Category Archives: Identity

You call THAT an Indian accent?

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Mindy Kaling, who writes for and acts on the NBC show The Office, recently revealed to David Letterman a secret that many Indian Americans guard very closely. Not all of us are good at imitating an Indian accent just because our parents are Indian [via Defamer]:

That’s right, we may not do Indian accents well…but no other ethnic group should be able to point that out without an indignant tongue-lashing back

If you want to skip the rest of the interview then start at 1:30 min mark. I can really sympathize with Mindy. When I try to do an Indian accent I sound slightly Scottish. Its just sad.

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A South Asian American Agenda?

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Periodically, we’ve discussed whether there is any real solidarity amongst the different South Asian communities in North America. What do wealthy 2nd gen suburban doctors, for instance, really have in common politically with recent immigrants working as shopkeepers and taxi drivers in ethnic enclaves in the inner city? It’s a difficult question to answer, though that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to answer it.

A recent blog post by Dr. Anonymous at Pass the Roti drew my attention to an attempt to find a common agenda by a number of South Asian American Groups, including South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). The groups have come together to form the National Coalition of South Asian Organizations to release a position paper, which attempts to assemble a political agenda that will find broad support amongst various constituencies who can all be described as “South Asian American.” The groups that have endorsed the document are pretty diverse — including a number of South Asian women’s groups, gay rights groups like Trikone, and progressive youth groups like SAYA and DRUM. Interestingly, one finds three Sikh advocacy groups endorsing the agenda (SALDEF, Sikh Coalition, and United Sikhs), but not, as far as I can tell, any groups that are specifically oriented to advocacy for Hindus, Muslims, Jains, or Desi Christians. I’m curious about where that seeming imbalance comes from.

The full agenda (PDF) has nine categories, which Dr. Anonymous was kind enough to transcribe from PDF to HTML for us. I think most of us might agree with the first header (below) as a high priority in an election year, though I’ve been writing for Sepia Mutiny long enough to know that it’s almost never true that everyone agrees with anything:

Civic and Political Participation: Ensure full and equal participation for all in the civic and political process
• Promote naturalization and voting among South Asians
• Preserve voting rights of South Asians by eliminating voter intimidation and suppression
• Ensure limited English proficient citizens’ access to the right to vote
• Ensure that votes by all eligible voters count
• Eliminate xenophobic comments against South Asians and other communities of color in political discourse
• Increase political participation and civic engagement of South Asian community members

The only point here that seems questionable to me might be “Eliminate xenophobic comments against South Asians… in political discourse.” I’m not sure how that could ever be made to happen, so why put it on an agenda?

Some of the other headers might be more controversial/debatable for the readers of this blog, who, as we’ve seen, span the ideological spectrum — left, right, and center. For instance, the “economic justice” category might have some readers disagreeing: Continue reading →

Phone-banking with an accent

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A cute story, written up in the San Francisco weekly “Beyond Chron,” got sent my way today by my cousin. The story features my aunt (SM commenter “Yo Dad’s” sister). Here is how the story, written by a Barack Obama precinct captain, begins:

Barack Obama is no longer the icon of this presidential election. He has been quietly replaced by a widowed Indian immigrant mother from Fleetwood, Pennsylvania … at least for me. This is how that happened…

A couple of weeks before the Pennsylvania primary, one of Mrs. Trivedi’s doctor sons (the one in D.C.) wanted to travel back home to help with the election. She decided to help too. And one day, about a week before the election she walked into the office without me noticing.

I was then startled by a quiet voice.

“Hello, I’m Mrs. Trivedi and I’m here to help you.” (Seriously, that’s what she said.)

I smiled, introduced myself, and then showed her how to use the phone and she went at it. She completed several dozen calls and dutifully checked the appropriate boxes on the tracking sheets and then went home. [Link]

My first ever job (just before high school) was as a telemarketer. Despite the fact that the cause I was telemarketing for was a good one, the rejection was constant and demoralizing. At the end of each day I felt worthless. My boss just said, “stick to the script, it’s proven to work.” No, not in all cases. My aunt had it much worse as she read the Obama script:

She was back the next day, but the campaign had changed to a longer “persuasion” script, and by the time Mrs. Trivedi got through it, a whole lot of people had already hung up.

