Happy New Year, Mutiny! It is not possible to hyperlink a post title, so I offer this as my inspiration for the headline above.
Sometimes, when people assume I’m of Indian origin, I get grumpy and I think, I know just how Jan feels. I mean, I like Marcia. I understand that she’s the biggest sister and everyone in school knows her. But I am special too. 馃檪
As a result of this feeling (and arguably, my background as a sometime member of the Fourth Estate), I read media descriptions of desis pretty closely. Indian is NOT a racial or ethnic descriptor. But sometimes it’s used as such.
I recently wrote an e-mail to an editor at [ed: The New York] Times about three articles in which this came up. [Annotations in ital.]
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p>I write you as a devoted reader of the Times and especially of the Travel section. I have noticed a pattern in several Times articles, two of which were in Travel, and would like to ask you about the section’s policies (and perhaps the policies of the copydesk).
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p>I read Matt Gross’s article and I wondered about this line:
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It was packed with college students, hipsters in silly fedoras, a British couple with a baby, Indian 20-somethings figuring out how to ship saris back from London.
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p>I was curious as to how Mr. Gross knew that the people in question were Indian; “Indian” is a national identifier, rather than a racial one, but since the line is basically doing the work of “color,” I didn’t get the impression that he had talked to them to ascertain their national origins.
Note to SM Readers: In journalistic terms, “color” refers to language that sets a scene or provides atmosphere. Back to our show.
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p>Saris are traditional dress in a number of countries. Furthermore, did he know that they weren’t American? If they wanted to ship saris back to Los Angeles from London, they could have been South Asian-Americans with familial roots in any one of a number of countries.
This isn’t the first time I have had this question after reading a Travel article. I also wrote Michelle Higgins after reading “Flying the Unfriendly Skies,” which included the sentence,
“No to the young Indian man who asked for a blanket for his mother who was shivering in her sari next to him.”
(I wrote to Ms. Higgins shortly after that article was published, to ask her if she had asked the young man about his nationality. She wrote me back a very kind response and said that she had based the description on his mother’s clothing.)
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p>Finally, I also wrote Allen Salkin about “A Long Way From Bollywood.”
This story included the phrase “ethnically Indian.” But it isn’t possible to be ethnically Indian; India has people of many ethnicities, some of which appear in other countries as well (Sri Lanka, Pakistan, or Bangladesh, for example).
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p>Note to SM Readers: Allen was kind enough to write back too, although his response was less clear. I would have written to Matt, but it was harder to get an address for him. Back to what I wrote the editor.
All of this brings me to a final question: Does the Times have a policy about the use of the word “Indian” in such contexts? With an increasing number of South Asians in America, descriptions such as these as bound to crop up, and could easily be made more accurate.
Thanks in advance for any time you are able to devote to a response. I am grateful for the Times’ thoughtful attention to the coverage of race, and am always interested in its appearance, however minor, in stories with other subjects.
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p>…So I sent this off to the Times, and relatively promptly, I got an e-mail saying that I made a good point that he would discuss with the copy desk and other editors there. Very responsive of them.
Now it will be interesting to keep an eye on this and see if they change how they do things! For those of you who think I am nitpicking… this is important! The descriptions are inaccurate. And I’M DOING IT FOR JAN.
I thought he needed a PIO card for it.
Ikram:
Yes, but not all LA parking attendants are cardiologists (or vice versa).
There are two sets of people.
1) People who are not Indian and who are not of Indian origin and some people who are of Indian origin (and also some who are Indian, I suspect mostly of the “progressive” variety) and not having any affinity to India taking offence to being called as Indian.
2) People who are Indian (or) of Indian origin who have no problem with being called Indian and take offence to being called South Asian or any other term.
I think both have valid reasons to identify themselves using whatever term they want to.
The problem occurs only when each group tries to impose its identity on the other group claiming that their term is inclusive / more appropriate and should be used for both groups.
55 脗路 Ikram said
Have you consulted with your Pathan brothers or even Kashmiris? i thought most pakistanis and some indians were not Brown.
