of Elvis in the USA. I have no problem with white and black (and yes, non-Punjabi) contestants on Bhangra teams, just like I have no problem with non-desis learning Bollywood in Yorkshire or Colorado. I’ve gotten over my annoyance at people who can’t dance the right traditional way to Bhangra at clubs, in part because the worst offenders there are usually Gujaratis, not white folks. [I’m even more hopeless at Garba, so I can’t point fingers.] I don’t own Bhangra within India (heck, it’s not even part of my family’s tradition), and I don’t own it here either.
<
p>I’m just not that fussed about asserting cultural ownership I guess, unlike some:
Cultural Ownership: I have no problems admitting that I sometimes feel like this. It’s like, “Dudes, I can’t even understand my own culture! It’s not fair that you can!” That just makes me jealous. What can I say? [Link]
<
p>To me, it’s only fair I guess that things should go both ways. I’m an American. Kenyandesi is a third generation Kenyan. And Jamie Alter? He’s an Indian.
Related Posts: I’m not afraid of Elvis, On Hybrid Vigor, Acceptance and Grace
here!
Way to bring out all my cultural ownership insecurities. Thanks, Ennis.
That’s not what I said. I did say, however, that all Mayflower descendants were pink, which may not be 100% accurate either because of slavery.
51
Looks like we brought the AIS site down with traffic from this site. Have we ever claimed the “Sepia” effect akin to the Slashdot and Digg effects before?
A well written post, Ennis.
As for what to call people like Jamie, I prefer the honorific “White tiger.”
Jean Dreze
That is indeed quite true. I have seen students from African and other such non white countries who come to India to study being racially harassed in colleges in India. We also have a lot of nicknames for people of different races including whites which are not always flattering. This stems from the fact that unlike the US, brown Indians are only recently starting to come a lot more in contact with non browns migrants and thus the culture does not have as much of an awareness when it comes to dealing with issues of racism. The only racism most Indians relate to is how the British oppressed us but when it comes to being sensitive to other races it does not come consciously that we should be doing that. We are not even that sensitive to people from the North Eastern states, IBC (Indian born Chinese – for those who are not aware there are quite a few of those and I think there even pockets like American Chinatown in India) who are just as Indian.
Also, I request people on this forum to resist calling non brown people raised in India ‘foreigners’. If they are Indian, they are as Indian as any brown IBD and as American as any ABD. This is a blog that raises it’s voice against exactly the same attitudes and so we should not be doing the same.
First this..
….! and then this…
….! you ABDs sure know how to put the SM back into SM..
With reference to #57, I forgot to add – I don’t mean any offense to Hema or anyone. I am sure you used the term sub consciously and without any malice.
Having grown up in India, the only thing I find surprising about this article is that James Alter faces sniggers and stares of the bad kind. Tom Alter is well known in the des .I am a big fan and used to feel kinda bad that he had to put on a fakey ‘angrez’ accent when his diction in Hindi is perfect.
By now, I hope that everyone who comes here at least realizes that Indian desis , besides being brown and Hindu/Muslim/Sikh/Christian can also be: – White ( anglo-indians) – Chinese ( fairly large ethnically chinese populations in Bombay ,Calcutta and otehr places) – Jewish ( Cochin/Malabar Jews, Jews from Mumbai , and the lost tribe from Mizoram) – Zorastrian/Parsi – Ba’hai – Jain – Buddhist – Animists
– Wiccan and many more that I may have missed.Which is why I feel really sad that India is growing more and more intolerant by the day when once upon a time it truly was remarkable for its tolerance of different cultures and religions.
well, as i’ve noted before, when i was a kid in the early 80s people would ‘compliment’ my english every week and ask me where i came from all the time. today this generally happens when i encounter 1) the old or the 2) the stupid. so things have changed quite a bit. and when people ask where i come from, i just say “eastern oregon.” not the answer they were expecting for sure….
This article proves that ethnicity, culture, etc. is just a state of mind!
Also, there really is no such thing as race. Race is a social construct. http://www.gossamer-wings.com/soc/Notes/race/tsld002.htm
Exactly, Runa. Here’s another interesting group of Indians to add to your list.
Great post. It does, indeed, bring out my insecurities, but in a good way I think. My partner, a Caucasian woman from West Virginia routinely tells ME who’s the up and coming Bollywood actor, what filmd just got made, an what’s new on Sepia Mutiny. One one hand, I want her to know my culture because I want to pass what I can down to my kids. On the hand, I feel a bit sheepish that she is telling ME about Indian stuff!
