“…given up hiding and started to fight”

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October 31, 1984

“Mummy, Daddy can I dress up for Halloween this year?”

“No.  You are not allowed to participate in this ritual begging for candy.”

“Daddy, I meant for school…we’re supposed to…”

He eyed me suspiciously.  “I thought fifth grade would mean the end of such nonsense, but if you are supposed to…what do you need to wear”

I had thought about this.  Based on what the popular girls were last year, I decided…“I want to be a cheerleader!”

“Absolutely not.  Those skirts are indecent.”

“Caroline Auntie was a cheerleader!”

“In college.  When you’re in college, I’ll forbid you then, too.”

Nine-year old me promptly burst in to tears.  Later, my mother came to my room and helped me match a v-neck sweater from my old Catholic school uniform with a pleated skirt I usually wore to church—i.e. one which went to the middle of my knee.  She unpacked a box in my closet and wordlessly handed me my toy pom-poms.  My six-year old sister glared at her indignantly, so Mom rolled her eyes and did the same for her.  I was so excited.  Finally, a “cool” costume, one which didn’t involve an uncomfortable, weird-looking plastic mask to secure with an elastic band, from a pre-packaged ensemble.  I went to sleep feeling giddy.

The next morning, for the first time ever, I was tardy for school.  I don’t remember why, but I was.  When I walked in to class just before recess, everyone froze and stared at me.  The hopeful smile on my face dissolved; this year, the popular girls were all babies in cutesy pajamas with pacifiers around their necks.  I thought the weirdness in the air was due to my lame costume, but within a few minutes I discovered it was caused by something else entirely. 

The moment the bell rang, my desk was surrounded.  This couldn’t be good.  Was I going to get locked in a closet or a bathroom again? 

“Why are you here?”
“Yeah, we thought you weren’t coming.”
“Shouldn’t you be at home crying?”
“Mrs.  Doyle said you wouldn’t come in today.”

The questions assaulted me one after the other.  I was baffled. 

"Why…would…Mrs. Doyle say that?” I stammered.

“DUH, because Gandhi’s daughter got killed.”
“Isn’t she like your queen or something?  Or a Hindu God?”
“No you buttheads, she’s like the president of her country.”

At the end of the last sentence, the boy speaking gestured towards me.  When did they get so enlightened?  Last week, they asked if I was Cherokee and said “How” whenever I walked by, or pantomimed yowling war cries with their hands and mouth.

“She’s not the president of my country.  I’m…I’m from this country.  My president is Ronald Reagan.”

They got impatient and vaguely hostile.

“No, you’re Indian.  Mrs. Doyle said you were in mourning.”
“Did you not like her or something, is that why you don’t care?”
“I heard they dip her in milk before they burn her up.”
“Duh…that’s because they worship cows.”

I put my head down on my desk, as if we were playing “heads up, seven up”.   

“See?  She’s crying now…she is Indian.”

And with that they walked off, to do whatever it was that popular fifth-graders did.

::

Spring 1987.

I was sitting by myself (as usual…it’s always awesome to transfer to a K-8 school in the seventh grade, when no one is interested in making new friends with some outsider), reading something from the “The Babysitters Club”, pretending I was Mary Anne Spier.

“Hey ugly girl…”

I looked up to see a tall 8th grader whom every girl was crushing on…he was standing with his best friend, who elbowed him and muttered, “ask her!”

“Weren’t you supposed to be aborted?

I was horrified and confused.  Horrified because these people never talked to me, confused because…

“You know, since you’re like…a Hindu and we just learned that they only like to have sons.  So we were wondering if your parents wished they had aborted you. You should ask.”

The sidekick started guffawing and both of them ran off.  I sat there, my book still page-down in my lap, unable to read for the rest of recess.  I wished I could go home.

Four hours later…

“Where is your sister?  What is she up to?  I haven’t heard any noise.”

“I dunno…reading the dictionary or something nerdy”. 

I realized my father was headed to the dining room, which is where he left the huge, so-heavy-I-couldn’t-lift-it Webster’s dictionary open for me, so he wouldn’t have to constantly retrieve it from the shelf.  I slapped half the book over, to obscure what I had been looking at…

“What are you doing?  Why did you just do that?  What are you hiding?”

“Um, nothing.”

I tried to slip my finger out from the page I was trying to bookmark, but he was too quick.  The pages flipped back to “A”.

“ABORTION?  You are looking at ABORTION?  Oh my God, why did I sacrifice and struggle and come to this country, so my 12-year old daughter could be impregnated?  Were you raped?  Did someone do something to you? WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT THAT WORD!”

I actually didn’t know what “raped” meant, either.  My parents hadn’t explained anything like that to me yet.  I was still playing with Barbie and sleeping with my stuffed Persian cat; they saw no need.  I made a mental note to look up “rape”.

My mother came running, “What is this?”

“She is looking at ABORTION!”

“Why?”

“Was I supposed to be aborted?”

My parents faces fell slack from astonishment.

My Mother looked at my Father, then me.  “Why…would…you…ask…such a thing?”

“Some kids at school asked me to ask you if you wished you had aborted me.  I didn’t know what that meant…”

My Father walked away.  My Mother came up to me, looked me in the eye and said, “No.  We did not wish that.  Your Father was very excited, in fact, he always said he hoped you would turn out to be a girl and he was so happy you did.”

My Mother seemed sad.  “You don’t like your new school, do you?”

I shook my head, no.

::

Fall 1989.

“Class, today we are going to do something a bit different—we’re going to look at Catholicism’s impact on the world.”

I tried not to smirk as I recalled my Father’s rants about how Catholicism destroyed things and was rather evil.   

“We’re going to start with India, which is where Anna is from!”

Uh…

“One of the most visible Catholics in the world has chosen India, to serve.  Mother Theresa uses her faith to care for the filthy, the neglected, the unfortunate…”

Oh, sweet Jesus.

“…let’s start our discussion by asking our Indian student more!”

“Um, I’m American.”

“Yes, dear.  But you’re Indian.  What’s India like?”

“I’m just saying, I was born here, so I don’t really know—“

“Now, let’s not fib…I now for a fact you just came back from your country.”

