Punjabi Parmigiana

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Riffing off of Sugi’s post concerning Naan Fromage in France, and I just learned [via Camille] that the Italian dairy industry in Lombardy that produces Parmigian cheese relies on desis for 90% of their work force. That’s right, we can do more than just paneer. No more Amul for you, baby, from now on it’s only the finest Italian cheeses. We are milkmen to the world!

The first immigrants came 20 years ago to (according to the documentary clip) work as animal handlers in the circus, now the town of Novellara has 600 Sikh immigrants and the second largest Gurdwara in Europe. The Po Valley has 60,000 desis working there and couldn’t function without them. Here’s the news clip:

My favorite part is when the guy explains that he likes to hire Indians because they are patient, methodical, and extremely reliable, with a natural gift for working with animals. Clearly he’s never been to India.

p.s. can I use the fact that Sikhs run the dairies of Parma as credentials for a government sinecure?

Related news: African Lumberjacks in Canada

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Naan Fromage, S’il vous plaît

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Hurray for traveling, but also: hurray for airports with sweet, stable and FREE (!) Internet connections. I have a brief interlude here in Kansas City on my way back from a reading, so I thought I’d tell you about a trip I took last month. After attending a desi wedding in Georgia (the American one!) I took the Delta nonstop to Paris (the French one!) for another wedding. And in France, I did a little desi-spotting, in the part of Paris known as La Chapelle.

So, in this blissful hiatus from the security line (as Kumar says, “random search, huh?”), I bring to you tales of gastronomie and naan fromage!

I can’t pretend that I had an exhaustive look at La Chapelle—time did not permit—but you know me, I managed to eat. And take pictures. Neither can I pretend to be Preston Merchant, but I did try to get some of the signs that captured the French-Indien-Srilankhan (!) vibes. Continue reading →

Are You Excited… To Vote?

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It’s not that I’m against Sunny Leone (NSFW). I am totally pro desi woman in any non-mainstream industry. I even blogged about her on Sepia Mutiny previously as a ‘cool desi woman under 30.’ I like her, you know, for a porn star.

But at work today, I was researching voting public service announcement (PSA) targeted toward the Asian American community. There was the bikini-clad Korean one, the kung fu epic one, the Kelly Hu bowing to George Takai one. There are even several PSAs put out by the non-profit APIA Vote that have a stream of famous Asian American actors talking about voting. But of course, none of the PSAs had a desi face.

SAJA Forum‘s Sree Sreenivasan had brought this issue up earlier this year…

…I am writing today to bring attention to the fact that to some (just some) Asian Americans, South Asians still don’t count as Asian Americans…How else to interpret these two political public service ads, created by and starring Asian Americans and aimed at Asian Americans? Take a look at each and see neither bothers to put in any South Asian faces. John Cho, one half of the “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” team is featured in both ads, but you won’t find his at-least-as-equally-famous partner, Kal Penn, in either ad… I am glad there are such efforts out there to get Asian Americans to vote. But I am struck by how ridiculous it is not to have even a token brown face in these ads. [SAJAForum]

Sree, I found the token brown face amongst the sea of voting PSAs!!! I found the one! The youth vote organization Declare Yourself has a stream of quirky/sexual PSAs targeted directly to the youth demographics (at least “quirky/sexual” is what comes to mind when I watch McLovin teaching me how to pull the lever.) Declare Yourself partnered with Vivid Entertainment to create the following PSA, starring our gal, the sole desi starring in a voting PSA, Sunny Leone.

“As an immigrant who is thrilled to exercise her right to vote in a presidential election for the first time, I wanted to do what I could to get other young people to participate,” said Leone who only recently became an American citizen. “There’s no excuse not to register -DeclareYourself.com makes it so easy.” [LVTSG]

I could go on and on about the innovation behind a voting non-profit partnering with an adult entertainment company… but I’m sure you just want to get to the video already, don’t you?

Did Sunny get you excited…to vote?

Go to Rock the Vote and register to vote online today. We have less then 45 days till Election Day on November 4th. You’ll need to re-register if you moved, changed names, or changed political parties. In most states the last day to register to vote is 30 days before Election Day.

So here’s my personal request. Though it’s great Sunny is the first desi face in a voting PSA, I think there should be more. And since the boys have Sunny, how about we gals get some brown sugar like Sendhil Ramamurthy, Naveen Andrews or Kal Penn to make a voting PSA? That would definitely rock my vote. 😉 Continue reading →

It’s not a 10 gallon hat

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To complete our trifecta of news from Texas, the county of Dallas finally settled a case concerning a judge who told a Sikh plaintiff that he had to choose between his right to free exercise of his religion or his right to go to court:

Amardeep Singh appeared in Judge Albert Cercone’s court to contest a minor a traffic citation. Mr. Singh was denied entrance into the court due to his turban. Unfortunately, Judge Cercone threatened that if Mr. Singh did not leave the courtroom and stayed with his “hat” on, he would be arrested. [Link]

Judge Cercone is probably just a crazy old coot of a judge whose “no-nonsense approach to the court” is full of bakwaas. (It’s not clear to me that Judge Cercone is even a lawyer by training, his website only lists experience as a businessman, but you’d think that judge training would cover something as basic as the Bill of Rights) And I know this isn’t a common occurrence – there are plenty of Sikhs in Dallas, and many of them are able to get their day in court.

