July 16, 2008

A South Asian American Agenda?

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:

Economic Justice: Promote economic justice and financial security for South Asians
• Support the right to collect a decent living wage with benefits
• Ensure work environments are free from exploitation and provide protections for labor trafficking survivors
• Support the rights of workers who seek to organize regardless of occupation or immigration status
• Provide protections for those affected by workplace discrimination
• Cease immigration enforcement at the workplace
• Ensure access to financial education and vocational training opportunities for immigrant and limited English proficient workers
• Ensure enforcement of tenants’ rights and fair housing policies
• Support affordable housing for immigrants
• Ensure access to fair and affordable credit for immigrants

I personally strongly support the points related to housing and tenants’ rights (many recent immigrants I’ve known live in quite poor conditions, and sometimes they are unaware that landlords have certain legal obligations to their tenants.). I’m less clear on the question of “immigration enforcement at the workplace,” because I think USCIS raids at factory, hotel, and restaurant could be defended along the lines of “well, it’s the law.”

I also personally strongly support the subheader on Gender Equity:

Gender Equity: Advance gender equity within the South Asian community
• Support programs aimed to address and prevent gender-based violence within the South Asian community
• Support programs that provide linguistically accessible and culturally appropriate services for South Asian domestic violence survivors
• Support policies that protect and empower immigrant domestic violence survivors
• Support immigration policies that protect and empower dependent visa holders
• Strengthen policies aimed to prevent all forms of trafficking and provide meaningful resources to survivors
• Develop policies aimed at curbing transnational abandonment of spouses
• Increase culturally and linguistically appropriate health services for South Asian women
• Promote programs and policies that foster the economic empowerment of South Asian women

And finally, one more SAALT NCSO agenda item I feel strongly about is reform of the immigration system:

Immigrant Rights: Promote immigrant rights and just reforms to the immigration system
• Ensure a just and humane approach to reforming the immigration system at the federal level
• Expedite immigration application background checks related to security-related delays
• Ensure the naturalization process is accessible to all eligible immigrants
• Ensure that the immigration system promotes the reunification of families
• Support immigration policies that protect the rights of immigrant workers
• Support immigration policies that protect and empower domestic violence survivors
• Support immigration policies that protect and empower all dependent visa holders
• Cease enforcement initiatives and national security measures that disproportionately affect immigrants and promote profiling
• Ensure that immigrants are not deported from the United States for minor violations of the law
• Cease sharing information among various law enforcement agencies for immigration purposes
• Oppose policies denying public services to non-citizens or permitting state and local law enforcement to carry out federal immigration law
• Ensure compliance of detention standards and provide alternatives to immigrant detention
• Strengthen due process protections within the immigration system
• Standardize the adjudication of asylum-related forms of relief

Ever since the immigration reform bills of the mid-1990s, stories about decent immigrants screwed over by technicalities and minor infractions have been unceasing. And the immigration process as a whole currently causes misery for millions upon millions of immigrants, including those that assiduously play by the rules. (I have blogged my complaints about the indecency of today’s immigration system often; but for starters, see this post… with its 341 comments!)

What do people think about the SAALT NCSO agenda as a whole? Any nitpicks, or major disagreements? (Read the whole list at PTR or here.)

amardeep at 11:29 PM in Identity · 157 comment(s) · Direct link

June 11, 2008

Phone-banking with an accent

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.

abhi at 11:04 PM in Identity, Musings, Politics, Profiles · 25 comment(s) · Direct link

June 06, 2008

Fighting the name change

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]

abhi at 08:47 AM in Humor, Identity · 88 comment(s) · Direct link

May 09, 2008

Dancing in the Family

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?

Most that I’ve known feel as though they have a deeper connection to both, not an alienation from either, but it’s clearly a personal path. I’m curious to hear any stories readers might have to share on this topic.

Also, I watched a bit of his performance here, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I’m a rank ignoramus about bharatanatyam, so perhaps I’m just used to the more typical form:

However, the version that Knight dances is stylistically unique. It originated as a temple offering performed by young women who were dedicated to serving God by retelling ancient Hindu myths through music and dance in the temple courtyard.

