Six years ago, I helped four others create this space for us; I am immensely grateful that I was gifted with such an opportunity. It has, without a doubt, changed my life.
When Abhi dreamed up the concept of a group blog for the American children of immigrants from South Asia, there was nothing else quite like Sepia Mutiny, anywhere. We didn’t have a virtual adda to discuss politics, prose or polemic. We were born in this amazing country because of the epic struggles and sacrifices of our courageous parents; yet no matter what we ate, wore, read or said, we were often considered “apart”, not “a part” of our own culture and country.
You younger types have it so much easier than the first wave of post-1965-era babies did. 🙂 We didn’t have the internet (not until college, and even then, it was IRC and Pine!) and many of us went to schools which didn’t have massive “Indian Associations” or inclusive “South Asian Student” orgs. A non-trivial number of us grew up in homogenous areas, around people who neither knew nor understood anything about what we ate or how we worshipped (and why we weren’t allowed to go to Prom). For every kid who graduated from a diverse place like Mission San Jose, in Fremont, I feel like I’ve met ten who were the only brown kid at their school. That was often a lonely, challenging experience.
Was it the end of the world? No. We survived. Many of us thrived. But many of us also sport faint scars from the digs, disses, and yes, even the depression which was summoned by difference.
Do people who are hyper-recent immigrants to America also feel lonely and face challenges? Yes. But with all due respect, none of this was created for you because we are not you; we could never fully understand or do justice to what it is like to be you. You are welcome here and you are respected here, but please, keep our intentions in mind. Lower your expectations accordingly. 🙂
My favorite Sepia Mutiny posts, the moments which I cherish, the conversations that I adore– those occur rarely, and always when we examine our identity, because we are unique, damn it, and we deserve to evaluate and make sense of that. My Mother is fond of saying that her children are the lost ones, and thankfully, we will be the only ones. That by the time we have kids of our own? Those future grandchildren of hers? They will be fine. Grounded. Accepted. Taken for granted. 100% American in a way that was denied to us. Then she grows quiet, doleful.
“I am sorry that my choices meant that you would hurt.”And she means that, with every cell within her. And both Mother and Daughter blink away tears. Because each loves the other so much that they wish it weren’t true– but each knows that it is.
So this post is an opportunity to pause. To examine. To reflect. Because these experiences which molded us and defined us, which continue to keep us apart…they deserve to be understood and appreciated, even as they slice our insides, and make us bleed in hidden, painful ways.
::
I saw my friend Vijay last week. After exchanging pleasantries, he paused and mentioned this blog. Specifically, he said that he had been thinking of it, recently. I playfully asked, “Oh? Why’s that?”
“My maternal paatti (that’s Tamil for grandmother) died last week.”
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ll keep your family in my thoughts and prayers.”
Later, he wrote to me and I immediately understood why SM had been on his mind. This is what he said…
She was 91 and had lived in Trivandrum for the last 20+ years with my uncle and aunt. She had lived in India her whole life, and had never visited the US, where I grew up. She was kind, energetic, and a gem. Her life had its ups and downs — one of her six children died at the age of eight, there was some drama amongst her five adult kids, and she was a widow for almost 20 years. But she didn’t show any of it on her sleeve and was blessed with 11 grandkids and 12 great-grandkids.
Growing up, like many of my contemporary Indian-Americans, my family took big summer trips to India every three-odd years. I visited her about a dozen times spending between weeks and days on the various visits. Post-college, I visited India three times and made it a point to make it to Trivandrum.
She only spoke Tamil, so our interactions were minimal. She was the only person for whom I felt justified getting the nerve to go into that uncomfortable space of speaking Tamil–which could, at best be described as “pigeon“– to communicate. My last three real Tamil conversations were with her– sadly over a 7-year span.
In 1996, I went to India with two friends, largely not visiting relatives, except I couldn’t miss seeing my Paatti, so I broke apart for a few days and went to Trivandrum and spent two days with her. A decade later, I would learn that the fact that I had made that visit profoundly touched her.