Still, what has me steamed is the way Dallas compounded its mistake by refusing to admit fault. Unlike the state of Georgia, which backed down in a similar circumstance when the first amendment issues were explained, the county of Dallas persisted in its mistaken ways.

So Amardeep Singh (not our Amardeep), with the help of SALDEF and the Texas ACLU, sued under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act and won, a process that took 2 years.

The fact that the county dug in the heels of its cowboy boots rather than admitting that they had goofed is absurd. Both the constitution and state law are pretty clear about the need not to interfere with the free exercise of religion. And Texas is hardly a state which gives judges complete control over their courtrooms. For example, state law says that prosecutors may carry firearms into the courtroom, whether the judge wishes them to or not. Seeing as the First Amendment comes before the Second, you’d think this would have been a no-brainer.

Hey Texas! Don’t mess with me either. Continue reading →

Panthers guard desi-owned businesses

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Things in the Houston area are only partly starting to get back to normal in the wake of Ike’s destruction. Still only about 50% of the people here have their power back (I was luckily in the top 35%) and tensions are running high, especially as you get closer towards Galveston. Taz tipped me off yesterday that some nearby gas stations (specifically the ones with a small co-located convenience store) have been hiring Black Panther party members to secure the premises and prevent potential looting:

The Black Panther Party says it deployed 17 of its members to area gasoline station convenience stores to protect them from theft in the hours before and after Hurricane Ike makes landfall.

Owners asked the group to provide private security for their property, said Major Kenyha Shabazz, chairman of Peoples Party No. 3, the Houston affiliate of the Black Panther Party.

“These are the places that service our communities with food, water and fuel,” Shabazz said. “We don’t want these places torn up.”… [Link]

As you can imagine, many of these gas station/convenience stores are desi owned. I find this to be a rather interesting (and perhaps symbiotic) relationship. A party once thought of as extremist in the 60s is now being hired by South Asian business owners (not necessarily known for racial integration into the communities in which they reside). In return, the Panthers are given a new legitimacy and may even help improve race relations since the areas they are protecting also include large hispanic populations.

Once these owners and the community residents the Panthers sought to defend might have seen each other as adversaries, partners in a relationship filled with racial tension. The Panthers’ defense of these corner stores is a nice reminder of how times have changed to the benefit of the whole community.

“We hired these Black Panther people to take care of our two stores, one here on Dowling and the other one on Elgin,” said Nabi Chowdhury, manager of a Mobil station on Dowling Street.

“We have confidence in them because for a long time we have known them, and their attitude and everything, we like,” Chowdhury said. [Link]

Taz suggested I go conduct some interviews at one of these gas stations. However, I don’t want to get shot as a potential looter (I kind of have the avaricious eyes of one).

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Slur-ricane Ike: Stress Brings out the Worst in People?

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As the comments section of Ennis’ post on the GOP’s efforts to reach out to minorities indicates, many of us saw the video below on ABC News last night. I know I wasn’t the only one who immediately hit rewind, out of a combination of incredulity and astonishment.

Natural disasters are awful and over-worked, frazzled law enforcement officials are under much strain, but that still doesn’t justify ignorant reactions like the one captured above. I wonder if that same cop instructed other drivers who annoyed him or “talked back” to perhaps return to Africa or England? I’m thinking not.

Reader Suede wrote in to the tip line, with this update:

3:40am PST.
World News Now on ABC 7
Vinita Nair and her co-host are covering a story about the devastation in Texas, and they show a clip about how cops are turning people back and not letting them return.
The clip begins with a guy (desi) in a car arguing with the cop who is not letting him go through. The cop finally tells him “go back to India”. After the clip, Vinita didn’t just shove the comment under the rug, but instead, she was shocked and raised her concern about the trooper’s comments.

Go Vinita! As a massive insomniac (who grew up in a home with no cable), I have always loved WNN— I even list it under my favorite TV shows, on my facebook profile ;). Now that the beautiful and brainy Ms. Nair is co-anchoring it, consider me a rabid fan. Yay for calling out stupidity and not glossing over the truth. Continue reading →

Macaca Man Minority eMissary

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Perhaps in response to my last post about the record blinding whiteness of the RNC, the GOP has decided to reach out to minority voters in the key state of Virginia with a big rally this weekend.