I saw an Indian flick the other day and could make out some of the Tamil, and I felt proud of that, and also horrible that I never became fluent. Even watching the way the actors gestured reminded me off watching my parents growing up. But I don’t gesture like that at all. My kids won’t have that experience. I’ve got to face it, I’m pretty Amerian. But I’ll never be American the way my white friends are American.
But maybe I’m generalizing about their experiences?
Maybe it has to do with being the child of immigrants.
Tamasha, we aim to please. Here, have some chocolate 😉
Deeno – don’t you feel American?
Gulp ;). Thanks inothernews. Luckily, I have a policy of never saying something about somebody that I wouldn’t say to them, especially if it’s in a post.
‘That’s not what I said. I did say, however, that all Mayflower descendants were pink, which may not be 100% accurate either because of slavery. ‘
That’s what I was kinda getting at-that some people, who are african-american, can trace their lineage (at least in part) to the mayflower and the descendants who traveled here and mixed with slaves.
I think I knew what you meant.
Would there be too much confusion if we went for the obvious, like, maybe gora desi, or desi gori ? 🙂 Just in case not all of them have tiger like qualities? White tigers
Excerpt:
Very interesting discussion. Several instances come to my mind.
My friend from Kerala, his African wife traveled in India with his father, her father and her mother (both of whom are African American but the mother could pass for white). They were often referred to as the party of four Indians and one ‘foreigner’ 🙂 In fact, my friend’s wife who was wearing a salwar kameez was asked to pose for a few Japanese tourists as the airport as they wanted the picture of an ‘authentic’ Indian lady 🙂
Another friend of mine is a (white) Canadian who is caretaker of a fruit farm up in the Himalayas in UP. Has lived there for many years and speaks fluent Hindi and Pahadi. Most of the locals know him. My favorite anecdote about him is how a couple of guys in a bus were once passing some nasty comments about him and as he was getting off the bus, he turned around and spoke to them in fluent Hindi asking them to learn to be more tolerant and teach their children good values 🙂
I know several children of non-Indians who were born and grew up here who speak fluent Tamil, Hindi and/or Sanskrit.
Ardy:
With reference to #57, I forgot to add – I don’t mean any offense to Hema or anyone.
Thanks for clearing that up. It’s just that I spelled “phoren” wrong. 😉
Very interesting post. I liked Tom Alter. Especially in the movie “Parinda” (Bollywood’s best underworld film) where he plays ‘Musa’. He did not have to be a token angrez in that movie and spoke his dialogues in clear Hindi. (for example : “Musa, fasad nahi chahta” ..referring to him in the third person)
His kid looks a lot like him.
I think this may have to do with the fact that, – US is still a place where there is a lot of legal immigration taking place and people all over the world view US as a potential place to immigrate too. – US is in the NEW WORLD. (South America also is the NEW world but I am not sure why there is not much immigration there) – Major wave of immigration in the US has happened less than 100 years back, creating a immigrant nation image of the US.
Cool post. I’ve always wondered if any white Britons stayed in India after independence, does anyone know?
If that’s the case, may I request that some or many Mutineers help keep alive my post about the Hadesi-Within-Hadesi-Without Boy, The Truffle, the Nutella-and-marshmallow-whole-wheat-and-white-bread Sandwich, the Manju or Majnu to end all Manjus and Majnus…in other words, The Papaya which was picked up by News Promotion. Please vote/give it a Digg if you will. I gather Simon People have picked up on it.
The article, as it has been called is named American Idol: Sanjaya, Simon Cowell, Howard Stern, and Dave Della Terza… and is most stable at this search http://www.google.com/search?q=sanjaya+simon&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
or just Google Sanjaya Simon.
I imagine some did. Though I was reading about Anglo-Indians quite a few years ago, and it mentioned how many left post-Independence due to fear of backlash.
Speaking of Anglo-Indians, I learnt about Merle Oberon the other day (along with Freddie Mercury and Engelbert Humperdinck).
^^^^ From the very same article that is reference above my previous comment.
David Niven lookalike Bob Wright stayed in Kolkate and acted in a bunch of movies as well as running the Tolly Club for years. His daughter, Belinda, became a lot more Desi than her mother wanted and still works as the Exec Director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.
Amrita:
That was a great piece (the one referenced in #72). I especially loved this bit: “a fellow with a voice like an animated gekko’s cantankerous cousin”
An excellent post, Ennis.
Thanks, Coach. I know that’s not what you said, Ennis. I’m just making a point to anyone who reads.
Slavery isn’t the only reason , though. Intermarriage is going to make Mayflower ancestry extremely commonplace. Such is the power of exponentiation. I think in a few generations, the percentage of people who are NOT Mayflower descendents will be small. Even today, there may be 20 million or 30 million descendants alive.