“Well…um…yes, but it’s my parents’ country…no, wait, even they are American citizens.” 

The nun was getting impatient. “May I remind you that discussion counts for your participation grade?  Now would you like to add something constructive to this conversation?”

“Uh…sure.  Well, I did just get back from India.  I had not visited it since I was five, so I learned a lot.”  The nun nodded, with an encouraging smile.

“And tell us about the poverty you saw, the contrasts with America.”

“I…didn’t see poverty really…”

“Calcutta is very impoverished!  How is that possible?”

“I went to Kerala.  I’ve never been to Calcutta.  I’m from South India.  I went to where my parents are from and visited their families.  And Kerala is lush and green and so pretty.  The people are all really smart and the museum I went to—“

“How far is Careluh from Calcutta?”

“It’s really far.”

“So far that you didn’t see beggars?”

“I saw a few…”

“JUST a few?”

“No more than I see when I visit San Francisco.”

“That’s it young lady.  I will not tolerate your smart-aleck behavior.  To the principal’s office you will go and you’ll have detention, later.”

“But I didn’t…”

“Would you like me to double your punishment?”

I nodded miserably and walked out, reaching in to my backpack for my headphones.  Reel Life’s “Send Me an Angel” accompanied me as I dawdled on my way to the office. 

::

I thought of all of those moments, yesterday.  I’ll get to why in a mere moment. 

Besides my younger sibling, I was the only Indian kid at all of my schools except for the last one I cited. Obviously, my little sister did not accompany me to high school, but there was one other Indian girl there. Unfortunately, she wanted nothing to do with  me, because she couldn’t relate to me; she told me I wasn’t Indian enough, that I was white-washed. 

I was South Indian and Christian, I didn’t do garba or understand what she was talking about when she asked me about whether I preferred Salwars to lenghas–in fact, I didn’t even know what a lengha was…just like I was clueless about which Bollywood actor I should have a crush on. Once she realized that I had no experience with such things, she decided she had no use for me.  We didn’t speak, despite sitting next to each other, in home room.

This is now a well-known tale, this trial-by-ignorance which older 1.5/second gens went through.  I am amazed and relieved when I understand that things will never be that brutal for generation 3, not in this world where the internet sates curiosity while dissolving international borders and knitting us all together via the web. 

India is no longer so weird or foreign; today, people don’t eat monkey brains on the big screen. The little ABDs I’ve met recently who are nine, 12 and 14 are informed, empowered, righteous and sassy.  Once upon a time, if you had told me that girls in this country would wear lenghas and saris to their Junior Prom or in their Senior portrait, I would have thought you were a bad comedian.  I would have and did wear Gunne Sax, to both, way back in the early 90s.

::

I often say that I didn’t become a desi until my final year of college, which is when the ISA was allowed back on campus; nothing like “India Night” to give you a concentrated dose of culture. By the time I commenced my second semester of graduate school, in 2000, I had crossed over in to what felt like another realm—for the first time, the majority of my friends were brown. That was life-altering for a girl who lived through the three childhood situations I started this post with. The more people I met from abroad, the more I experienced, and the more I changed.

I had taken plenty of South Asian studies classes as an undergrad, but going to a hyper-International school like GW was like getting the practical experience to complement years of theory. Now, I have a rich, self-defined relationship with the subcontinent, a relationship which I’m so immersed in, it confuses and vaguely irritates my parent. She shakes her head when she catches me reading “Learn Malayalam in 30 days” or when she overhears me interrogating my cherished, fobulous friends about everything I don’t know (which is obviously a LOT).

The end result of all this is that though I’m not from India, now, I am of it. I love it, but not blindly. I celebrate it, but I don’t do so because of inherited jingoism. India is like a family member; I will bitch about it and worry and criticize…but heaven help someone else who attempts to do so in my presence. I know I have annoyed and even enraged some of you with some of my posts; some of you have accused me of being anti-India, when that is the furthest thing from reality. “I love my India”, I’ve written cheekily a few times at the Mutiny. Once, one of you pushed back; “What does that even mean? How is it YOURS?”

It’s mine because it just is, because I want it to be and also, because for my entire childhood, I felt like I was being thrown in to a deep well by my classmates, in an extreme act of othering. My sole company? No, not my Baby-sitters Club or Cheerleaders books—it was my ancestral country, which had been roughed up along side of me, before being tossed in the pit after me.

Once, when I couldn’t take the torment meted out to me, I burst in to tears in front of my Father and told him that I hated my uber-competitive, ultra-bitchy high school, where uniforms which were meant to equalize were an ineffective joke played on girls who didn’t have Dooney and Bourke backpacks, Gucci purses or polo players on their shirts and socks. I wailed that I was miserable, that I hated sticking out like the stench of patchouli in a room full of Chanel, that I didn’t fit in anywhere, especially with thick, long hair which reached the backs of my knees. “Where am I supposed to go? Where will people be nice to me?”

For once, instead of dismissing me or mocking me, he looked lost in thought, before he murmured, “India”.

Later that summer, we visited Ooty, another boarding school I can’t remember and two private high schools, one in Kottayam, the other in Cochin. Though I had hated India the first week I was there, after being terrorized by insects which looked like they had been imported from my nightmares, finding myself mired in a decades-old family feud and realizing, to my hostile resentment, that no, Indian girls did NOT have hair so long that they could sit on it, that I was the only naïve moron who lived up to that now passé ideal…I eventually calmed down.

Two weeks in to our two-month long trip, I was fluent again in my first language, Malayalam, and after my first month in Kerala, whatever resistance I felt to this strange new reality melted. I felt a peace I had never known before, because for the first time in my life, everyone looked like me, worshipped where I did and ate what I ate. I was enchanted and fine with staying; I daydreamed about waving to my father and sister at the airport in Madras, before being whisked back to Kerala by either my Dad’s elder brother or his beloved best friend.

My father realized that he couldn’t bear to leave me on the other side of the world, and that was the end of that. I returned to the U.S., to nuns who loathed non-Catholic, uncooperative me, to girls who yanked open my cardigan so that they could exclaim, “OMG, she’s still poor!” when they saw no logo prancing across my breast, to once again being exiled and alone. Daddy was troubled. Had he been selfish? “You know, you can always go to India. In a way, it will always be your home. If you are fed up…you could go back. You have that option. You are not rootless. I know you were happy, there…”

So, to me, India has always been synonymous with sanctuary. A naïve sentiment, I know, but also, a necessary fiction; it helped me survive.