“It’s my accent,” she said.

It seemed that way to me too, and it bothered me. I knew the reaction of the people she was calling. While it wasn’t really racism, it just seemed a little too much like it. [Link]

So how did things turn out? Well, the script was flipped. This time, instead of summarizing, I am going to ask you all to click on the story and read what happened for yourselves.

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Fighting the name change

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Real cute story on NPR this morning (part of the StoryCorps series) about a man named Ramon Sanchez who recalls how, during the 1950s while he was growing up, all the teachers tried to anglicize his name to Raymond. This got me thinking about all the poor Hardicks and Shitangs and Ashfaqs out there and the struggles they must have faced growing up. Even the Poojas probably had a tough time. Anyways, the punchline of the story is TOTALLY worth it so take a listen.

Since kindergarten he’d been known as Ramon. “Rrrrrramon,” he says with a thick roll of the R.

But when he got to the second grade, his name was Americanized. “Everyone was calling me Raymond.”

“On the playground, in the classroom. Raymond! Hey, Raymond! Hey, Raymond!” he says.

And it wasn’t just his name that got changed.

“If there was a girl named Maria, her name became Mary. Juanita became Jane,” he says. [Link]

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Dancing in the Family

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He is tall, slim, and strikingly long limbed. Dressed in jewel-colored silk tunics and antique ornaments that are family heirlooms, he looks more like a handsome young maharaja than a traditional South Indian dancer. Newsweek

Yes, I know, vomit, it sounds like more exoticizing pablum from a mainstream media source. But getting past the opening drivel, this article (posted in the news tab, thanks Brij01!) turned out to be about a rather fascinating family:

Aniruddha Knight is the ninth generation heir of a 200-year-old family of professional dancers and musicians from Chennai, India. He is also half American. His father, Douglas Knight, married into this artistically rich family when he studied classical drumming on a South Indian mridangam at Wesleyan University, where Aniruddha’s late grandmother–T. Balasaraswati, India’s prima danseuse–and her two musician brothers had taught since 1962.

Aniruddha followed his mother and grandmother, continuing the family’s bharatanatyam tradition:

Knight is fluent in Tamil, his mother’s language, and spends half a year in India, performing and learning from aunts and cousins who had worked with his mother. He has established a school and an archive of family history in Chennai. (The Smithsonian boasts an archive of Bala’s performances, too.) It houses all the records of his grandmother’s performances.

About his mixed parentage:

“It’s isolating to identify with two cultures, it creates a split personality. I can never be just one or the other, it’s a heartwrenching lonely process. But then, what I have, many don’t have.”

Those against mixed marriages often cite fear of waning traditions, culture, language, etc., as a reason to date within one’s own ethnic community. So it’s heartwarming to see this family’s artistic legacy continuing on, and even thriving, under the stewardship of its youngest, half-desi member. But do other half-desis feel the same sense of loneliness and isolation? Continue reading →

Metallic Identity

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When I was in India in January, I ended up hanging out at Mumbai airport for about 4 hours while waiting for a domestic flight. In one corner of the terminal was a group of twenty-something year-olds – mostly boys and two girls or so — all dressed in jeans and tee-shirts, all with longish flippy hair. One of them was carrying a guitar and they were all sitting in a circle, close together, humming, strumming, and singing English songs that sounded like a cross between David Byrne and Bon Jovi. I tried to park myself near them and kept trying to figure out their story. I never did–it was the middle of the night and I was an unabashed victim of jetlag–but in my mind, I’d made up a story about them — they were college buddies traveling together (probably to Goa); maybe they were even a band, getting amped to sit on the beach around a campfire singing their songs after a full-moon rave at Anjuna Beach. …

I was reminded of this scene when I read Akshay Ahuja’s feature essay on the Indian subculture of heavy metal in the April issue of Guernica, a print and online magazine of art and politics. In “Death Metal and the Indian Identity”, writer Akshay Ahuja is asked to carry a guitar to India for his father’s colleague’s son. The guitar is to be delivered to Pradyam, who is part of “a semi-pro death metal band” called Cremated Souls (now defunct).cremated souls.jpg

A simple guitar delivery leads Akshay Ahuja into the vibrant subculture of heavy metal in India, as he becomes friends with Pradyam and his band members, many of whom work at call centers.