On my last visit to India in 2003, just after I got married, my wife and I went to Trivandrum and my paatti showed us something she had been keeping tucked away like a treasure. She opened up a dusty locker and in it were stacks of carefully organized photos. She had created a stack of photos of my life, collected over the years. My wife and I were so touched. With a little translation help and a lot of hand gestures, the three of us ended up having a great conversation about her memories of me, through her “once in three year”-snapshots.
When I learned of her passing, I felt naturally sad. I was about to mention what happened to a colleague, when I simulated a reasonable dialogue:
“I am so sorry, when did you see her last?
“2003”
“Oh, when did you two last talk?”
“2003”
“You’re going to the funeral, right?”
“No, my mom is going to represent our family”
“Oh, ok”
I realized I had started going through one of those episodes that puts the “C” in ABCD. I wouldn’t be able to relate this situation well at all. Our relationship was mutually considered good. Yet the combination of language, hearing loss and distance made it seem completely broken to a conventional eye.
I found myself not sharing my news with the majority of people I interacted with last week. I just didn’t want that conversation. Here I was feeling as awkward as I’ve ever felt in elementary school.
My grief is not one that will be omnipresent at Thanksgiving or Christmas. It will not emerge because I have to change my weekend routine.
It won’t be experienced by my six-month-old son, Manoj, who, in half a year of his life, has seen his grandparents as many times as I saw mine over my 36.
I am doing better this weekend. I saw off my aunt and mom to India. They’ll be able to make the 10th day of my paatti’s rites.
My aunt relayed a nugget that has lifted my spirit. We had sent photos of Manoj and had no doubt that they had been meticulously cherished.
What we didn’t know was that she had kept one under her pillow.
::
I was deeply moved by this because I identified with it, consummately. I knew some of you might, too.
My father was the tenth of eleven children. I have only been to Kerala three times in my life, and the first barely counts because I was 16-months-old and there for the funeral of my paternal Appachan. And yet, when the news is haphazardly relayed that one of my Father’s elder brothers has passed away in Thiruvilla or Trivandrum, I am seized by grief. I have met these men twice. But they are my blood.
For my entire childhood, their photographs gazed out at me from frames lovingly dusted and displayed in places of honor in my home. Their voices boomed over then-rare, static-coated telephone calls from the other side of the world, as they vigorously demanded, “How are your studies?” and then shouted, “Veddy good!” after my dutiful replies. Their stories still ring in my ears, though the beloved teller of those tales has now been gone for almost eleven years, himself.
But I never explained, at work, the next day, why my eyes were red. Why my voice cracked. Why I seemed lost in my thoughts of regret and grief. I never said a word.
The only thing worse than losing someone is having to justify your pain over it. Why should we mourn people we’ve barely seen or known? What right do we have to grieve? Why should I have to dignify such intrusive, disrespectful queries with answers? I shouldn’t. I won’t.
I don’t.
And I thank Gods that precious little Manoj will never have to. Because he is not lost. He is a part, not apart. He will see his grandparents and learn from, love and know them, in ways that neither Vijay nor I ever knew our own.
No dude. Adjectives actually mean something. The English language is one rich with nuance and gradations of meaning and yet for some reason you can’t seem to chart any middle ground between “not an issue at all” and “JACK IT UP TO ELEVENTY!” You can’t just throw around histrionic descriptors like that.
THIS is “out of control.” Vague feelings of alienation and not being able to join in any reindeer games aren’t “out of control.”