How could I disparage my refuge, my roots? And could I stand by idly, when, on a popular blog, India was repeatedly tarnished?

::

Jezebel is part of Gawker’s online empire. Its tagline is Celebrity, Sex, Fashion. Without the airbrushing. When I stumbled upon it, it was love at first browse. It was smart, defiant and allergic to bullshit. It was fierce. For the first time, in many, many years, I felt like I had found the successor to Sassy, the legendary teen magazine which saved my sanity in a “YM” world. And who were these commenters?! These women who were righteous, bawdy, witty and often, hilarious? This was like the best of my sorority years, with none of the annoying idocratic declarations or pesky monthly dues. After weeks of lurking, I wanted to dive in this rollicking online hot tub…but there was one catch: you had to audition to comment!

Audition to become a commenter. To become a registered commenter on this site, you first need to be approved by our team. We’re looking for comments that are interesting, substantial or highly amusing. So write a comment, polish up your words and choose a username and password below. Your comment will only appear once (or if) you’re approved. Want to know more? Consult the Comment FAQ. [Jezebel]

I submitted my thoughts and then spent an anxious day or so wondering if I’d be deemed worthy; a few hours in to the weirdness, I realized exactly what it reminded me of—the end of sorority rush, when you make your choice and then sleeplessly wait for a bid. When my comment finally appeared on the site, I cackled triumphantly. YES! I was allowed in! I was a part of the coolest clique ever, the anti-clique, which called out anyone and everything. This was AWESOME.

Except…I started to see references to India, in their news roundups and then comments, which would inevitably refer back to the brown element of the post…and unlike the rest of the Jezebel experience…they were less than…fair. Sometimes, they were downright ignorant. Worse still, the female bloggers whom I had been crushing on pretty heavily seemed to not get it; sometimes, it seemed as if they were encouraging the ick. I have to tell you, it really did feel like being a teen all over again, right down to the confusion, the angst and the anticipation of exile.

Does that seem melodramatic ? It’s not, to me. I spend all my time here, at SM. Like a new, stay-at-home mother who is starved for “grown-up” conversation, i.e. that which does not involve poo or puking, I wanted more (and please, no stupid conflation of poo/puke/infancy with SM…sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar and a metaphor is, too.) Unfortunately, my source for what I had craved seemed less than welcoming.

And here’s where it gets all afterschool special; would I quietly observe the unfair digs at my “sanctuary” and remain mute, to protect my coveted place in that Jezebel-space? Or would I do what I was aching to—speak my mind, at the risk of alienating the popular and powerful? Yeah, you know how this turns out…

Indian actress Shilpa Shetty has been arrested at the Mumbai, India airport. Her crime? Obscenity. The act? Being the recipient of that overly demonstrative kidd on the cheek from Richard Gere. [Daily Mail] 12:45 PM ON THU SEP 27 2007 BY JENNIFER. 1,428 views
BY WARMAIDEN AT 09/27/07 12:58 PM This takes ‘blaming the victim’ to a whole ‘nother level. yay, India! (PS – Shouldn’t they be hanging those guys who drugged and raped the Japanese touristas?)
BY LOVESTOSMILE AT 09/27/07 01:03 PM My lord. I’m Indian and this is absolutely embarassing.
BY LOVESTOSMILE AT 09/27/07 01:11 PM As someone who’s Indian, I can say with all confidence that this is a matter of national shame.
BY ANDALUCíA AT 09/27/07 01:11 PM @LovesToSmile: I’m American. We won the Embarrassment Sweepstakes years ago.
BY RAINBOWBRITE AT 09/27/07 01:12 PM You’d think India would be trying to look a little more progressive these days. That “India at 60” campaign is everywhere here in NY, but stories like this one don’t really help their tourism…
BY SARAHINSASK AT 09/27/07 01:13 PM What a disgusting, filthy crime. Right? Right? Clearly India has no heinous criminal at large than Shilpa Shetty.
BY AHWANNABE AT 09/27/07 01:14 PM lovely country we’re outsourcing work to.
BY HABIBI AT 09/27/07 01:16 PM Jennifer, fix the typo – India is spelled “India” and not “Indnia”. Since when is getting a kiss on the cheek a crime? The Indian government should be embarrassed by this.
BY ANNOYINGFEMALELEADVOICEOVER AT 09/27/07 01:16 PM She was let go as soon as the cops realized the charges had been turned over months ago. Not that this justifies the act, but for a heads up.
BY CHOCOLATECOFFEEBEANS AT 09/27/07 01:30 PMIt is things like this that make me completelly terrified to travel to the Middle East at all, even though I consider myself relatively well-travelled. This combined with stories of getting hands cut off for stealing (not that I would steal) or the weird rules about things like alcohol and women’s dress. I just know it would take me approximately 15 minutes before I broke a law or offended someone. No thanks.

BY SUITABLEGIRL AT 09/27/07 02:32 PM @ahwannabe: Yes, let’s bring outsourcing in to this, it’s obviously germane. One tiny reminder: we should also bring it up when Canada or Ireland or every other country we outsource to gets brought up in any context whatsoever– that way we’re consistent.

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She wasn’t arrested, she was detained by some idiot on a power trip (not rare in India). This is not a matter of national shame, not when there are a million worse problems in the subcontinent. Is it stupid? Yes. Should this have happened? No. But let’s not go overboard, even though it is *so* fun and satisfying to snark at those unenlightened, job-stealing misogynists.

BY SUITABLEGIRL AT 09/27/07 02:34 PM @CHOCOLATECOFFEEBEANS: Right, except India is not in the Middle East. And as flawed as it is, its hassles are a far cry from Saudi Arabia, which is what you’re comparing it to.
BY SPECTATERTOT AT 09/27/07 02:40 PM @LovesToSmile: ditto (on being indian and finding this embarassing)
BY CHOCOLATECOFFEEBEANS AT 09/27/07 03:32 PM Ya know, I realized what I had said right after I posted it. I do realize India is not the “Middle East” but as has been mentioned, it is the crazy mix of government and religion that is a common thread to a lot of these countries and I would just not feel comfortable, and would be terrified of doing something wrong.
BY NARYMARY AT 09/27/07 04:10 PM This is really sad. I hope nothing awful happens to her!
BY NIGERIENNE AT 09/27/07 04:34 PM Way to set India back more than the people of Dell.