Among the key speakers at this rally will be none other than former Senator George Allen of Macaca fame, a man the state party sees as perfectly exemplifying the face they want to put forward to minority voters:

“George Allen has an excellent record on issues of diversity, reaching out to people…His whole career, his whole life have been a testament to a guy who’s treated people equally across racial lines, across every kind of line.” [Link]

No, you haven’t accidentally clicked on a post from the Onion, this is for real, I don’t have the imagination to make something like this up.

For those of you whose memory is hazy, two years ago George Allen was a senator from Virginia, favored not only for re-election but for the party’s Presidential nomination in 2008 until he called a young desi by the name of S.R. Sidarth a macaca, and welcomed him to “America and the real world.” [Youtube]

In the process of digging around in Allen’s history, reporters found out that he also had a real fondness for the Confederacy and used to keep a noose hanging from a tree in his law office. So it’s not just desis who have reasons to be repulsed by Allen, it’s a far larger group of potential voters.

When asked about the macaca incident, the communications director for the VA GOP waved the whole thing off as being just a wikipedia smear job:

Asked whether “macaca” might cloud the message a bit, Scimeca said the whole thing was a smear-job by the Dems: “Anyone had to go on Wikipedia to be offended by it. And you know how people can mess with Wikipedia.” [Link]

That last statement will probably offend a group that overlaps heavily with desis in Virginia, techies. After all, how could any self-respecting geek still respect a party spokesman who can’t tell his Wikipedia from his Youtube?

Related posts: Q: What is a “Macaca” and should we fear it? ; “Macaca” Not Going Away ; The Macaca Speaks

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Another Desi Reality Show Contestant!

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Shazia is on Top Design.jpg …this time, it’s Shazia Kirmani, of Houston/Dallas, Texas (thanks for the tip, Sadaf). She’s an ABD whose parents are from Pakistan, and she’s one of the contestants on Bravo TV’s excruciatingly boring show, Top Design. I ain’t tryin’ to hate, but I couldn’t get through all of the one episode which I had DVR’d in preparation for writing this post.

That’s sad, really, because I asked for and received a subscription to Conde Nasty’s HG as one of my sixth-grade graduation gifts, way back in 1986. I already had this. Keeping all that in mind, you can understand why I was extra let-down at the utter crappiness of this show. But I digress. Let’s meet Shazzers:

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Shazia was part of the first generation of American born children in her family. From a very young age her father pushed her to become a doctor, but after her first semester at The University of Texas at Austin studying Biochemistry, Shazia realized she was more passionate about redesigning her bedroom than anything that was going on in the classroom.
Upon graduation, she accepted a position at the Gap as a visuals specialist, where she finally found the direction she needed. At the age of 25, familial and societal expectations thrown to the wind, Shazia entered The Art Institute of Dallas studying Interior Design. Three short months after graduation, she was awarded a contract with a multi-billion dollar healthcare services company and from there she started her own company, Egospace Interiors, Inc.
Shazia is inspired by everything – the environment, politics, fashion, etc. She prefers her designs to be functional, with a touch of contemporary edge. In 2006, her apartment was recognized in Dallas’ D Home and Garden Magazine and she was named the ‘It’ gal of interiors.
Now at 30, Shazia is as successful and ambitious as ever. Her company is growing and she is taking on commercial/residential rehabs and clientele such as The Trelivings, whose patriarch, Jim Treliving, is star of CBC’s Dragons’ Den and owner of Boston Pizza International. By staying true to her deepest desires, whether business or personal, Shazia has mastered the ability to take on any challenge without letting fear of the unknown stand in her way. [bravotv]

I love Bravo for Project Runway, Top Chef and my dirty little secret, The Real Housewives of New York City, so I tolerate their shameless cross-promotional crassness (“You only have five minutes to get your models to the TRESemme Hair station. TRESemme hair products provide professional quality hair care at an affordable price. Make it work!“), but just barely.

On the episode I only minimally fast-forwarded through last night, Top Design hopefuls were instructed to create a window design to showcase a dress created by…wait, for it…wait, for it…past contestants of Project Runway. While it was fun to see crunchy Sweet P, the exquisitely sensitive Andrae, and the ferocious Santino again, it was NOT FUN to watch TD teams create some of the most boring installations I’ve ever seen. Continue reading →

A Teacher’s Exposé

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I used to work at a tutoring center on a small private college campus in Westchester, NY several years ago. Our offices were a safe space that students visited for help with writing papers, coursework, math, ESL. We hired several peer and professional tutors every semester to provide such services to our student body, and very often, I also took on a small student load. It was tremendously fulfilling work, helping students navigate challenging course material or a tricky writing assignment, watchingschooledcov.jpg them come into their own, grasp the content, and produce assignments that met curriculum standards.