Jenna, I can certainly see your basis for resisting complacency. There is nothing certain in this world and I can think of at least a couple of historical examples where populations that considered themselves part of the mainstream fabric of the larger society received some pretty unequivocal reminders that the feeling was not necessarily mutual. However, based on my own personal observations, I have to take issue with the fact that nothing has changed. Here are just some of the examples that i have seen develop over the past couple of decades: recognition that South Asians are not automatically inferior or backward, recognition that not everything the South Asian community does (from the nature of our family relations to spiritual practices right down to the type of music it listens to) is not automatically objectively “wrong†and (and I think this is a crucial step in acknowledging acceptance) a shift in the socio-eco-romantic milieu, such that it is no longer considered a “step down†for a member of the so-called mainstream to be dating or marrying someone in the South Asian community. In fact, I have seen the pendulum swing in the opposite direction on all three fronts: what was a source of ridicule/contempt/disgust is now occasionally a source of admiration. South Asians are not “automatically ugly†and may, on occasion, be “beautifulâ€.
No doubt a significant portion of this change is attributable to India shining or whatever the catchphrase du jour may be. No doubt a significant portion of this change is due to the contributions made by those who made the decision to leave their homeland and forge a new path in North America. But I’d also like to put in a plug for the efforts of the late 60s to mid 80’s Nisei generation, so to speak. That generation fought for , and earned, a place at the table through their efforts, trials, and tribulations. Some of those efforts included sacrificing immediate gratification (even more so that family back in the desh) in order to be able to successfully navigate a lot of the pitfalls of society while capitalizing on the much touted opportunities. Some of those trials included navigating two sometimes very incompatible worlds, trying to glean the best of both and avoid the excesses of each. Some of those tribulations included incredible dislocation from family, such that in some ways I am even more disconnected from my extended family than my “American†peers.
Yes, there is still ridicule and now there is something new: a more pervasive concern as to the economic threat posed by South Asians. Yes, the acceptance and tolerance has not been uniform or uninterrupted and may not be irrevocable. But I personally do see a fundamental shift over the last couple of decades. And as an aside, that shift could not have happened without accommodation and willingness to change on the part of the mainstream. I can easily find, even on the pages of this site, evidence of other parts of the world where the mainstream categorically rejects any attempt to see subsets of the populations as members of the larger society.
Harbeer’s Hyderbadmash Brew
I was born in 1985 just off of Oak Tree Road, and maybe that makes me one of the “younger types,” but I relate to this story so strongly in certain ways that I have to comment.
Though my maternal grandparents lived in Kerala during my childhood, they and I were intensely close. They were visiting from Trivandrum around the time that I was born, so they had a large role in my upbringing from the very beginning. They would come to the US once every few years, and we would go see them in Kerala about as often. Parting was always difficult. I remember crying through my CTBS standardized spelling test in second grade because I thought that I wouldn’t get to see them again before they returned to India.
They visited for the last time in the fall of 2002 for my sister’s Arangetram. That time, when my family and my cousins’ family said goodbye to them at JFK airport, my thatha also cried. Within a year, he passed away. He still appears in my dreams very often. I last saw my patti when I went to India in 2004, and I last spoke to her in the fall of 2007. She still lives in Trivandrum, but she has Alzheimer’s. My mom goes to visit her every year, and she and my sister are actually going next week. My schedule won’t allow me to go with them. I’m hoping that I’ll get to visit some time within the next year, but the next time I see my patti, it will definitely be very different.
Incidentally, my grandparents on both sides were probably largely responsible for the fact that I can still speak Tamil, though not as well as I’d like. For years, they were the only ones with whom I routinely used the language. Tamil was my first language, but like many kids of my generation, I stopped speaking regularly once I went to school. I’ve retained the ability to speak (with varying levels of proficiency) throughout my life, but over the years, my relationship to the language became very strongly entangled with my notions about my own identity. I fell out of the practice of speaking in Tamil with my parents, aunts, uncles, etc., and when I found the desire to do so again as a teenager, I simply couldn’t. This wasn’t because of a lack of ability but because I would ask myself bizarre questions like: if I suddenly start speaking Tamil with my family again, will it seem like I’m trying to be something I’m not? Eventually, I arrived at a stage where I could speak with strangers but not with those closest and dearest to me (ironically, those who would probably have been most happy to hear me speak). My grandparents (and others of their generation) were the exceptions to this rule: because I never stopped using the language with them, it always felt natural. I am so thankful for this for so many reasons.