BY AHWANNABE AT 09/27/07 05:18 PM @Suitablegirl: AFAIK, Canada and Ireland have human rights laws that are at least somewhat similar to the ones we have in the good ole USA, so if the fat cats want to oursource there because it’s cheaper, can’t argue with that.

What I take offense to is when our fat cats outsource jobs to countries where this kind of abuse is considered okay, when we have LAWS in place to prevent it from happening here. That is the height of hypocrisy, and yes I will continue to bring up the subject of outsourcing until I’m blue in the face, or people get a clue.

BY SFIKUS AT 09/27/07 06:41 PM @Suitablegirl: “She wasn’t arrested, she was detained by some idiot on a power trip (not rare in India). This is not a matter of national shame, not when there are a million worse problems in the subcontinent.”

– Were she not Shilpa Shetty, and considered a bit of a national treasure, she could have faced a whole trove of other pleasures reserved for women in India – acid, stoning, etc. Yes, after all the sabre rattling, she was let off easily, but I think much of her reported reaction was compounded by her knowledge of what _could_ have happened…

BY SUITABLEGIRL AT 01:40 AM

@narymary: I think she’ll be okay.

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@sfikus: Were she not Shilpa Shetty, Richard Gere wouldn’t have kissed her…I think it’s a bit much to call her a national treasure, but hey, I also think it’s a bit much to paint this dire, sensational picture of a country which has issues– just like other countries. The horror is everywhere, India doesn’t have a monopoly on it– to me, misogyny is global.

I’m bemused that I am now in this bizarre situation where I stick up for a country I normally criticize righteously.

Want to call India out on something? How about gender-selective abortions, that I’ll agree is an India-specific problem. But acid? Double standards about women who are public figures/tabloids rushing to fan flames? Pot, kettle. As for stoning, again, that’s more of a Taliban penalty for adultery, not an “Indian” one; my concern throughout this thread has been exactly that sort of conflation. India is by no means perfect– but it doesn’t deserve to be painted by such a broad, ugly brush.

“a whole trove of other pleasures reserved for women in India – acid, stoning, etc.”

I was drawn to this site because I loved the fierce women who were creative, free-thinkers…but I’m chagrined to see less thinking and more reacting here. India is a subcontinent, with an amazing range of cultures, traditions, people…my parents came from a state with a matrilineal tradition, but that’s not part of the “India” caricature, so no one knows or wants to acknowledge that. I get sad when I see intelligent, otherwise tolerant women engage in reductionist stereotyping which minimizes and demeans.

Sorry for the extra-long comment. I’m new here, I want to make sure I articulate my position well, because that’s how much I respect this space.

Sigh. My inner teen is currently vaguely miserable. I thought I had discovered this amazing group of girls to hang out with, every day (and you know how difficult that is to do after college!), but perhaps I was so desperate to belong, I didn’t consider the totality of what I was coveting. Worst of all, why were the other two brown Jezebels okay with this? Was I wrong to be hurt on behalf of a country I had never even lived in?

That’s what really bothered me– I was the only one who was not echoing the chorus and following the mood; the choice of the other two desis, to toe some stupid line was like NaCl in my wound. Now it REALLY felt like high school. Is this how it is? You have to kowtow to be welcome? Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t do that the first time I was required to, back in 1988. I’m supposed to find it within me to do so NOW, two decades later? Perhaps I’m wrong about my orientation and I’m not a Jezbian after all.

The prospect of that is depressing. As much as I love my sepia baby, it’s nice to get out and do more than mother (and smother). The last time I tried to get in to a sorority, I was surrounded by people who were often clueless and thus, unintentionally hurtful; at least at the DG house they were essentially oblivious, what hurts the most here is that these women are aware, that they know a little something about India. But it’s just like what my Mom always says (especially after meeting a patient who has become “empowered” with drug or other info via WebMD, who is helpfully clutching a printout of such): a little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous. For the first time, ever, I wonder if it’s better to be ignorant about some things.

445 thoughts on ““…given up hiding and started to fight””

  1. I completely understand your frustration. The person who said that a little knowledge is dangerous knew what she was talking about. This is unfortunately a far too frequent human trait (to “otherize” etc.). Only a minority recognize the boundless limits of human ignorance (including their own). Only a few know that they don’t know; For my part, I have given up…

  3. Was I wrong to be hurt on behalf of a country I had never even lived in?

    Not really. Identity is like art—it is yours if and only if you want it. On the other hand, neither identity nor art can be truly “inherited”/given to you, even if you were born into it.

    You have to kowtow to be welcome?

    Welcome to “fobworld” :).

    For the first time, ever, I wonder if it’s better to be ignorant about some things.

    Typically I don’t care if people know or don’t know something. It bothers me when people who do not know the full picture somehow think they do, and see fit to lecture you about it. I much prefer ignorant but an open mind to those who know tit-bits here and there and think they “know better because they are actually removed from the situation”. someone on this board actually made that comment, though i cannot remember who.

    When I was younger, I have had “friends” who think it is alright to lecture me on things that happen in India. But given a chance to help out with one of the organizations I was involved with, of course they wouldn’t show up–leave alone volunteer, they wouldn’t contribute a cent. It was a learning experience—to me, now I just see this behaviour as a socially acceptable way to be prejudiced.

  4. reminds me of a kid in junior high that used to make fun of me using “poor” jokes (due to my skin color). i.e. “poor indian kid”. like i wasnt getting much to eat, or somehing. Years later i found out that this kid grew up in a trailor, and is now working in a store. i dont know how i feel about that.