He sings while dancing as well, which threw me off a bit. But, again, this could be entirely due to my own lack of knowledge. His hand movements are beautiful though…I encourage anyone with a bharatanatyan background to please take a look and share your thoughts.

cicatrix at 08:30 PM in Dance, Identity, Profiles · 151 comment(s) · Direct link

April 29, 2008

Metallic Identity

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).

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.

Here’s another:

It was near midnight on the eve of India’s independence, and I was at a concert called Freedom Jam, held at a club on the outskirts of Bangalore called only The Club. Watching the band perform from beside the stage, I noticed a girl with a nose ring. My grandmother’s nose was pierced when she married at thirteen; her nose ring was a sign that she adhered to a certain traditional image of Indian womanhood. For this girl, however, the ring indicated that she was not just westernized (such girls simply chose not to get their noses pierced) but a member of an alternative community that existed outside the mainstream of westernized Indian youth. Essentially, the nose ring had traveled to the other side of the world, assumed a fringe rather than traditional meaning, and then come back to India, where it now has two different meanings. Such dual gestures exist in America, but they usually have one sincere and one ironic meaning—trucker hats on truckers, for example, as opposed to everyone else. In India, however, both meanings are perfectly sincere, both carry conviction.

And, this one:

The rest of the band wasn’t very talkative. Charlie was wearing a black shirt with something silver painted on it in jagged gothic letters. I looked at it: “Cytos…” “Cryptopsy,” he said. Then he explained that it was a band he liked. He couldn’t find a t-shirt of theirs in India so he made it himself with red and silver puffy paint. Pradyum was wearing a History Channel t-shirt. I wondered if members of any American band would have worn these two items of clothing—a homemade shirt, and one that advertised for a television channel—without being enormously conscious of what they were doing, of aiming to produce some sort of effect. Things that have been weighted down in the west with ironic associations—Scooby Doo T-shirts, hair metal, huge striped V-shaped guitars like the one Ganesh had—had regained their innocence on the other side of the world. In India, they mean nothing more than what they are, and people either like them or don’t, but they never “like” them.

The piece was a fascinating commentary on an desi’s experience going back to India and discovering various subcultures that have sprouted up as a result of globalization - heavy metal and call center “vampires” are just a few:

Pradyum’s fiancee “managed a call center for Alamo car rental at night, and then slept during the day. She was basically living on American hours. A couple of my cousins in Bangalore did this too, and they told me that entire malls and restaurants had sprung up in certain areas of the city to cater to people who followed these vampire schedules. One cousin told me that he went to such places after work to “freak out.” After much confusion, I discovered that this term has, like the nose ring, crossed the oceans to mean its exact opposite—in India, it means to relax or hang out.”

In “Death Metal and Identity,” Akshay Ahuja proposes that “generally, it seemed, it was no longer necessary to slowly build a career through extensive education and continuous professional diligence. A decent livelihood was available at any point, as long as one spoke English. This easy money allowed for a semi-bohemian lifestyle that hadn’t been possible or acceptable in India before. Until keeping a serious job was absolutely necessary, you could do anything you wanted with your time. This withdrawal of obligations was perhaps the first step in creating an artistic class outside the mainstream of a culture.”

[As a sidenote, Amitabha Bagchi’s IIT novel “Above Average” explores this subculture a bit — his main character is a ” middle-class Delhi boy with an aptitude for science and math but a yearning to be the drummer of a rock band ..”]

Any metal musicians in the house? Past? Present? Wanna-bes? Is Akshay right? Has “easy money allowed for a semi-bohemian lifestyle that hadn’t been possible or acceptable in India before”?

Sandhya at 08:49 AM in Identity, Music · 70 comment(s) · Direct link

March 21, 2008

Poetry Friday: Corona, Queens

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.

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.

Back when the future still seemed exciting and glossy,
like some kind of old stainless steel science fiction movie, not now
when the future seems like the inside of a dark coat sleeve.

We knew Corona,
under the shadow of Shea Stadium
where brown men became famous
and moved to Long Island
where our brothers played baseball
in the tar school yards on the weekends.

Back then, our brothers’ futures
were so open and they were so close,
they all dreamed the same dream together.
That with the crack of a bat
and the pull of their skinny brown legs
they could run away from the smell of garbage,
the fear on the streets,
the boys beating them up
when they came out of the masjid in the evening.