I’ve been reading this blog for a while, and I think that what kept me reading were exactly those posts that examine identity and how the circumstances of our lives in an immigrant community have shaped that identity. Thanks so much for creating a space where these important topics are discussed…
And to Vijay, as yet another person who knows how important a patti can be though she’s on the other side of the world, I’m very sorry for your loss.
P.S. I know I’ve suppressed long vowels in transliteration, but it just feels weird to type all the additional a’s having never done so before.
a) stop policing my language. i will speak however i want, thanks, and when you feel that something might be ‘histrionic’ then ask me what i mean, don’t read tone in where there may or may not be any.
b) you’re just totally incorrect and playing down a major world phenomenon. just because you don’t know about it that it doesn’t exist. I would suggest you get in touch with people who are or were recent migrants recently before assuming that what I have learned through a lot of work and experience, or at minimum just ask me what I think and why.
I’ll just leave you witht he simple facts that i can come up with off the top of my head which you can look into to verify or not- it’s very possible that i have a few specifics wrong, but the overall picture, most people who believe in equality would I think agree, is ugly –
the u.s. deported about a million people between 1996 and 2003 or so, this year alone i think it’s deported about 400,000, arizona recently passed laws that are both anti-migrant and anti-latino (and implementation has begun – schools have received citations for having spanish language teachers; in 2006 the house of representatives considered such a draconian piece of legislation that millions of migrants marched in chicago, los angeles, phoenix, etc. In 2003, the bush administration deported about 14,000 people from 25-26 countries, about 95% of which were muslim countries.
And that’s just the u.s. in the uk, they’ve introduced a points based system and are trying to require university professors to monitor and report the attendance of foreign students. in switzerland, they banned minarets. my friend with indian citizenship recently was permitted only about a ten day visa, and my other friend’s dad’s carer (her dad is elderly and needs assistance) was denied a visa longer than ten days so that her dad could visit his grandchildren who happen to live in italy. i have heard indians talk about bangladeshis as ‘pests’ and i have heard bengalis from calcutta talk about ‘marwaris’ and ‘biharis’ in less than flattering terms 😉
So yes, historically, it’s not the chinese exclusion acts, but direct, structural, and institutional xenophobia is out of control, put together is out of control. in most wealthy countries where you still have social welfare nets and political establishments that don’t want to destroy them entirely, there are other channels for populist resentment, but in the u.s., you don’t have the kinds of isntitutions you need, so it gets channeled into things like the tea party or the birther movement or lou dobbs or glenn beck or anything else. which then work in opposition to technocratic multicultural politics, and thereby ‘indians’ like the 3rd generation that is relatively privileged can become ‘white’ like the irish did. it just needs a new word, which wiill probably be ‘american’ or something if you’re polished and ‘diverse’ if you’re not, given that the fault lines are now frequently on citizenship grounds 😉
Condescending remarks about appearance between kids isn’t racism, it is called growing up. Hate to break it to you, but it happens to white kids as well.
Condescending remarks about appearance between kids isn’t racism, it is called growing up. not when they’re called ‘garbage’ for their dark skin. my brother had a really hard time of it growing up because his skin was very dark, and it actually went on for some time without so much as being acknowledged at school until my mother (and one kind teacher) finally called out the kids (and their parents who dismissed my mother’s complaints). while i do agree that in many ways things will be/are different for the young brown kids nows, i think, to some extent some of that has to do with the fact that their parents may be ABDs. however, the post 9-11 world means that they also have to deal with a lot more racism against brown people, so things haven’t uniformly improved since our time.
dr amonymous – i do agree that the country/culture in which we grow up is not always the best fit for us, and thanks for bringing in another aspect to this discussion. have you, by any chance, read anything by ulrich beck? i am reading his cosmopolitan vision right now, and it sounds like a book that may interest you.
ak
Look, I’ve seen white kids being bullied really badly by their class mates. It happens and its horrible, but it isn’t racism. Racism is what Floridian talks about at #39. Not being invited to the hunting party, having less career opportunities. Racism is a glass ceiling, not a drunk red neck screaming rag head at you. The racism that african americans once experienced isn’t a part of our experience.