  5. Way to set India back more than the people of Dell.

    “Hey, stop partying and come home to fix my Dell”

    This is what a gora told me in a pub last week.

    sad……

  6. atleast in the NE, goras have this $@#)@ attitude, that no matter what a brownie becomes in life, however hight, s/he is something still beneath the darn gora, even if the gora happens to be poor trailer trash.. It is reflected in the bark like ‘WHAT’ (instead of a polite ‘could you say that again’ or a more cultured ‘I beg your pardon’ when they do not understand something, to the scowl on the face or, the best, ‘go back to the sithole you crawled from for if they dont like the look of a brownie..

    after 300 years the blacks are still only african americans, not americans.. so I guess it will be a bvery long time if not forever the ABDs become anywhere near. So, better just embrace where you came from..

  7. sorry for the typos in the comment above.

    read your blog again. Having had to mingle with the ‘ordinary amru’ community more these days, I am beginning to understand what the typical desi kid here has to go through, born here/accented or not. Your blog sort of confirms that.

    When I travel to europe, I have noticed that the goras in certain more liberal (no certainly not england, but the ones like sweden, germany, belgium, swiss, italy, maybe even france) seem to be more informed about india, and about south india, having even gone there several times. typically taxi cab drivers start a conversation as to where I am from and then start throwing kerala town names at me. Also, in several of the above countries, I find that arrogant attitude of the amru gora almost completely absent. Interestingly, politeness of the gora increases a little if he’s from american midwest than the american northast.

    I think amrus are used to having wretched immigrants for a long time- wretched as in people who had no recourse in their own country, probably hated it, and loved america as their only choice. An immigrant was immediately supposed to diss his/her mother country and start singing praises to america the moment she/he landed. The recent immigrant, who has an increased self worth, does not hate his/her country, is proud of it despite the coming to america part, and has plenty of options within their own country is something that most amrus are not used to (so that the ubiquitous ‘go back to whereveer you came from’ does not really work any more : the immigrant might just say “oh yes with pleasure, after making some more money off your #$#* country and possibly finding a way to take your job with me” and snicker! Plus the fact that the social security that such immigrants pay might actually be taking care of the gora trailer trash/teen pregnancies too really do not help)

    Am immigrant was never supposed to be critical of america before – they were not supposed to believe in the ‘dissent is the biggest form of patriotism etc stuff. Now the are speaking up when they see things they do not like. And that is not something that the gora is ready to take from a brownie just yet, first generation or whatever.

    oh well. Sorry to hear what happened to you through your childhood. As your dad said, India will always be there for you.

  8. Amal, your comments combine a pathological victim complex with a racist, mercenary mentality. It is one thing to empathize with Anna’s post and talk about the difficulties of growing up brown in America. It is another to cluelessly and offensively stereotype Euro-Americans as well as beat your chest about how you are here just for the money and are saving the “trailer trash and teen mothers”. Many of those you refer to as “trailer trash” have had to struggle far more in their lives than your average class-privileged brownie, and I say that as someone who is an Indian immigrant and whose girlfriend grew up in a trailer and is now an academic at a top university.

    Disgusting.

  9. Torpedo,

    so you accepted your gf only because she is now the univ top. You still keep in your mind that she was once, in your own words, trailer trash.

    That is quite disgusting.

    Btw, I am not responsible for the trailer trashs’s struggles. And their struggles are no darn reason to have an attitude against the brownies.

    and yeah, I am here for the money. While at it, I contribute to the taxes, some of which I will probably never benefit from, and I live as a law abiding resident. So, nothing to be ashamed of. I do not know why you have a problem with it.

    I suspect the supposed wide-mindedness you exibit will be cured the moment some gora tells you some nice stuff about the country you came from (dont worry, they have something to say about the country of your origin even if you happen to be from a european country) and ask you to crawl back to ‘that shi*hole’.

    Then you too will open your eyes. Till then, enjoy your unwelcome stay in USA.

  11. I spend all my time here, at SM. Like a new, stay-at-home mother who is starved for “grown-up” conversation, i.e. that which does not involve poo or puking, I wanted more …

    And the kids start fighting on this post already in less than 10 comments … hmmm …

  12. Amal, I can’t speak for all the other gori Americans, but after hearing you spew, I do know of one immigrant I wish would go home. On the other hand, Torpedo, please stay. That is all.

  13. ANNA, I am horrified that your experiences were so harsh growing up. It makes me thankful that as a child, while I went to a small private school as well, I was raised in an area of Maryland where there is a large community of Indians. I too was the only brown kid in my class, and I was teased with hair pulling and name calling as well, but luckily I never felt the stigma of racist taunts. (Except maybe that whole monkey brains thing… Indiana Jones owes the community a big favor for that one.)

    Of course, to this day I still get the “no, where are you from ORIGINALLY?” loaded question, but I can brush that off as ignorance and not feel a lick of shame in my cross-cultural upbringing.

    I just want to commend you for coming out of all of that as gracefully and eloquently-written as you have. Just know that by being the rebel Jezebel (rebel-zebel?)you are someone else’s role model. (I never learned Malayalam, and whatever I was taught as a little girl visitor to Kerala I forgot.) So thank you. =)

  14. I cert. empathize with Anna’s school-kid experiences–mine were pretty bad too. That said, living in nyc now, it’s been a long time since anyone has said anything jerky to me–things do change.

  15. maybe next time, mention that at least in india they didn’t railroad somebody out of politics for toe tapping, and then spend a million dollars on preventing a wide stance.

    it would be nice if people didn’t use the word “gora” in the sneering-derogatory-othering vein as they have in this thread. that usage reflects the same attitude that people are justifiably upset about.

  18. Amal, I can’t speak for all the other gori Americans, but after hearing you spew, I *do* know of one immigrant I wish would go home. On the other hand, Torpedo, please stay. That is all.

    Amal ,

    Would you really speak about someone the way you did in # 7 to their face?

    Sari Virgin,

    I totally empathize with the way you must feel after hearing Amal’s gibberish. I am curious : In real life would you really tell an immigrant to go home because of what he /she said?

  19. Let’s not be too harsh on Amal–everyone is entitled to an opinion, eve if it’s not the most gracious.

  20. Hi Runa,

    No, in real life I’ve never told an immigrant to “go home”. But, who am I to fight against Amal’s deeply held stereotypes of Euro-Americans? Anyway, I’m getting married to an immigrant, so I’m unlikely to be a particularly representative xenophobe.