That’s my experience with tutoring. Then, there’s the experience of Anisha Lakhani, a former teacher whose novel “Schooled” was just published by Hyperion this summer. She taught (and was even the Middle School English Chair) at the high-profile NYC private school Dalton for a decade, but quit last year following her disillusionment with the culture of cheating in which she found herself.

Lakhani was raking in the dough (over 200 bucks an hour) for private tutoring sessions with the children of wealthy clients on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Her closet was filled with the latest designer fashions and she was hanging with all the right folks. As the Jersey-born Columbia graduate sank deeper and deeper into this world, she discovered a vicious inner circle in which educators, parents, and students were enmeshed: Parents, eager to see their kids excel, hired tutors like Lakhani to help student swith school assignments. Students, accustomed to being treated with kid gloves and occupied with AIM, Juicy Couture, and their active social lives, expected Lakhani to essentially do their homework for them. And, teachers, intimidated by parents, knew not to give in-class writing assignments or to even raise the question of whether a paper was written by the student or a tutor, kept silent.

Based on her experiences as a tutor as well as those of her colleagues and parents, Anisha Lakhani’s “Schooled” takes us into the crazy world of Anna Taggert, a recent Columbia graduate who goes against the wishes of her parents (they could have been desi!) and takes up a job at a private school. Despite her initial idealism and desire to imbue her students with the spirit of literary greats, she is very quickly beset with a host of problems: pushy moms, low pay, a rundown apartment, and a school administration which warns her not to make her lesson plans too complicated (she’ll make the other teachers look bad). As the months pass, Anna decides to take up a tutoring gig on the side to supplement her measly income. That’s when things spiral out of control. Her values go whoosh and she falls head over heels with the all things Juicy and Chanel; with shopping sprees; with blonde highlights; and with the experience of being the “cool teacher” who gets invited to Kanye West bar mitzvahs. (Sidenote: The novel also features a desi character – a fellow math teacher – who also gets equally corrupted by the lure of tutoring.)

Eventually, things settle down and Anna looks in the mirror and realizes who and what she has become — and unlike Lakhani, who has quit teaching and turned into a full-time novelist and socialite — returns to the classroom ready to reform her students and herself. But until that happens, readers will get an unnerving look at the Upper East Side annals of overambitious, competitive, and heartbreaking private education. The novel follows in the footsteps of books like “The Nanny Diaries” which provide the insider/outsider point of view. In fact, by the end of this week, movie rights will be sold. And though it’s not literary fiction by any means, it is an intriguing sociological study into a culture of cheating with a dash of pedagogy and activism thrown in.

“I thought it was time someone spoke out. Yes, certainly there were many hardworking students and decent families, but so, so much cheating is occurring and it needed to be exposed.” Lakhani told me in our e-mail Q&A which follows below the fold. Maybe parents and teachers alike will cull some advice from this morality tale from someone who knows what it’s like to walk in their shoes. I certainly hope some conversations about reform emerge from this book, or else it will be just a fictionalized navel-gazing venture. Continue reading →

Eva Mehta- Devoted and Disciplined

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Eva and her Mom

Condekedar alerted us to an interesting story in the Chicago Tribune, via our NewsTab. Eva Mehta, a 17-year old from Evanston, set a local record by fasting for over a month:

At times, the 17-year-old was so weak and nauseated that her parents had to use a wheelchair to bring her from their van to their Jain temple in Bartlett. When the hunger pangs hit hard, she would pinch her ears. But she kept up her fast, even when she went to bed hungry and dreamed of food.
“I would just say in my mind, ‘No, it’s not real. I just won’t eat it. I’m not going to eat this until I’m done fasting,’ ” she said.

That’s trippy– so she was fasting, even in her dreams. Homegirl is hard-core!

How did she do it?

“I always tried to keep my mind, just pray to my god every day,” Mehta said recently, appearing happy and relaxed. “I would pray, just help me get rid of this feeling. I always pinch my ear and pray whenever I’m hungry.”

I’m going to have to remember that ear-pinching thing, for later. In other news, I always thought there were more Jains in India. Well, I learned something new for today:

Her fast ended Sept. 3 after 34 days. By then the 5-foot-4 Evanston teen had lost 33 pounds, her weight dropping to 119.
Chicago-area Jains rejoiced at her feat. Members of the ancient Indian religion fast every year in honor of the festival of Paryushan Parva. They regard fasting as a spiritual discipline, a way to remove bad karma and bring blessings to a person strong enough to survive for days or weeks on nothing but water.
Dating to as early as the 7th Century B.C., Jainism teaches a path to enlightenment through a life founded on nonviolence to all creatures. Jains represent less than 1 percent of the Indian population.
Many faiths have ascetic traditions that embrace fasting, but few carry it to such lengths as the Jains. In some cases, Jains practice santhara, or fasting until death, in order to free the soul from its sins.

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