There are several sections in the piece where the author makes small observations about the little differences and nuances between India and America, cultural and otherwise. These gave me pause, not only because some of them rang true, but also because I enjoyed the way they were being articulated in a very specific context.

For example:

A few days later Pradyum came to my parents’ house on a black Royal Enfield motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket. He was strong and well-built. I found out later that until a few years ago, he had been serious about track and field before a scooter accident had crushed his leg. Pradyum would drop me off several times after this, but this was the only time he came inside. He was always afraid that he smelled like cigarettes (he smoked constantly) and that this would offend my parents. Once in the house, he complimented my mother on her beautiful home—and such a nice garden! This immense politeness was strangely incongruous. Looking just like James Dean, he had all the American gestures of rebelliousness, but without the appropriate American attitude.

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Poetry Friday: Corona, Queens

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Friday means a poetry party at sepia this month. To mark Women’s History Month, I’ve been featuring works by desi women poets all month long [catch up on past week’s poets: Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Shailja Patel]. Today’s featured work is “Corona, Queens,” by Bushra Rehman, a bi-coastal, Pakistani-American poet whose words sing of place, family, religion, and identity with an honest, insightful, and poignant sensibility. Bushra.jpg

A few years ago, the Bowery Poetry Club and City Lore asked a bunch of NYC poets to write an epic poem about New York. Bushra was one of them, and of course, she wrote about Corona, Queens, the neighborhood where she lived as a child.

Corona, Queens

Fitzgerald called Corona the valley of ashes
when the Great Gatsby drove past it, but
we didn’t know about any valley of ashes
because by then it had been topped off by our houses,
the kind made from brick this tan color,
no self-respecting brick would be at all.

We knew Corona,
home of World’s Fair relics
where it felt as if some ancient tribe
of white people had lived there long ago.
It was our own Stonehenge,
our own Easter Island sculptures
made from a time when New York City
and all the country
was imagining the world’s future.
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Poetry Friday: Shilling Love

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In honor of Women’s History Month, I thought I’d feature South Asian women poets on Poetry Fridays for the remainder of March. Today’s selection is “Shilling Love,” by Kenyan-Indian-American shailja.jpgspoken word artist Shailja Patel. Her work “Migritude” premiered last fall in the San Francisco Bay area to packed audiences–it uses her collection of saris, passed down by her mother (another take on Mama’s Saris!), to unfold hidden histories of women’s lives “in the bootprint of Empire, from India to East Africa.”

“Shilling Love” is the first poem from “Migritude” that I came across a couple of years ago, and it has stayed with me since.

Shilling Love
By Shailja Patel

They never said / they loved us

Those words were not / in any language / spoken by my parents I love you honey was the dribbled caramel / of Hollywood movies / Dallas / Dynasty / where hot water gushed / at the touch of gleaming taps / electricity surged / 24 hours a day / through skyscrapers banquets obscene as the Pentagon / were mere backdrops / where emotions had no consequences words / cost nothing meant nothing would never / have to be redeemed

My parents / didn’t speak / that / language

1975 / 15 Kenyan shillings to the British pound / my mother speaks battle

Storms the bastions of Nairobi’s / most exclusive prep schools / shoots our cowering / six-year old bodies like cannonballs / into the all-white classrooms / scales the ramparts of class distinction / around Loreto Convent / where the president / sends his daughter / the foreign diplomats send / their daughters / because my mother’s daughters / will / have world-class educations

She falls / regroups / falls and re-groups / in endless assaults on visa officials / who sneer behind their bulletproof windows / at US and British consulates / my mother the general / arms her daughters / to take on every citadel

1977 / 20 Kenyan shillings to the British pound / my father speaks / stoic endurance / he began at 16 the brutal apprenticeship / of a man who takes care of his own / relinquished dreams of / fighter pilot rally driver for the daily crucifixion / of wringing profit from business / my father the foot soldier, bound to an honour / deeper than any currency / you must / finish what you start you must / march until you drop you must / give your life for those / you bring into the world

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Kal Penn @ UPenn

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This past Sunday I went down to the University of Pennsylvania for a rare, open Q&A session with Kal Penn. As readers may remember from Anna’s earlier post on the subject, Penn is at Penn this spring, teaching a class on representations of Asian Americans in the Media. He’s also shooting episodes of “House” (go, House), and stumping for Obama in his free time, though with that schedule I’m not sure how he has any.