  21. You are complexity incarnate, ANNA. Must you further confuse an old IBD trying raise a young ABD?

  22. Weird but true–the main lingering effect of my school-yard traumas is that I always wear at least one very expensive thing (shoes, watch, etc.), because I feel I will be more accepted, get better service, etc.

  23. it would be nice if people didn’t use the word “gora” in the sneering-derogatory-othering vein as they have in this thread. that usage reflects the same attitude that people are justifiably upset about.

    Amen! Please add to that list karumben/karupen (from posts past).

  24. Anna, I can’t believe that you are “suitablegirl”! I read that Jezebel post last night and was shocked by the accusatory comments made by people who are normally open-minded and are so quick to defend the minority position on an issue, almost to a fault. And I actually started grinning when I got to your posts, because you said exactly what I wanted to say to those commentors.

    Also, for what it’s worth, I grew up with very similar feelings of “otherness” (and very similar reactions to that feeling) in the midwest as the only Indian kid in my class until high school, although the incidents you cite are far more horrifying than what I experienced.

  25. Amal, your comments combine a pathological victim complex with a racist, mercenary mentality. It is one thing to empathize with Anna’s post and talk about the difficulties of growing up brown in America. It is another to cluelessly and offensively stereotype Euro-Americans as well as beat your chest about how you are here just for the money and are saving the “trailer trash and teen mothers”. Many of those you refer to as “trailer trash” have had to struggle far more in their lives than your average class-privileged brownie, and I say that as someone who is an Indian immigrant and whose girlfriend grew up in a trailer and is now an academic at a top university. Disgusting.

    Here’s where the empirical rub comes in: nobody on this thread who has grown up in a trailer, and is of south-asian descent, has said a damn thing. Perhaps that’s just because there aren’t flocks of these unfortunate souls, picking through trash cans outside the North Dakota bunker or cooking meth next to their newborn children. Or, perhaps, growing up in a trailer isn’t a surefire route to immortalizing appearances on Jerry Springer reruns.

    Let’s not be too harsh on Amal–everyone is entitled to an opinion, eve if it’s not the most gracious.

    An opinion is one thing, but an incredibly uninformed generalization is quite another. Would you be more comfortable with, “all asian people can’t drive” or perhaps, “all Robs are shitbirds”?

    People feel most at ease, when it comes time to throw large, stereotype-dotted, bigotry blankets over a perceived demographic if they know next to nothing about the people in question.

    You may feel as if life in America is a matter of urbanite, professional desi v. uneducated, lazy trailer-dweller, but that is a fallacy. Other than a mostly existential sense of danger at the hands of some unwashed hick from a backwater unknown, what genuine grievance do you hold other than resentment over the fact that you won’t collect social security?

    Sigh. My inner teen is currently vaguely miserable. I thought I had discovered this amazing group of girls to hang out with, every day (and you know how difficult that is to do after college!), but perhaps I was so desperate to belong, I didn’t consider the totality of what I was coveting. Worst of all, why were the other two brown Jezebels okay with this? Was I wrong to be hurt on behalf of a country I had never even lived in?

    No. These were definitely not people who could read through feminist scholarship and realize that much of it was written from the perspective of western scholars sitting in the metropole and laying sometimes awful, all-encompassing judgments on south-asian women. They would think that approach to be not only sufficient but the only way to approach the question of how women interact with their home societies–but it wasn’t even that, as they would concentrate on how women in these societies were limited, hemmed in or persecuted by the subject society rather than acknowledge any agency on the part of the woman.

    I went along to get along at times as well–of course it was in primary schooling and I was more afraid of bodily injury than I was of being excluded from the ‘group’ as I knew such an inclusive environment could not exist if I was in the room.

    It’s nothing to be ashamed of if you did it to save your own skin, but on a message board it’s inexcusable.

  26. 25 · muralimannered You may feel as if life in America is a matter of urbanite, professional desi v. uneducated, lazy trailer-dweller, but that is a fallacy. Other than a mostly existential sense of danger at the hands of some unwashed hick from a backwater unknown, what genuine grievance do you hold other than resentment over the fact that you won’t collect social security?

    Yes, I am a bit guilty of this–you are right to call me on it–I will try to keep this in mind….

  27. Anna, I am so ashamed to hear about what you went through & what that nun put you through, because I’m Catholic. And something like this is unacceptable. I have heard about hard it has been for some being the only brown kid in school. I wish you had gone to school in India, because I know you would have liked it. Unity is never more prevalant than in India. Sure, we have some problems but I wish everyone knew how united the people & kids were for that matter. While my school in India was run by the Catholic church, it admitted everyone & had a mixture of religions. The teachers were Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Muslim….basically from every religion just like the kids. The All girls’ school that was run by nuns next door also had the same dynamic. While the nuns were strict, as they are known to be, I don’t think they were ever as harsh as the one mentioned in your story. Although, this is India we’re talking about where all or most of the nuns were Indian. Being a Christian minority in India, I never felt it. If the 50 boys in class would pick on us 13 girls (Yes, that was the ratio for every class in my school) it was because they were just being boys. I know things are much different for the kids today in America & Canada too, with kids from so many different ethnic backgrounds, it’s been said that it’s rare to hear more than a few Anglo Saxon names in a class while the register is being called. I wish your experience had been better & if I were to meet that nun I’d not hesitate to give her a piece of my mind. Whatever was she thinking ?

    And with the Shilpa Shetty incident, unfortunately it’s two steps forward & one step back for India. How are the Bollywood films ever rated for kids to watch? Obviously, no problems or find fault there…

  28. it would be nice if people didn’t use the word “gora” in the sneering-derogatory-othering vein as they have in this thread. that usage reflects the same attitude that people are justifiably upset about.

    Accepted, but the dell comment in a pub pushed me to it. will use caution in future

  29. sari virgin, your frustration with that commenter is understandable, but saying something like I do know of one immigrant I wish would go home. confers a sense of entitlement on your part, like white americans are in a position to tell immigrants to go home. and citing your marriage to an immigrant doesn’t justify that statement either–it doesn’t prove that despite that statement, you must be an open minded person anyway.

  30. That’s brutal.. To grow up as a kid in such a hostile environ. But if people try to correct the image of India in the US schools/academia they are right away castigated as “Hindutvadis”.