They could hit with that bat
and it would land them
all the way into the safety of Shea Stadium
and then past that,
into the island that was long and rich
where all the baseball stars lived.

[A version of this poem appeared in the NY Times in April 1996.]

I’ve said this before: I like to pair literary and artistic selections the way people pair wine and cheese, so when I read this poem, it seemed to me a perfect accompaniment to Crossing the Blvd: Strangers, Neighbors, Aliens in a New America, a critically acclaimed book and multimedia exhibit which is currently showing at Queens College through June 28 [details]

… When I think of Bushra’s poem, it speaks directly to Crossing the Blvd [check out the interactive website and submit your own ‘Crossings Story’ which focuses on Queens, the most ethnically diverse county in the United States. As the authors and artists Judith Sloan and Warren Lehrer put it so well:

“Home of New York airports, Queens, ‘the modern day Ellis Island’ is no longer made up of neatly partitioned ethnic enclaves. Today, the choreography of Queens, a place where residents speak 138 different languages, is one of chaotic co-existence. This group portrait of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial community [of new immigrants and refugees] is a magnifying glass for the future of America.”

“Corona, Queens” to me is a poem of place, but it’s also a poem of dreams – what are the dreams of immigrants? And, how does the physical place where we live assume those dreams? The images—of the Great Gatsby, the World Fair, Shea Stadium, the corner masjid, and the future that is the “inside of a dark coat sleeve” (a powerful metaphor for a post 9/11 America)—they all sit with me. Each tells its own story of the American Dream and perhaps even prompts us to think about the neighborhood where we grew up as immigrant kids, or as children of immigrants, or where we have arrived at as adults …

I’d love to hear some of those stories or memories that this poem might stir up.

Sandhya at 05:35 AM in Identity, Literature · 13 comment(s) · Direct link

March 14, 2008

Poetry Friday: Shilling Love

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 spoken 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

I try to explain love/ in shillings / to those who’ve never gauged / who gets to leave who has to stay / who breaks free and what they pay / those who’ve never measured love / by every run of the ladder / from survival / to choice

A force as grim and determined / as a boot up the backside / a spur that draws blood / a mountaineer’s rope / that yanks / relentlessly / up

My parents never say / they love us / they save and count / count and save / the shilling falls against the pound / college fees for overseas students / rise like flood tides / love is a luxury / priced in hard currency / ringed by tariffs / and we devour prospectuses / of ivied buildings smooth lawns vast / libraries the way Jehovah’s witnesses / gobble visions of paradise / because we know we’ll have to be / twice as good three times as fast four times as driven / with angels powers and principalities on our side just / to get / on the plane

Thirty shillings to the pound fourty shillings to the pound / my parents fight over money late in the night / my father pounds the walls and yells / I can’t — it’s impossible — what do you think I am? / My mother propels us through school tuition exams applications / locks us into rooms to study / keeps an iron grip on the bank books

1982 / gunshots / in the streets of Nairobi / military coup leaders / thunder over the radio / Asian businesses wrecked and looted Asian women raped / after / the government / regains control / we whisper what the coup leaders planned

Round up all the Asians at gunpoint / in the national stadium / strip them of what / they carry march them / 30 miles / elders in wheelchairs / babies in arms / march them 30 miles to the airport / pack them onto any planes / of any foreign airline / tell the pilots / down the rifle barrels / leave / we don’t care where you take them / leave

[The poem is pretty long, so you can read Part II here.]

The first time I read “Shilling Love,” it resonated with me on a very personal level. I too grew up in Ghana during the military coups of the late 70s/early 80s, so I’m all too familiar with some of the scenes she paints and the challenges she describes. In my essay, “Children of a Coup” I write more about this:

On June 4, 1979, just a few days before scheduled elections in Ghana, the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council overthrew the government. This was the fourth coup in the nascent democracy since 1957, when Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African nation to achieve independence from colonial rule. At the time, I was five. Those were turbulent days. The government’s body fell apart and violence replaced peaceable discomfort. Lines at gas stations grew long, schools were closed more often than they were open, and SPAM and Baked Beans came close to gaining the status of staple foods.