Being a European Born Desi who later moved to the US I never see any closed door here, if I had a waspy name I might have gotten even more chances, I frankly don’t know, but I believe it may be so. But it isn’t a glass ceiling, and with respect to the post 9-11 world as dr. Anonymous pointed out there are many different groups of desis and depending on which group we are a part of it may affect us or it may not.
san – please explicate how being excluded from a hunting party is any different than alienating or throwing racial epithets at somebody based on their skin colour in terms of racism? these are different forms of racism, and while the former is an example of institutionalised racism, the latter is still prejudice based on race.
as to 9-11 – i do think i pointed out that things have not uniformly improved, which is not to say that they have not improved at all.
ak
Insults gets thrown around among people for many reasons, for it to be racism it has to be excluding, a drunk guy screaming rag head at you doesn’t necessarily exclude you, between adult people he will most likely end up looking like the idiot. Just as he would if he called a white guy fat or what ever this guy chose to focus his anger on.
But an HR person throwing a CV from a person in the bin because it has an ethnic name will not look like an idiot, and it will exclude you from the opportunities that the majority population has. In europe this happens on a regular basis, in US it does in fact NOT. It does not mean that there are plenty of people around having preferences to a wasp, a jew or a desi depending on the HR persons ethnicity, and I am not kidding my self, white people do sit on the power to a much larger extent than other ethnicities, however in Europe it is exclusively so.
san – i won’t continue this discussion, for the simple reason that you clearly have a different definition of racism than i do, and you clearly don’t accept my prior examples as racism.
ente, I never claimed nothing has changed. That would be foolish of me. I even acknowledged that Obama’s election was a sign of (minute) progress.
San is an idiot who needs to understand that there is more than one brand of racism . Those bullied white kids will grow up and will rarely receive comments about their appearances. For the bullied brown kids, the comments are perpetual but more subtle and won’t just relate to skin color, but also culture/background/expected behaviors of the race. There’s a huge difference between insults and racial judgments. Perhaps such matters will be comprehended should s/he fall victim to a hate crime.
meh. too many syllables. Harbeer Light? Smooth Harbeer? idk.
Of course anyone who don’t agree with Jenna is an idiot and only brown people get insults thrown at them when they become adults. I must have mistaken Europe for Mars when I grew up. Sheesh. Good thing though, now I know what I NEED to understand.
But is it racism when a brown man gets “idiot” thrown at him on a blog?
Being depicted as poor, uneducated and white from rural america is probably more insulting than most insults you can throw at ethnic minorities except for the N-word. And as far as I know the word White Trash is used in this country. Not only brown people can be fragile.
I am completely with Jenna on this…the chinky kid, along with the smelly desi kids, should really force the pale, strangely hairless kids into a study group called the “The post-ethnic ethic in esoteric classrooms” and should read as their first assignment the nearest 500 page tome of social studies, on this issue, that they can get from the library.
Anna, I’m dropping by a few days late to read this. Thank you.
My football coaches in junior high called me “Harbrewski.” Kids teased me by calling me “HardyharHarbeer.”
The horror! I’m scarred for life. But they gifted me with two brilliant marketing ploys for repackaged Michelob.
You might be on to something, Jenna…thanks!
Brown Harbeer
Wheatish Harbeer Lite
Harbeer Chugh
Please stay on-topic. I’d love to keep this thread open, but if we’re down to a brainstorming sesh for beer names, then you’re asking for it to be closed. Going forward, please address the subjects raised in the post. Thanks, all.
