I am often surprised at the propensity of hyphenated identity discussions that we have here at Sepia Mutiny. If you read this blog long enough, it often feels like the topics in the comments are repetitive, and in some ways it does feel like beating a dead horse. But on the flip side, the fact that we still have so many people participating in such a heated discussion on race, being South Asian, and manuevering through the complexities of this uniquely diasporic culture simply proves the need to have this safe space online to have these relatively anonymous discussions that we wouldn’t be able to have elsewhere.

In yesterday’s Washington Post, John Thatamanil talked about the juxtaposition of being South Asian American in this country, and the lack of ever fully being American.

The Allen incident offers evidence that America is not now or likely to ever be a color-blind country. How are South Asians to live with this truth? Resignation is not the answer. Vigorous political participation is. My youthful intuition that what makes me as American as any Mayflower descendant is citizenship — not race or ethnicity — was only partly on the mark. The piece of paper that validates our identities as American citizens can do only so much if we do little to struggle for recognition.

There is also a second lesson to be learned from this incident. South Asian political engagement cannot be driven solely by the private interests of a single racial or ethnic group. America’s obsession with color has a long history that South Asians forget at their peril. Indian Americans and other affluent immigrant groups would do well to remember the civil rights struggles of African Americans and others without whom a racially inclusive American nation would have been impossible. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which opened the door to people from the Eastern Hemisphere, must be recognized as the fruit of a larger struggle to expand the meaning of the term “American,” a struggle fought on our behalf before our arrival. [link]

The idea of what it means to be an American, through a South Asian lens is something I probably spend way too much time thinking about- if only because I am constantly challenging myself on the importance of voting and what exactly voting means in the scope of creating a South Asian American political voice. Are citizenship and voting merely parts of a false border created to divide our community? Are we aspiring to honorary whiteness as Thatamanil suggests? Is it true that we’ll never truly be American? Continue reading →

Let’s see what’s on TV this fall…Looks like Kal Penn is joining the cast this fall on “24.” Bet he’s going to play the typecast terrorist. Oh, my bad…

“Penn will play a man associated with the leader of an Islamic group that may or may not be plotting a terrorist attack.”[link]

…and who’s that in the America’s Next Top Model promo? Looks desi- Neha did say there would be one this season. Also on the reality TV show front, we have married couple Vipul and Arti hailing from the nation’s angriest city, Orlando, FL. Aren’t they a cute couple? Looks like they’ll be competing on Amazing Race, season 10.

Speaking of race…where my desis at on this reality show this fall?

“…the 20 castaways for Survivor: Cook Islands will be grouped by race, with competitors divided into four tribes consisting of whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics.

“The idea for this actually came from the criticism that Survivor was not ethnically diverse enough, because for whatever reason, we always have a low number of minority applicants apply for the show,” Probst said. [link]

‘There are going to be people looking for stereotypes: Will this tribe be smarter than this tribe, or will this tribe be faster than this tribe?’ says Probst. ‘That’s why I think it’s fun. But five people on a tribe do not represent an entire ethnic group.’ [link]

Would it be a racist move to start placing bets on what team we think is going to win? Kidding. Kind of…

Bodog.com has made the Whites a favorite to win at odds of 7 to 3 (or $7 paid out for every $3 bet). The Asian tribe gets a price of $13 for every $7 bet. “It seems that stereotypes are already coming into play with Bodog.com assuming that because Asians are often classified by the gambling establishment as big gamblers they get the highest priced odds,” comments Payton O’Brien, columnist for Gambling911.com. [link]

But where is my Macaca team in this mix? I looked through the cast and was hopeful with the name ‘Parvati Shallow,’ but homegirl is on the white team (And it doesn’t look like in a Thind Supreme Court kind of way). And the Asian team has no South Asians in it. I say we create a Macaca Mutiny reality team to ambush the survivors on Cook Islands and show them all who the real survivors are. Who’s with me?

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I’ve been informed, via an online quiz, ,that my happiness level is at a solid- average. It is somewhat perplexing, because I like to think that I’m generally a happy-go-lucky, live-life-with-no-regrets kind of a gal. Maybe, I need to move to Bhutan.

The government must consider every policy for its impact not only on Gross Domestic Product, but also on GNH: “Gross National Happiness”… The politics of happiness has led Bhutan to make very different decisions from countries simply searching for wealth. In Bhutan the government puts inner spiritual development on a par with material improvement.. Development has been moderated and people are less well off financially than they could have been. [link]

Amazing. I started picturing an America that would put aside its economically efficient consumerist society and for once, considered the gross happiness of its people. In this ficticious world, Chevron’s profit would not have surged 49% and gas prices for us would be far less than $3.25/gal that is today. Wal-Mart would take some of the $11.2 billion of net profits and provide healthcare to the 775,000 Wal-Mart employees that live without it. I would no longer have college debt hanging over my head. Alas, I think to force government and corporations to think of the gross happiness here would be expecting a little too much.

The idea that politics should be about creating “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” goes back to the end of the 18th century and the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. However, no-one could work out how to measure happiness, or how to weigh one person’s happiness against how other people feel. So economics, which is built on objective measurement, took hold instead. [link]

Bhutan, on the other hand, was able to have a GNH because it is a far smaller nation than the U.S. is; a monarchy, in a remote region, they only started having televisions in 1999, and they only had one traffic light (that is until they took it down because it was making people unhappy). Bhutan has been developing their GNH in interesting ways…

The capital, Thimpu, is remarkable for its lack of advertising. In an attempt to hold back consumerism the city council recently banned hoardings promoting Coke and Pepsi…Recently they banned a number of channels including international wrestling and MTV, which they felt did little to promote happiness…Bhutan has even banned plastic bags and tobacco on the grounds that they make the country less happy…One of the pillars of Bhutan’s happiness philosophy is care for the environment. [link]

The research tells us if we want a happier society, we need to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. It suggests advertising is a major cause of unhappiness because people feel less well-off. Every 10 minutes of commuting cuts all forms of social involvement by 10%. And like there isn’t enough material out there for our parents pushing marriages, “…science of happiness suggests marriage is so good for your well-being that it adds an average seven years to the life of a man and something like four for a woman.”

Thinking about all this was starting to make me feel even more unhappy, and it reminded me of the laughing clubs in India. Laughing clubs are groups of people that get together and laugh as a form of exercise, and there are plenty of them in India.

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