In Desai’s Inheritance of Loss, she plays upon this – there’s a Swiss man who makes cheese for a living in the hills. She refers to the upper crust class without ever saying what race they are (I didn’t notice), but it comes out in the story telling process.
Hari – you went to the Woodstock School when Rev. Bob Alter served as Principal?
once upon a time, i used to work for amnesty international (really) and i was introduced to a white female co-worker. imagine my shock when out came a thoroughly indian accent. she didn’t even do one of those indian accents with a twist of british, like most english schooled indians do. complete cognitive dissonance. to this day, the funniest thing i’ve ever heard.
I have to say I disagree with the main sentiment expressed by Ennis. While you are obviously entitled to your own opinion, I do not think that you can call desis living in the U.S. hypocrites because we do not accept white people as Indian, regardless of where they were born. The fact of the matter is that America is an immigrant society, where no one except the indigenous people can claim to be truly “American”. For that reason, I do not see myself as different than any white person whose forefathers immigrated here; we were all born here and are therefore on equal footing.
India is hardly the same case. Until 60 years ago, the modern idea of “India” didn’t even exist, except as a colonialist construction. The subsequent waves of westerners who arrived did not come on equal footing; anyone who has lived in India can testify that despite some minor annoyances and harassment, white people are still treated better than Indians in almost every circumstance. White people that live in India benefit from an unequal balance of power; they are free to claim and dispose of whatever local customs they want, and are still granted access to all of the country’s most privileged institutions. Some hotels, hostels and schools in India are only open to white people. On the other hand, here in america, brown people have no such benefits. indeed we are denied access to many of the more cloistered and ancient institutions in this country; only recently have we made headway into what used to be completely white fields.
I got it!! The opposite of coconut:
Kaju roll – its light beige on the outside, with saffron/dry fruit based bright yellow/orange filling on the inside. And damn is it tasty.
Its not Modak because the modak is cooked til the outside is medium brown. And actually since its filled with coconut mix, its light in color…
Are you seriously making the above claim?? Or this is some kind of joke?
Do you have any idea what will happen to an institution that “allows only whites” in India?? First of all it would NOT BE LEGAL.
The reason that Jamshedji Tata built the TAJ hotel in Mumbai is that an earlier elite Mumbai hotel in British India did not allow non-white people.
ok, this is driving me crazy – i am trying to remember the name of the Indian author with a western name who wrote a serious novel in the last decade – something set in the north? Himalayan?
BTW, the term Anglo-Indian has not-so-shining connotations in India.
I have not heard of hotels & schools that do this. But I have heard that backpacker hostels are reluctant to take Indian men (including Brit & American citizens) in fear that they might disturb the austerities of (supposed) women mendicants like Pardesi Gori. I don’t have proof of this, so I won’t state it as fact but have heard as much from sources that I trust. It doesn’t excuse poor treatment of Indians like Jamie, but things should be taken in perspective.
Neale, Are you referring to Ruskin Bond?
I actually knew people in India who had no problem referring to themselves as “Anglo-Indians “,so I am missing something here
I. Allan Sealy? The Everest Hotel?
And actually since its filled with coconut mix, its light in color…
I’m not sure that’s true. The filling is coconut cooked with jaggery, so it’s pretty much brown (especially considering how dark jaggery can be sometimes). Plus, traditional modaks are made with rice flour and steamed, so they’re meant to be white, but the rice flour layers becomes a little transparent on steaming. I think “modak” is the perfect inversion term for “coconut.”
Neale, why is term Anglo-Indian pejorative? What do they call themselves?
There’s supposed to be a backpacker hotel in, I believe, Goa that practices a whites only policy. I think they got slammed in Lonely Planet or some other guidebook. I wonder how much enforcement there would be if more backpacker hotels started doing this? Especially since most middle-class Indians don’t want to stay in those cockroach magnets anyway. Would anyone care about the rights of ABDs to stay in these places? (One Indian online travel agent once called me a cheap third-rate Indian pretending to be a foreigner (!) when I merely enquired about rooms under 800 rupees a night…heehee, had some fun with him)
Ennis – I never actually attended Woodstock, but my school was closely affiliated with them, and several of my very close friends did go to Woodstock, so I happened to spend a good deal of time there. Its a wonderful place.
Sakshi, Bingo!