    I imagine myself in the position of a school kid of Indian origin in America when they teach in class – “Kids, In India Hindus think when they read Ramayana there will be a monkey sitting around. Now we are reading Ramayana , look around to see if there is a monkey”..

    Though this sounds funny to me, I can’t imagine what the kids went through. Now I understand why Bobby Jindal converted to Christianity.. I support him. 🙂

  32. Sparky,

    I just said that because Amal brought it up and I was trying to play off of his post. I’m not trying to prove anything to you or anybody else here in terms of whether I’m an “openminded white person” or not. I’m not anti-immigrant and I don’t feel a sense of entitlement to tell anybody to go home. I said in the previous post that I’ve never actually done that in “real life”. Sigh… why do I feel like Amal makes racist statements and then I end up defending myself against the “ignorant cracker ugly American” stereotype he brought up in the first place?

  33. Wow. What a story. Although I was born in Sri Lanka, I have spent most of my life in the US. I can totally relate going to schools where I was the only brown person in the West Texas town my mom, sister, and I moved after my parents split. Talk about not fitting in. I had friends but always felt an outsider for a variety of reasons having to do with locale and family situation. I, too, didn’t embrace my desi-ness until joining ISA and SLSA during my undergrad years. Before college, I think I knew only two other Indians in the schools I attended and for some reason we all delicately avoided each other. When I traveled for business I felt most at home in the South American places I worked because my skin blended with everyone else’s around me.

    Nowadays I find that many of my friends are desi although my best friend is not. I have to say only within the last few years that I have I truly felt comfortable in my skin. It’s actually a great time to be desi! I even took the risk of putting a brown girl in my entrepreMusings blog header. 🙂

  34. 33 · Aruni

    Aruni,

    Your blog is about “pee-pee” and “poo-poo”–could you please use an anglo-saxon name when you blog about such topics. (Hint–“rob” is available.) This does not help my endeavors to cultivate a “desis as overclass” image around the Yale Club. I am not kidding.

  35. Before college, I think I knew only two other Indians in the schools I attended and for some reason we all delicately avoided each other.

    The whole desi avoidance of other desis is a whole post in itself. In my midwestern WASP-y burb, the desis still carefully avoid each other, as if by clumping together they would draw negative attention to themselves. Maybe the next gen will change?

    Anna, I feel for you, junior high sucked. But I think it made us who we are now, so it all came out right!

  36. sari virgin–one issue that people of color have is that when they try to express anger over something like racism, a white person will come in and try to turn it around and make themselves the victim, calling out “reverse racism”…that kind of thing comes with white privilege. amal’s thoughts may not have been eloquently put, but it seems to be coming from a place where he experienced certain things, and not from ignorance like the boy asking anna whether her parents meant to abort her. stereotyping white people is not the same as stereotyping poc, because white people/culture are the default culture in the western world.

  37. As a kid in elementary school in Western PA, and one of three colored kids in my school(2 blacks, and me), you had to be me. This was the 70s. Kids thought Indians were the native americans. People would ask me if I went to a Native American gathering and we all just put our hands on our mouths and chanted. I was called Red Indian back then by a couple of kids. One year, a bunch of us 2nd graders had an all out fight ina school bus. Lucky for me, my friend and I were the biggest kids in our age group. So I was never bullied too much because I would fight back.

    Then I went to India. My first year in school was “eventful”. Teens who were 4 years older would fight with me(I was 5 feet tall in 4th grade). I learned all the cuss words pretty fast even if i didnt know the exact meaning of all the telugu cuss words. People would ask about my dad. After a few years, I realized my parents were getting divorced. I belonged to the only divorced family in my entire catholic school back then. Most kids didnt even know what divorce was. I never bothered explaining. I would make fun of India the first year I was there and tell teachers that I wouldnt have to follow their rigid rules for too long.

    I had a weird childhood. I was an outsider and an insider simultaneously somehow. I could relate to Jason’s character in Rushmore on some levels. But at the same time, I had plenty of good friends in both the US and India and my good grades bought me a lot of leeway with teachers.

    I remember asking my dad when i was 6 or 7 why we were brown. He said our skin had a tendency to brown like toast when the sun hit it.

    I was lucky when I went to India though. Back then, I don’t think many Indian kids understood Indian languages like the kids seem to do now. All my cousins spoke excellent English and made me feel very welcome. I somehow got tuned into both societies very quickly.

  38. Once again, Sepia Mutiny opens my eyes to the unpleasant reality faced by the woman I love. We don’t live in the US, but the challenges are often different, I remember her telling me that during primary school (K through year 7), one schoolmate accused her of not washing properly, because her skin was so brown. Of course, we live in a state that is considered the most like the American south of our country, in it’s sometimes conservative social customs and lagging behind in enacting certain social reforms such as longer maternity leave, etc. And she still encounters discrimination, even though she was born and raised here (she’s 2nd generation).

    I encountered many forms of discrimination during my childhood, but I was never so treated as ‘other’ as our skilled blogger or my goddess has been. It is a painful reminder of what we still have to work on before we can become a multicultural society. Sure, in the capital cities there is greater multicultural diversity, but that doesn’t mean to say integration (hooray for drunken hooligans and the race riots in Cronulla).

    I work with a Sikh and two other people of Indian descent (at least one of whom practices Hinduism), and the only thing I can really say about them is that they’re people, and I think a lot of people forget that about ‘foreigners’, ‘immigrants’ and ‘refugees’, they’re just people from another country/culture with Very similar hopes and dreams. They vary in opinion and background just like the people who were already here, if you want to get really technical (and think those world-wide immigration studies based on DNA are saying something useful), then we’re All immigrants, unless you happen to live at the headwaters of the Nile 😀

  39. Your reactionary dismissal of the other two Indian commenters and the entire Jezebel site is an immature response to a common reality. India, despite coming a long way since we 2nd gens were kids in the 80s, is still an unknown to most Americans, famous only for killing baby girls, outsourcing, Bollywood, and idol worship. These are all complicated, multi-faceted sociocultural and economic issues that require debate to understand and process. People have no way of knowing the intracacies and nuances of a particular culture unless there is free and open dialogue around it, which is what the Shetty post brought out in all its ugliness and ignorance. You did a perfectly fine job explaining your view and providing a culturally sensitive perspective to people who needed it, but it is neither your duty, nor your right, to criticize other Indians who think the Shetty incident was an embarrassment. They are not “kowtowing” because they do not share your opinion. They are simply expressing their own view. I am frequently embarrassed by many things that Americans do; does that make me ashamed of who I am?