I can’t believe so many people have issues with “Ask, don’t assume”
Asian Paints should be called Brown Paints.
I think what is happening is that the term “Indian” is becoming a racial category just like AA. For e.g. at my place of work a German was referring to a ABD-Bangladeshi colleague as Indian. And when I clarified he said they all look the same ! I was kind of amused to argue further. There were also these British-Asian colleagues who were being referred to as Indians by white folks. I think if you are slightly darker you are generically Indian and if you are pretty fair compared to the average Asian then you are mistaken as Hispanic.
As Tommy lee would say “But I think once you quit hearing “scythians” and “lemurians,” the rest is soon to foller.
Okay, I really should stop playing devil’s advocate, but:
People stood in line. That’s it?
VV, I believe you might be over-reacting. As you said yourself, most of these are “color” commentary and scene description, not attempts at anthropological classification. WOuld you consider asking the authors if they had proof that the other people in the scenes were college students (did the author ask them for their college ID?) and hipsters (maybe they are non- hipsters who like funny hats?)?
Regarding “East Indian”, Stephenson said it best:
Just write “post-ethnic” – it’s an intimidatingly hip way of saying “brown”.
Such hardcore verificationism can lead to some really hairy issues. Try checking each statement in a report. There is a logical clause called Ceteris Paribus, which is used all over the place, and holds for the Sari case.
I agree with Manju’s comment on the inclusivists.
I think of the South Asian label as a bogey, seeking to appropriate a share of the success of DBD Indians in America, but while firmly rejecting any identification with India. It is pursued not just by people from the smaller nationalities, but also by ABDs.
They want to have the cake, but don’t want anything to do with the bakery, so they say the cake comes from the farm, of which they are a part. This could be construed as true, but it is kinda hard to convince people about that.
I vote trans-ethnic! TE, TE, TE!
Reporters, please refer to me as A Trans-Ethnic Brown Princess, should you catch me in an In-N-Burger in the Atlanta airport, and wish to descibe me as local color for your Times travelogue. Thank you.
*I love this thread. It reminds me of the old days around here….
In-N-Out
You might have your reasons for this, but where I work, there are literally tons of Asians of multiple nationalities, so we generally go by three large ethnicity-approximating umbrella terms: “South Asian”, “East Asian” and “South-East Asian”. It saves a huge amount of confusion using an overloaded term like “Asian”. When the Indians (DBDs anyway) talk with one another, we use “Indian”.
Thank you, commenter #61. You said it.
In two of the three situations I wrote about, all I wanted the reporters was to ask. Pretty easy to do. And yes, you can do the reporting for solidly factual color. Those are not hard questions.
This sentence is wrong on so many levels.
At my workplace, some people still ask me if I am “Hindi”. I can no longer summon the energy to explain the difference between Hindu and Hindi.
I work with a lot of Spanish-speaking people and some Bangladeshi people as well. I am the only Indian (from India) at my workplace. I am sometimes called “Bengali” by my Spanish-speaking colleagues. Or they will laboriously learn some phrase in Bengali and then say it to me with great pride, only to be met with a blank stare (I speak Tamil). I suppose they mean well. The best one yet is being told by a Puerto Rican colleague that she was very fair, unlike her father who was “as dark as a Hindu”.
I want to make a distinction between using a term for referring to a person you don’t know (such as “Chinese-looking person”), and pursuing a label as an identity. Most people wouldn’t disagree with the first, as it is just a useful way of picking out someone, not all that different from “person-in-brown-shirt”. The pursuit of a label is more disingenious, I was referring to the pursuit in my post.
In my view, if you don’t want anything to do with India, just refer to yourself as American/Pakistani/Bangaldeshi/SriLankan/whatever. Why create an assimilative category that dumps India with your identity? If India and Indians are closely aligned, as the pursuit-ists claim, they should ask Indians before taking the Indian identity and mixing it with their own, no?