Sorry for the derail, Anna…from now on i’ll stick to JWBlack.
well at least the Desi Males in the 70’s were living during a time when hairiness was in.
Moving post. Until recently, I’d been secretly smug about the invaluable peace of mind that comes from having a non-hyphenated identity. I moved to the US from India at the age of 21, and now, at 34, as the mother of an 18-month old American toddler, have to face The Identity Issue for my son. Would be interesting to hear from second gen folks who believe that they successfully navigated the lost years WITHOUT scars and can offer theories – i.e that they lived in diverse cities, or that they went to India all the time and hung out with family, or that they never went, or that they talked identity with their parents all the time, or that they never talked about it, or that their parents let them date or go to prom or whatever…Anyone? I may be super naive and/or in denial, but I refuse to accept that I’ve condemned my son to years of pain.
Scars, years of pain? I think most of us grew up just fine, with no wish of actually having grown up in India. One of my second gen experiences was the much smaller family that I had, compared to my friends here and my cousins in India. I grew up with out siblings and at the age of 33 both my parents suddenly passed. That indeed caused much contemplating of my place in the west and on my family in India. I visit them every year, call my uncle who indeed cares about me regularly, but I don’t feel they understand me. This of course makes me sad.
What always angered me was when some one told me that I with my middle class background was discriminated against, when I in fact had much better opportunities than many of my friends. I was good at school, I was good at sports, my parents could afford sending me to universities abroad. My advice? Don’t teach your kid he’s a victim. And as Anna pointed out, the image of India is much different from when we grew up. While we always where taught that we came from an impoverished country sucked dry by the british, your kid will have his roots in an emerging country that sometimes will be admired and sometimes feared, but that is an much easier cross to bear.
I know the authors intent wasn’t to say that the language gap encompassed all of the gap between him and his grandmother–because of my own experience, though, I guess thats what I read into it. To me language is so much more important than any other aspect of what is termed ” Indian culture”–i.e. going to the temple, learning bharathnatyam, knowing “Indian values”, etc. I have to wonder why so many parents made time to drag their kids to these Indian events but didnt make the time to teach their kids the language. I don’t blame the kids for this, I blame the parents. I’m second generation myself so maybe thats why I’m being so harsh on them, but I just don’t understand their rationale. Sure we can learn the language as adults, but by that point its 10,000 times more difficult. Without knowing the language, communication with the older generations becomes fragmented and difficult. Your relationship with them is completely changed. And that is just tragic.
To me language is so much more important than any other aspect of what is termed ” Indian culture
interesting point – is it a variant on “thought is impossible without language”
only brown people get insults thrown at them when they become adults
I never said that. White people get insulted all the time too, I bet, but usually not because of their race. Being called white trash is not a racial slur, it has to do with economic status. I didn’t call you an idiot because you’re brown, I called you an idiot because your limited mental capacity is encased in a false racially blissful bubble and you’re completely unaware/willfully ignorant of racial issues that exist today. Pretending that things don’t exist doesn’t make them go away. You obviously haven’t been to an airport recently (racial profiling is alive, now more than ever, see new Arizona law), don’t lie. I hate to wish a racially motivated attack on someone, but it’s quite maddening when a person of color claims that racism is minimal or even non existent, just because they are too blind to see it. Scars, years of pain? I think most of us grew up just fine, with no wish of actually having grown up in India. the image of India is much different from when we grew up I will acknowledge that Indians have an advantage over every other minority (except east Asians maybe) . Our stereotypes are generally viewed as positive; even though we have ridiculous accents, hand out Slurpees, smell horrible and have dots on our foreheads, we’re intelligent, hard working, religious/spiritual, closely tied to family, disciplined, etc. all traits which most Americans strive to be. In the public’s eye, we don’t hop borders, commit crimes, join gangs, etc etc but we look like the people who supposedly hate freedom so much as to hijack planes into towers and that’s enough to ignore any other attributes. I grew up in a place where many people were surprised that India was a country or they were unable to locate it on a map (I promise you, no exaggeration!), so their image of India was…..nothing, and I still faced many trials. Appearances is a big factor. Lots of people think I’m attractive, but I still look different from most people, and in their minds that made it ok to be treated differently, this mentality is a lot more widespread than you think. My husband is Indian, but you wouldn’t know unless he told you his name was Rohit, and even then you’d doubt it, seeing his green eyes, brown hair and inability of acquiring melanin production even while basking in the sun. Him being interchangeable with a white guy allows him to advance in situations that I, commonly mistaken for Latina or Arab, wouldn’t be able to, I know this because I see it happen all the time. Unless your offspring looked like him (I’d be suspicious if they did ha) then no, they aren’t victims. I don’t have scars, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t reach out for those who’ve had some horrendous experiences, most of them occurring very recently. As for the image of India today…the people who know about the booming economy over there usually know about the increase of economic disparity. The view of poverty is still alive and well, thank Danny Boyle for that.