    And I’m truly sorry that you believe a little bit of education is dangerous. A patient with earnest but incorrect drug information culled from WebMD, and an American who thinks the Shetty arrest is somehow tied to an “evil” outsourcing issue have both been provided with a “teachable moment.” You can either take that moment and teach or not, as you wish, but do not presume that others of your descent who disagree are somehow less morally sound than you, and are “toeing some line” in order to fit in with the “cool girls.”

  40. 39 · rashmi Your reactionary dismissal of the other two Indian commenters and the entire Jezebel site is an immature response to a common reality. India, despite coming a long way since we 2nd gens were kids in the 80s, is still an unknown to most Americans, famous only for killing baby girls, outsourcing, Bollywood, and idol worship.

    This is so wrong–in my circles, India is known for churning out whizzes at medicine, finance, math, etc.–and I like that stereotype.

  41. While in college, I had quite a few friends who were Indian. But since then, very few interactions with Indians unless it was a family gathering. I think sepiamutiny has given me a good outlet to interact with other indians. No boring book clubs or bollywood events. (it seems like writers are a bigger part of our pop culture over here compared to other ethnic groups)

  42. ANNA,

    I went through similar experiences as well when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. I was also the only desi kid at my school, so I was pretty isolated.

    I was thinking about the stereotypes that the American kids spewed out about India. I think this is the legacy of British colonialism. The British had a very negative opinion of the native people of India, as you can easily see if you ever read books/documents from that time. And since America started out as a British colony, those sorts of ideas became prevalent in the American psyche as well. Many people like to tell me that America and Britain are NOT alike at all; but I often note how similar both cultures are. America is in some ways very much like Britain. (In mainland Europe you don’t see the same type of attitude as much, maybe because those countries did not colonize India and therefore do not have a master/slave relationship with it.)

    Early Americans grew up reading British literature, and that is where they got their stereotypes about Indians. The problem was that those stereotypes persisted into the 20th century and can still be found in today’s American culture. There was never a real effort made to be more “understanding” of India and or Indians. I’ve noticed that Americans are MUCH MORE understanding and emphatic towards East Asians and Africans than they are towards us. Sadly I’ve met many liberal upper-middle class white American girls who have no problems whatsoever saying negative things about India to my face–in a manner they would never use with East Asians or with African-immigrants. This phenomenon needs to be explored more.

    How do certain Americans justify that sort of behavior to themselves? Is it because they feel threatened by Indians? Why?

    Again, ANNA, I totally sympathize with you, and it’s great that you defended the Desh. But you shouldn’t have to do that.

  43. By the way, I enjoyed my fights as a kid (both in the US and India), and I do not feel traumatized lest people think I was expecting some pity. I think it gave me a different perspective of life.

  44. You got:

    Your reactionary dismissal of the other two Indian commenters and the entire Jezebel site is an immature response to a common reality

    From this?

    Worst of all, why were the other two brown Jezebels okay with this? Was I wrong to be hurt on behalf of a country I had never even lived in?

    I neither judged nor dismissed either the site or its commenters; I just wrote about how I feel. You can say you felt differently about all of it, but you can’t invalidate my reaction, especially when it was merely an honest account of my thought process. I’m not attacking anyone or anything.

    I don’t know how much more of a teachable moment I could have made it; I was respectful even though I disagreed and I tried to explain why I felt that way. I’m perplexed. Did we read the same post? Your interpretation of how I feel isn’t correct, not that I would expect it to be; I still love Jezebel and in the larger scheme of things, especially after exorcising my discomfort with this post, I don’t give a shit what other brown people on the site do– however, I have every right to wonder about it, experience considerable self-doubt and question myself without you twisting around what I was doing, thinking, intending.

    Thanks for delurking.

  45. My experiences are nowhere close to how horrifying yours were, especially for a young kid, but I distinctly remember feeling extremely uncomfortable going to work the day after a major story on 60 Minutes (such as female infanticide) – having to defend, explain, correct.

    I’m glad you went back to relate those childhoold episodes because I wonder how it is for my son now. I only studied at grad schools here and so have no way of relating to a major portion of his experiences now. I do hope things have changed for the better, but the Jezebel episode doesn’t give much hope, does it?

  46. One thing I do want to express: I was never a brat to my Indian relatives when I was a kid. Well I was up to plenty of mischief, but I was equal opportunity offender. And I never gave them the cold silent sullen treatment. But let’s face it. Some ABDs have been brats. I have a few cousins who were superbrats and there would be uncomfortable silences in the room whenever a DBD would enter it. Though during college, I did make fun of some grad students which I was probably immature about. But I never would avoid talking to an Indian if he or she approached me. Even now, the white guys/gals who marry my cousins are friendlier with the indian relatives than the ABDs who marry into the family.

    Some of these ABDs have changed once they went to college.A couple still haven’t. Pretty sad to live life like that. Sometimes it is the fault of the parents for not catching that behavior at an early age. I think that kind of behavior is less common now.

  47. Were she not Shilpa Shetty, and considered a bit of a national treasure, she could have faced a whole trove of other pleasures reserved for women in India – acid, stoning, etc.

    Yes, Yindian vimmen have all the fun, I say, getting stoned on acid and what not.

  48. “Mother Theresa uses her faith to care for the filthy, the neglected, the unfortunate…” Oh, sweet Jesus.

    Amen.

  49. I actually didn’t know what “raped” meant, either.

    it is obvious Anna’s parents never watched Indian movies at home. When I went to India, i watched a bunch of them and it always boggled the mind how rape scenes used to be so common but kissing scenes were extremely rare. I think most kids in India have seen an Indian movie with a rape scene in it.

  50. Lesson learned: Do not express a differing opinion. No longer a lurker, my friend, now merely a non-reader. Take care.