As I understand it, there was initially some controversy about the class — is this going to be a stunt, or a real asset to a the Asian American Studies curriculum?

If it were just about bringing a little glamor to campus, I would be skeptical too. But I think it’s fair to say Penn is both an actor and a careful observer of the representation of Desis in both Hollywood and the Indie film world. If you listen to him talk, it’s clear that he’s thought carefully and self-critically about his experiences and choices (he’s very aware that his role as a home-grown, Muslim-American terrorist on 24 might be seen as “problematic,” for instance — though he still defends the choice to take the role). He’s self-conscious enough to know what a racist representation of a South Asian character is, and call it by that name. But at the same time, he’s open about the fact that minority actors sometimes need to play ball to get an entree in Hollywood.

In response to one of the questions posed by a student at the Q&A Kal Penn effectively acknowledged that this was the dilemma he faced when he auditioned for his first Hollywood movie, “Van Wilder.” Unfortunately, Penn also suggested, in response to another question, that things aren’t all that much better even now, for actors who are just starting out:

“I think things for me personally as an artist have changed dramatically, but I know that overall, that change has been slow and incremental. There is no shortage of truly talented actors of South Asian descent in places like New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London. There are folks who majored in theater, studied film, and are experiencing the same struggles I went through when I was starting out. I think that was my main point: things for me have begun to change, but things for others are perhaps remaining the same.” (Kal Penn, from an email)

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Everyone wants a little Punjabi

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I wish we were beyond this exasperating stupidity. Via TOIlet (no need to visit and catch a VTD, the entire article is quoted below:

Three-month-old Livya was rejected thrice by prospective Indian parents, who found her too dark. A year later, however, an American couple chose to adopt her and flew her to the US. She now lives with her parents and has two siblings — one from Korea and another from Vietnam.
Livya was lucky, but the story is not the same for other adoptable children. Many who are legally free for adoption continue to face discrimination as wannabe Indian parents look for a “fair and lovely” baby, though the law prevents one from picking and choosing babies for adoption.

Perhaps those overlooked children are better off without such complexion-obsessed parents. After all, there is always the Angelina effect (aside: once again, Madonna is associated with the word “wanna-be”):

But most foreign couples prefer children who are dark-skinned, older or with medical concerns, HIV positive and with special needs.

And here, the reason for my title (and the explanation for the painful noise my jaw made when it fell on my desk):

Secretary for the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA), O P Sirohe, says in-country adoptions have been encouraging and there is a long list of parents waiting. But still, they ask for fair-skinned, healthy and, preferably, Punjabi child as it is usually chubby. A child is no market commodity and adoptions become meaningful only when there is a change in people”s attitude, he says.

Preferably a Punjabi child. Wow. I love chubby babies, too (my Godson’s nickname wasn’t “The Pudgesicle” for nothing)…but this just makes my stomach twist. What are you adopting? A baby or an accessory? What does this even mean? That it’s too much work to feed your new kid butter-laced everything, so you can chub them up sufficiently yourself? “Honey, let’s go shopping for a baby on Saturday—I heard they have new Punjabi models in stock!” And to my Punjabi peeps…um…how do you feel about being objectified due to such a dubious distinction?

Foreign couples are more open to adopting any child, irrespective of its age, religion, skin colour or looks. Children who are older, with special needs and medical conditions are finding homes overseas, he says.
“NRIs and couples from Italy, Germany, US, Spain and Sweden take home kids with special needs. We place such children in Indian homes too, but they are an exception,” says Dr Aloma Lobo, chairperson, Adoption Coordinating Agency, Karnataka.

And thanggawd for it.

The following concern isn’t exclusive to India; American “waiting” children don’t have much luck when they are in their teens, either. Everyone wants a baby. And sometimes, a chubby one.

Another hurdle in the adoption of children is their age. For instance, Lakshmi, who is 13 years old, has still not found a home as her age is a major deterrent.

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