Unlike me - still struggling to put words to that experience which I half-remember; to piece it together based on family memory and historical narratives, Shailja’s poetry is her activism. She has been described by CNN as an artist “who exemplifies globalization as a people-centered phenomenon of migration and exchange.” I see her as a desi Sarah Jones; there’s power in her punch.

In fact, Shailja is currently in Kenya, where she’s working with the organization Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice (read her “Open Letter to Samuel Kivuitu, Chairman of the Electoral Commission of Kenya”); touring various arts festivals in Africa, and working on the second show in the “Migritudes” cycle. I think this seven minute documentary from KQED Arts is worth checking out (You can also click on her picture above to get to it.)

And that’s all for this week’s poetry party.

Sandhya at 06:09 AM in Arts and Entertainment, History, Identity, Literature · 9 comment(s) · Direct link

March 05, 2008

Kal Penn @ UPenn

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)

For instance, Penn was asked not long ago to do an Indian accent for a small role he had in a big studio film, but the respectful rendition of an Indian accent he attempted on camera was found to be insufficiently comical by the studio. After the film was shot, the studio execs actually asked him to go back and re-dub his lines with a thicker, more comical accent. To his credit, Penn refused to do it — and there wasn’t really anything the studio people could do (the film was destined to flop in any case). As Penn put it in his answer to the question, “They were using racism to hide a bad script. Racism was their marketing strategy.”

(That last comment strikes me as dead on, but still distressing. It’s not that racism or sexism sneaks into scripts by accident — it might be that in some ways studios know this is exactly what they need to sell product…)

Penn pointed out that part of the problem is with the writers and studios that make this stuff — and note that the alternative to unfortunate images of Asians in the media is often the complete erasure of all people of color from the fantasy world presented on TV and in the movies. “Friends” and “Seinfeld” were both shows with all white casts, set, improbably, in New York, one of the most diverse cities in the world. In the Q&A, Penn asked, “How come there are no people of color in their New York City?”

But of course, it’s not totally irrelevant to this that most South Asians in the U.S. are professionally oriented — there aren’t many of us trying to be writers or media people. “We’re too busy trying to be doctors and engineers,” Penn suggested, to think of this as a serious career option. If more of us were in the business there might be fewer characters like Apu (or Taj Mahal Badalandabad), and more characters like Gogol Ganguli.

I also stood up to ask a question myself, about naming — since this is one of the things that some readers at Sepia Mutiny have sometimes grumbled about vis a vis Mr. Kalpen Modi (not to mention, Piyush “Bobby” Jindal…). My question was this: I completely understand why you chose a stage name when you were first starting out. But now that you’ve achieved a measure of success as an actor, have you considered going back to your given name?

Some parts of the answer were expected. For one thing, quite a number of professional actors use stage names. Penn did recount that he had been advised by friends to adopt a more “Anglo-sounding” name when he was first starting out. But he also mentioned something I hadn’t known about before, that “Indian uncles” had suggested that, based on Hindu numerology, it would be good luck for him to try and keep his real first name, but add an extra letter to it. And voila: Kalpen became Kal Penn.

As for whether Kal Penn might ever revert to his given name, not likely — once you started getting credited under one name, he suggested, it’s hard to change it. Still, on several of his recent films, he’s lobbied to get his real name introduced on the credits somewhere, perhaps as production assistant. On “The Namesake,” he was fittingly credited for Nikhil as “Kalpen Modi,” and for Gogol as “Kal Penn.”

amardeep at 01:44 PM in Film, Identity, Issues, Politics, TV · 75 comment(s) · Direct link

March 03, 2008

Everyone wants a little Punjabi

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.

The law allows adoptions only up to the age of 12 (inter-country) and stipulates that the older parents age should not exceed 45. This is a setback as older children are not preferred by young couples and the older couples cannot adopt due to age limit.

It is quite a paradox as older couples have better financial status and parenting experience and can spend more time with the child, adoption agencies say.

When does this self-loathing end? I know people who have struggled with infertility; they just appreciate having a little kid to love. I can’t help but imagine the couples who rejected this infant. How does that thought process work? “Well, we can’t have a child of our own…but damn it if we settle for a dark one. We deserve more than that!”