I refuse to accept that I’ve condemned my son to years of pain He’ll experience pain anyways (existentialism/antinatalism is enlightening) , but it’s typically a lot more psychologically damaging when it’s about race, which I guarantee you he will face at least once in his lifetime, sorry.
I think there are a lot of grammatical errors in my previous post..It’s late and I had a glass of wine..okay more than one…although I’d much prefer some Wheatish Harbeer.
Jenna, you have violated our commenting policy (personal attacks) and “reluctantly” wished a hate crime on someone. Consider this a warning.
Jenna
I hate to break it to you, I was born in Europe, I live in the US and I have my relatives in India, when I travel to them I don’t take the boat. It’s time consuming and not very practical. So yes I’ve been to plenty of airports. I’ve been the single brown kid in a sea of white scandinavians, so you really don’t have to teach my what it means to be a minority.
Aditya’s Mommy – drop me a line through my website if you’d like to chat further. I’m an ABD and now have a 10-month old and would be happy to chat 🙂
ANNA/Vijay, lovely post. It’s nice to know “my people” are out there 😀
No no, I never reluctantly wished anything malicious for anyone, I just meant that I was getting really close to doing so
Neetu, I’m curious.
Here; http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/006246.html#comment275662
You say, “To me, my grandmothers were my first feminist icons, though it may seem strange given that they got married at 15, had 10+ children, and never left the kitchen or home life. One of my grandmothers even refused to learn how to read or write (lessons offered by her father in law) because she felt that her place was with her family and her duty was to provide security and shelter. Reading and writing would have taken away from these divine pursuits.
But was a strong, capable, driven, and utterly selfless woman. She would work from dawn till night, only pausing to say prayers, never to complain.
Of course, there were many things about her that I didn’t understand– her conservative views of women and sexuality, her coddling of my uncles while her daughters got somewhat neglected.”
………….
What exactly did you find “feminist” about your grandmother?
“See, truth is in the small things and thats why even on the internet its hard to fake it, as pardesi gori, the bad toupee of desi message boards, kept finding out.”
Fake? Politically incorrect, maybe. But fake? How so?
My only fault is “keepin’ it TOO real”.
There was a time when you’d change your handle, concealing your identity. but you kept getting spotted. Rahul in particular was really good at it. On the other hand, the good toupees are the ones you can’t spot, so if you did indeed go undetected we’d never know it.
(Reposting from another thread)
Please don’t feed the PG troll. She’s been banned and will probably be desperate enough to come back because she can’t stay away, so don’t encourage her by responding to her. Removal of troll droppings will occur regularly, fret not.
I was just looking at some notes from Greetings From Bury Park by Sarfraz Mansoor and these following bits reminded me of this post (and of Hanif Kureishi’s novella/film My Son the Fanatic):
Just thought I’d share.