Meant to add that I can’t even imagine throwing the term “South Asian” into conversation at my workplace given what I wrote in my previous comment #74
74 脗路 sk said
This may not be a deliberate offense-causing thing if said by Hispanic people. Here’s an oldie and goodie blogpost explaining why Spanish does not distinguish between Hindu and Indian (except in Panama), but Portuguese does. No idea where they got the “Bengali” though.
BTW, endha ooru machi?
“India” should have been called Bharat after partition. The word India was historically applied to all of the subcontinent east of the Indus. Calling someone from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, or the Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan an “indian” is the equivalent of calling someone from any of the independent nations of europe an european.
No, V.V. Ganeshananthan, you didn’t just want them to ask. You want them to use the term South Asian. And some of your readers, whose criticisms you don’t engage in the comment section directly except to keep repeating yourself, say, no, we don’t care for that term. Why should your prefered term be used, aside from other terms?
In fact based on my experience, for the really ignorant goras reg. spoken language, the logic goes like – since majority religion in India is Hinduism the spoken language of India/South-Asians should be Hindi.
Because it’s more accurate. If you don’t know, why not use the more inclusive term? Why accidentally call an Austrian a German when you can say that they’re European?
It’s not more accurate, Ennis, it’s just less likely to be wrong. Too different things.
My point is: who gets to decide these things? If it’s an editorial decision by the paper, fine, but I don’t want someone thinking they (they being an editor, or a spokesperson of an activist group, or even a private citizen) speak for me, or all ‘South Asians’ when they never asked me or all ‘South Asians’. That’s what I don’t like. The definitive nature of it, as if it’s not a personal preference like anything else.
Okay, I have to stop, I don’t actually care what people use. I just needed my daily fix of contrarianism.
I just call everybody Paki or Injun. I find that’s the best way not to give selective offense.
I thought posts like these ought to be in CL R&R?
I think you’re muddling two things (and less likely to be wrong means fewer cases misclassified means, yes, more likely to be right).
I think your objection is that you would rather be called Indian than South Asian. Fair enough. Lots of Brits don’t feel like they’re European, but it’s not inaccurate to call them European because, in English, that’s the appropriate word for the broader region. Similarly, when you don’t know what somebody is or what they want to be called the logical choice is to use the broader geographic appellation. You’re not less accurate when you call a German a European even if he would rather be recognized as a German.
In short, SA is pareto optimal. It is no less technically appropriate for Indians and more likely to be right for non-Indians. Some people are made better off while the others are no worse off.
Why not go further to Asian or Eurasian or Human or Carbon based lifeforms? A name is only as useful as it’s accuracy and specificity. You want to narrow the scope as much as possible without being wrong. Calling all birds pigeons is not accurate, even if 90% of the birds in the area are pigeons. Calling all birds animals isn’t useful because you could convey more information by calling them birds.
I get the political debate, but am honestly puzzled by people who don’t get the argument for politeness and correctness in the narrow situation where you’re describing somebody without knowing where they’re from.
I, too, like VV, am of Sri Lankan origin. My best comeback for people who mistake me for Indian and then go on to say, “it’s the same thing, isn’t it?” is to say so you would like if it I called you Mexican? (if they’re Puerto Rican), or if I called you French (if they’re from Britain). If they’re just a walloppy American, I would use the example of calling a Japanese person Chinese. Then they get it. Bravo to VV for another insightful post.
81 脗路 Ennis said
And why not be even more inclusive and use the term already popular. ASIAN. Thats what all the subcontinentals are. There isnt any need to invent another word which excludes our brothers from Afghanistan and Myanmar. South Asia isnt even accurate for most browns. While Asia is definitive South Asia isnt, everyone have there own idea of which countries are part of it.
87 脗路 Indian008 said
What about Turks and Cypriots?
88 脗路 Rahul said
They are bi and everyone knows it and have excepted it.
87 脗路 Indian008 said
Wiki says South Asia can include Afghanistan and Myanmar. It also adds that According to a World Bank report in 2007, South Asia is the least integrated region in the world.
And once again, as a nerd, I prefer being associated with brain over brown.