Runa,Chand Bibi The plight of the Anglo Indians wasn’t the best after the British left. They lived in a limbo, in small railway town across India, as an Indian identity was being formed all around them. The majority harbored a desire to emigrate to Canada, Australia, etc. There was a fair amount of alcoholism and broken homes. And i must confess , us Katlick Goans , for fear of being bunched along with other “Christians”, were the first to look askance at their supposedly loose ways. And Hindi movies only added to the confusion. All this when the Anglo Indians had formal representation in the parliament. I am not sure if they still do. There is a great novel somewhere in their history – about desultory slow dancing in Nagpur or Guntakal.
I wonder if people liked Inheritance of Loss and think it deserved the booker?
BidiSmoker, is that you? Do you feel the same way about Black and Yellow Indians that you do about White ones? Do you have examples of the “hotels, hostels and schools in India are only open to white people” – with the exception of one or two backpacker places (which exclude brown people but are open to more than just whites), I have never heard of such a thing, especially not w.r.t. schools.
Good post (and great discussion!)
One person I can think of is Romulus Whitaker. You may have seen this person on National Geographic – especially documentary about snakes and “King Cobra”
He was born in US but has lived in Chennai most of his life and established snake / crocodile park.
He is fluent in South Indian languages.
In one of the Nat Geographic episode he is going through roads of Florida (?) looking for snakes and cop stops him. Cop asks where are you from, papers etc and Whitaker says “I’m from India and looking for snakes”!
Personally I had “Chinese Indian” classmates whose parents ran only Chinese restaurant in the town – wonder where they are now..
If you replace India with Africa and White People with Indians, you have the argument that nativists use to justify the exclusion of Indians from Africa, even if they have been there generations. They claim that Africa is not a land of immigrants, and that Indians have benefitted from colonial injustices done to Africans. Given that I have friends who are Indo-Africans from various parts of Africa, I don’t find this compelling.
The argument is weaker for India than for Africa, since India is multi-racial and multi-cultural.
In this case, a guy like Jamie Alter is not only an Indian citizen who was born and raised in India, his father was too. His grandfather emigrated to India from the US. He’s not responsible for colonial injustices, and from what I’ve heard about the family, they’ve put their lot with India, they’re not trying to claim special privilege. Furthermore, as an outsider, I’m sure that he faces discrimination as well as benefits as a result of his skin color. I certainly wouldn’t choose to be a White Indian over a brown one, it seems much harder.
I have heard ABD’s being referred to as coconuts or oreos (brown on the outside and white on the inside). Southeast Asians were dubbed as bananas (white on the inside) in my time. (I consider them to be offensive terms for both cultures).
Having been born in the Midwest, and after living here all my life, it’s frustrating to be asked where are you from and why do you speak English well, etc. After explaining I am of Indian origin, born in the U.S., I used to get asked which tribe did I belong to! The worst line I have heard is “What are you?”
Luckily, that has not happened too often but it can be irritating. My daughter who is 3rd generation Indian (or is she considered 2nd or 2.5??) so far has not heard any comments or questions. That might change as she gets older though.
I have to post. It was a shock to see this post on Jaime on SP but it was just as shocking to meet him years ago and find out he is a fluent (way better then me) speaker of Hindi. Meet him years ago when he was in the states; very amiable fellow and all around good guy.
Thoroughly enjoy SP.
Speaking of blurred boundaries and category confusions, the Nobel Prize Committee seems to top it all. Here is an excerpt from the Nobel Prize website:
[Link]
How much more absurd can it get? Rabindranath is an Anglo-Indian?
Make no mistake, Rabindranath got the Nobel Prize for the English version of the Gitanjali, which is so inferior compared to the original Bengali. I am a Bengali, and I am not obsessed with his getting the prize. It wouldn’t really matter if he didn’t get it. And because I have read some good literature, I know the difference between my mother tongue and the shopkeeper’s language. But that’s a digression.
Coming back to the topic of this discussion – Robi Thakur’s short telegram to the Nobel Committee says it all:
[Link]
DJ, 55. I love white tiger. Sometimes when I get the “but you don’t look Indian” from all those who think half desis should look “typical” (whatever that is) I say is a white tiger not a tiger? hahaha.
Hey Chachaji, Wasaap!
67, Just FYI I took a human ecology class (10 years ago) that classified the general features of people who have the “typical” south or central asian look as caucasiod. I don’t know how the debate has been going about that recently though, as most of my studies now are about teaching certain people every known word in two different languages 😛 Also, technically in any animal species a “race” usually constitutes simple colour variation and does not prove as grounds to classify it as a separate subspecies. Example, the peregrine falcon is found worldwide and is genetically compatible no matter where, but come in different colors. I’m pleased to see you like tigers. Some time back the tiger spirit ate my soul and now I am striped. I guess my horoscope came true after all! 😛