So do babies like Livya. I hope her parents don’t tell her anything about this aspect of her past; I’m glad she was adopted by two people who looked at her and saw a toddler vs. a dark, undesirable object.

.

Thanks for leaving this on the News Tab, duax0001.

anna at 02:41 PM in Identity, Issues, Kids · 168 comment(s) · Direct link

January 21, 2008

DC: Subcontinental Drift 2008- January 28

Straight Outta Compton my inbox, an invitation to the first Subcontinental Drift of 2008. This event/collective is one of my favorite things about living in DC. Come find out why for yourself:

2007 sure brought some of the district’s talents out of the basement and into the spotlight. It was nothing less than inspiring to witness the expressive potential of our collective South Asian community.

Subcontinental Drift is excited to be back with the first open mic night of 2008 on Monday, January 28th at 7pm. Come bless us in this new year with your art, your thoughts, your ideas, your presence. The mic will be open from 7-9 pm (to sign up for a spot, shoot an email with your name and performance genre to subdriftdc@gmail.com). And stay for the after party with some chill beats and groovin’.

Where?

Bohemian Caverns, at the corner of 11th and U. We’ll be upstairs. www.bohemiancaverns.com

When?

Doors open at 6:30pm.

More info?

myspace.com/subcontinentaldrift or email subdriftdc@gmail.com

I never go out on Mondays or Tuesdays because those are my most challenging (read: no lunch) days at work, but I’m about to do some serious juggling in order to attend this— THAT’S how amazing Subcontinental Drift is. It is worth the stress and exhaustion. ;) If you are in DC, please come out so that you, too, can babble beatifically about all the awesomeness. And if you are not in DC, remember that it is a new year; resolve to start something similar where you are. Abhi did it fabulously in Houston, so can you. Everyone deserves to drift.

anna at 03:53 PM in Art, Arts and Entertainment, Events, Identity, Music, Theater · 11 comment(s) · Direct link

January 14, 2008

Portraying Monkeys Is Paramount in Preserving Our Culture?

Greetings Mutineers! I am Nayagan and I am guest-blogging here to fight the good fight for pittu, sodhi and the thosai which embraces us all in it’s fermented glory.

Listen up desi parents: Bina Menon, a classical dance teacher from West Orange NY, has the magical cure to all your ‘heritage preserving’ needs. Indeed, according to the New York Times, a turn in one of her stage productions (portraying an animal of the forest) will do wonders for lifting the Vestern pop-culture cloud which descended over your child’s eyes as soon as he/she exited the womb.

Yes, I know, the reporter attributed the sentiment to Menon’s students, but what exactly could these young ‘uns have known about a heritage which was supposedly out of their grasp? Could this deep knowledge be imparted by scratching one’s arm-pit repeatedly? Or perhaps by miming the grooming ritual so fancied by wild-life photographers? Whatever the standard, this reporter unwittingly added fuel to the “All Things Come From India” fire by attributing an honorific desis know all too well

dancing with Bina-Auntie

to the Hindi crowd:

employing a Hindi term of endearment all her fellow dancers used for Ms. Menon

Okay, to be charitable to the reporter, and without sounding the Lemurian call to arms, perhaps this was really all about the dance. The one student who went on record, seems to confirm this:

“My parents brought me into dance when I was 5, and at first I wasn’t that into it,” said Teena Ammakuzhiyil, a lithe 20-year-old from Union who will play the wise monkey in “Ramayanam,” a production that 25 senior-level dancers from Ms. Menon’s Kalashri School will present on Jan. 27 at the Mayo Center for the Performing Arts in Morristown. “But it brought me back to my roots, dancing with Bina-Auntie,”

But the ‘roots’ return and the question bears asking, now that she has ‘found’ her roots, what’s left? Branching out into choreography? Founding her very own dance school? Perhaps she had better think twice:

The Kalashri School employs no other teachers because, as Ms. Menon says: “I haven’t seen anyone who can teach as well as I can. And I really want my students to be good at what they’re doing.