Because it’s more accurate
Huh.. I mean I can’t vote in South Asia, I can’t own property in South Asia, and if I get in trouble in another country, the South Asian diplomatic corps wont lift a finger to help me. The South Asian national anthem doesn’t move me. So how am I South Asian?
馃檪
I hope you’re thinking of Bollywood, cuz I can’t come up with anything else. man, kollywood gets no love…
Because it’s more accurate. If you don’t know, why not use the more inclusive term? Why accidentally call an Austrian a German when you can say that they’re European? because it’s the lazy way out and it goes directly to vv’s point that journalists are not supposed to assume anything – they’re supposed to ask. in many contexts, incl. some she pointed out, it says that the reporter didn’t care enough to bother actually knowing, much less asking.
And once again, as a nerd, I prefer being associated with brain over brown. you don’t prefer brawn over brown instead?
The proposal for re-branding the region ‘Greater India’ has been tabled many times here. It would solve the problem of acknowledging the nations peripheral to the Republic of India whilst not forcing everyone to use Cold War terminology.
VV, You seem to be one who favors desi and South Asian as a descriptor for people from India or of Indian origin or from the sub-continent. As a Tamil, I am not sure why you favor a Hindi word desi for ‘namba ooru makkal’. Is that not a choice that you are making? Why can’t ‘Indian’ become an ethnic descriptor as it used to be rather than confine it to a narrow national descriptor only. You have no qualms about USAans claiming the broader ‘American’ descriptor for themselves despite the fact that USAans are only a subset of North Americans. Mind you, there are a whole continent of people classified as South Americans. Why don’t I see you writing letters to NYT and other newspapers questioning this appropriation of the descriptor ‘American’ for USAans?
Not really. Everyone else is asking which box fits better, I am asking two different questions:
1) Who wants the South Asian label? 2) Why do they want it?
In other words, who benefits and how?
Consider this analogy. A Canadian goes to Europe, someone calls him American. He says, no I am Canadian. Correct response.
Another Canadian has the same experience, but she says, no I am North American (equivalent to South Asian). The only reason she would say this is because she identifies with something more than Canadian, and that something is good, and comes from the US.
Now, this person meets a group of US citizens (equivalent to Indians), and tells them: we should all call ourselves North Americans, and accept others calling us that, because that would be more inclusive and accurate. She would get two kinds of responses:
1) A pat on the back and a magnanimous/condescending smile, and: “We are happy you like some US things and identify as North American, but thanks, we would prefer to be identified as just American”.
2) A more frank: “Sorry fella, most of the good you identify with in North America comes from the hard work of us US folks. For us, accepting the North American moniker would be diluting the contributions/achievements of our countrymen. The label benefits just you, because the moniker allows you to keep the right to criticise us, and identify with just the good things. You will turn your back at us if we become a failure. Why should we accept such a discriminatory label with one-sided benefits? Why don’t you go do some work and develop your own identity?”
I am more close to this second group of people.
Great, I was thinking of doing that as well! 馃槈 Actually, you can extend that self-reflection a little more: why am I blogging about things that concern South Asians? 馃檪
The knots, oh, the knots, we tie for ourselves.
Good point. I don’t mind if people confuse me as Indian (I’m Pakistani.) But I do wish they wouldn’t assume everyone brown is Indian.
94 脗路 Naattaan said
The answer is in your post. American is descriptive of nationality, just like Indian is. If you’re describing a group that likely contains both Americans and Canadians, then it would be better to use North American.
The point is to be descriptive AND accurate.
If a woman is walking down the street in New York wearing a salwar-kameez and she looks like she might be Indian[-hyphen], is it accurate to describe her as Indian[-hyphen], when she might be Pakistani[-hyphen]?
If it’s not possible to ask, some adjective has to be used that makes the sentence as descriptive AND accurate as possible (common sense, no?)
So if you hate South Asian, what would you prefer?
Why are you writing a sentence about a salwar kameez sporting woman that you saw across the street that you were too shy to talk to?