A display of bravado (apparently all the other teachers toiling away at instructing recalcitrant students better hang ‘em up) tempered by weak equivocation—sounds like the ‘heritage’ is being taught by example. Turning aside from the arrogance, I wondered:

1. What exactly constitutes ‘respect’ for your heritage?

2. Can a clumsy portrayal of a monkey mean that you’re disrespectful of said heritage (given that your chosen medium of ‘respecting’ is dance)?

3. Why do we entrust such an apparently important task, this cultural education, to strangers?

4. Bharatanatyam is suffused with Hindu mythology and the pieces are often set to Hindu songs and bhajans—what is it like for non-Hindu desis to be told that Muruga and Hanuman constitute your ‘heritage’ and that the creatures portrayed in the Ramayana will show your child all that you wish to impart about this ‘heritage’ that any honest teacher could not easily define?

The article continues with a few references to platitudes we’re familiar with, “fosters community,” “it’s so much more than dance,” and “Indian Dance feels more comfortable than…” These are the buzz-words, the talking points that classical dance instructors often use to describe and justify what is usually just another extracurricular activity for application-filling, college-going, high-school students. What does it mean to you?

Nayagan at 06:25 PM in Art, Dance, Identity, Religion · 176 comment(s) · Direct link

January 08, 2008

Gloria Steinem, Clinton's tears, and rural India

Gloria Steinem had a compelling op-ed in the New York Times this morning that reminded me a lot of one of Ennis’ previous posts about women leaders in rural India. First, some excerpts from “Women Are Never Frontrunners:”

THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.

Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?

If you answered no to either question, you’re not alone. Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy. [Link]

Of course, there is another equally compelling argument for why the media “gives Clinton a hard time” and why the voters are so quick to discount her considerable experience, to the point of bringing her to tears. Many voters (like the majority in Iowa) may just want a clean break from the past. They don’t care whether Clinton is more capable than Obama or not. They don’t care if she’d be “a better President on day one.” They just want to rid themselves of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton monarchy and the baggage that comes with it. Perhaps, as Obama says, offering people hope and possibility and having the ability to bring new blood into the broken political process will make up for the experience and insider-Washington-knowledge needed to survive and be an effective President in Washington. There is a lot of credibility behind that argument. Then again, Steinem might also be right:

If the lawyer described above had been just as charismatic but named, say, Achola Obama instead of Barack Obama, her goose would have been cooked long ago. Indeed, neither she nor Hillary Clinton could have used Mr. Obama’s public style — or Bill Clinton’s either — without being considered too emotional by Washington pundits. [Link]

And that brings us to Ennis’s post and the study by Esther Duflo and Petia Topalova about women elected to local office in rural India:

Using opinion surveys and data on local “public goods”—like schools, roads, and water pumps—Duflo and Topalova find that the villages headed by women invested in more services that benefited the entire community than did those with gender-neutral elections, nearly all of which were won by men. But as the opinion polls showed, for all their effectiveness, the women’s governance was literally a thankless effort, with the new leaders getting lower approval ratings than their male counterparts.

Why study the experiences of Indian villagers to understand the costs and benefits of female leadership? Countries that come closest to gender parity in government, like Sweden and Finland, are economically advanced democracies with universal health care, child care, and generous maternity and paternity leave policies. Contrast this with the list of nations with zero women in national legislatures—Kyrgyzstan and Saudi Arabia, for example—and the pattern becomes clear: Women in government are associated with lots of good things… [Link]

Is it any wonder why Clinton might have cried? It is entirely possible that she has a lot in common with a rural Indian woman :)

First, the encouraging news from India’s social experiment with female leadership. Duflo and Topalova found that communities with women as pradhans had larger quantities of key public services overall. Nor was quality sacrificed for quantity—facilities in the women-led villages were of at least as high quality on average as in the communities with traditional male leadership. The greatest improvement was in drinking water, the public amenity found to be most valued by women in earlier research (PDF)—with 30 percent more taps and hand pumps in the women-pradhan villages. So while the female pradhans were working for the general good, they were working particularly hard to provide the services valued by their fellow women. They were also less corrupt—villagers with female-headed councils were 25 percent less likely to report having to pay bribes to access basic services like getting ration cards or receiving medical attention.