92 脗路 ak said
What can I say, ak? That ship left the harbor ages ago and left me with my, er, South Asian genes and sedentary lifestyle. Not all of us can have the tight buns that Manju claims to wiggle with such aplomb, although, given his heartfelt comments on another post, it did make him the target of some undesired (or so he protests now) affection.
19 脗路 Indian008 said
“Let’s” not do a thing. I don’t dare speak for you, please don’t speak for me; I like “South Asian”, that’s why I helped found a South Asian American blog. I am WELL AWARE after five long years of going over this topic, again, and again, and look! Again! that many of you get your lungis in a bunch over the term but I don’t understand why people can’t just let others choose how to self-label. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. But I am sick of seeing this anti-South Asian bullshit pop up in comment thread after comment thread…at least with this post, it’s on-topic and relevant.
If you’re Indian, that’s lovely. I am not Indian. Even my parents haven’t been Indian citizens for decades. I’m American. Sometimes, I’m Indian American. Often, I’m South-Asian. Usually, I’m Malayalee. Always, I am a huge brat. It depends on the situation, to whom I am speaking and how I feel right that second.
I didn’t read after comment #19, so if I’m repeating what someone else said. I’m sorry. Wait, no I’m not.
66 脗路 onparkstreet said
How funny! I hate this debate. It reminds me of the old days around here, when we got nothing done because of the extreme moderating which was required, and it was all for naught, since we are still discussing this &%^&$# non-issue five years later. I said it then, it so deserves repeating now; why on earth do people come to a South Asian-identified blog to complain about the term South Asian? It’s unproductive and obnoxious.
56 脗路 Ponniyin Selvan said
What about the third set? Those of us who are of Indian origin, who have no problem being called “Indian” OR “South Asian”, and who use whatever is appropriate at the time?
Where is the nuance?
63 脗路 fob said
I don’t think she was at all, but I’m not surprised that one of you accused her of it. I think it’s kind of sweet, and quite admirable that she cared enough to write a newspaper about this. Speaks well of her J-school, too, doesn’t it? 馃槈
On a sadder note, these conversations always make me feel so distant from “Indians” or “Indian” (but not India), and it’s all due to the comments of certain people who might be DBDs [but I’m neither going to assume that they are, nor ask them…sorry The Sugi. I am a bad reporter:) ].
79 脗路 onparkstreet said
You don’t care? And you contributed all those comments? How fun for those of us who do care. :p
I’ll probably stir up things but throughout college nobody thought I was Indian, they thought I was Persian or something. They reserved that term for way browner people than me. The more brown(er) you are the more Indian you are.
Italian Americans always say they are italian. White,AMerican people usually will say they are German, Irish, Polish whatever even if they are 10th generation or something and if they remember, never German American or something like that. Because yiu are brown people tend to ask where are you from more often. And white people dont get ,shall I use the word insecure. More true in England, your language makes your british.
You cant be mad at people because they cant exactly tell what ethnicity you are. I cant look at a person and tell if s/he is from Thailand, Indonesia, Korea- South, North. I cant tell an Indian Punjabi from a Pakistani Punjabi and I could call the Pakistani guy an Indian, especially if he is a passing comment in my editorial or something.
I was born in India and I have no problem with “American Indians” calling themselves South Asian, even though I think “American” would be more than enough. Very true in India, your language makes you Indian.
99 脗路 A N N A said
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blockquote>19 脗路 Indian008 said
you are not self labeling yourself here but You are trying to force your label on us when you call/email media as VV did in this case. How did she know that the person was not an Indian citizen or someone who would like to call himself Indian? I dont have a problem with what you call yourself i have issues with you trying to change our identity. We are Indians in Asia, Asian outside Asia, Earthian outside this earth.
102 脗路 Indian008 said
I’m not forcing anything on anyone.
VV was looking for better reporting and sensitivity, she wasn’t trying to oppress you. How do you know that the person agrees with your label-making? What if they’re fine with “South Asian”? What if– and here’s what’s key, since it was what inspired VV’s post– they were NOT of Indian origin? Asking her fellow journalists to think more or be less ignorant is a good thing, I can’t believe I have to type that.