Now, the bad news. India’s female pradhans were remarkably unappreciated for their efforts. Despite the objective upgrades in village amenities, both men and women living in villages headed by women expressed lower satisfaction with public services. This was true even for water—the level of dissatisfaction was 13 percent higher in women-led communities. In fact, there was even greater dissatisfaction about health facilities, a public service not even controlled by the local village council… [Link]

As of the time of this posting, Clinton is up in the New Hampshire primary with a 40% to 35% lead over Obama (with roughly 30% of the vote counted). If she wins (a huge comeback based on all New Hampshire polls up until today), people are going to ask if the tears were for real, and if that’s what gave her the edge. They are also going to use exit polling data to figure out which group of voters were most responsible for her victory. Even if she loses but comes close, people are still going to ask what caused the “surge.” Maybe, just maybe, the women out there knew that even if the tears were fake, the gender bias may be real.

abhi at 09:22 PM in Identity, Issues, Politics · 205 comment(s) · Direct link

December 22, 2007

Zakaria on Obama, Identity

Ruchira sent me a link to a recent Newsweek column by Fareed Zakaria, and it seems like it could use a comment box. Zakaria says he likes Obama, surprisingly, because of “identity.” It’s surprising because, as Zakaria himself admits, he’s not one for identity politics:

Obama’s argument is about more than identity. He was intelligent and prescient about the costs of the Iraq War. But he says that his judgment was formed by his experience as a boy with a Kenyan father—and later an Indonesian stepfather—who spent four years growing up in Indonesia, and who lived in the multicultural swirl of Hawaii.

I never thought I’d agree with Obama. I’ve spent my life acquiring formal expertise on foreign policy. I’ve got fancy degrees, have run research projects, taught in colleges and graduate schools, edited a foreign-affairs journal, advised politicians and businessmen, written columns and cover stories, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world. I’ve never thought of my identity as any kind of qualification. I’ve never written an article that contains the phrase “As an Indian-American …” or “As a person of color …”

But when I think about what is truly distinctive about the way I look at the world, about the advantage that I may have over others in understanding foreign affairs, it is that I know what it means not to be an American. I know intimately the attraction, the repulsion, the hopes, the disappointments that the other 95 percent of humanity feels when thinking about this country. I know it because for a good part of my life, I wasn’t an American. I was the outsider, growing up 8,000 miles away from the centers of power, being shaped by forces over which my country had no control. (link)

Zakaria’s approach to “identity” is in some sense negative. He wouldn’t argue that Obama is better because he’s black, or mixed-race, or part-African, etc. But he will argue that Obama has enough of a personal, experiential link to the world outside of U.S. borders (non-U.S.) that it will benefit his judgment.

One could argue that the key distinction here is “experience” vs. “identity,” and that it’s “experience” of the non-U.S. we’re talking about really, not “identity.” But the way Zakaria phrases it (and from some of the other points he makes in the column) I sense that he’s talking about something much more visceral than what one might learn on a semester abroad in college. Perhaps he really does mean “identity” — as in, a set of immutable attributes — not “experience.” What do you think?

amardeep at 03:45 PM in Identity, Politics · 32 comment(s) · Direct link

December 21, 2007

Kashayyam for what ails me.

As much as left-coast-born-and-raised me loves living on the right side of this vast country, there is one situation which inspires a reaction which is more pathetic than independent— being sick. I’m not talking about the sniffles or an errant sneeze or three, I mean, 102 degree fever, rhinitis which resembles a broken faucet and exhaustion which is so powerful, Ambien is envious of its ability to force sleep. I mean, sick sick.

When you’re sick and at home (or near it, even), parents can do what they love to, they can fuss and scold while they bustle about making clucking noises and shaking their heads. There’s something so comforting about the cadence of a mildly-irritated, slightly-worried parent. I tune out the actual words and just follow along until I’ve reached the portal to that ever-running game of subconscious Chutes and Ladders, and then I slide back to baby-hood in a blissful blur.

Don’t hate. You totally do it, too. When you can, that is. But when you are 3,000 miles away, and you are surveying the destruction which is a charitable way to characterize one kleenex-strewn, studio apartment, there is no such succor. We modern, vesternized children who think we know so much, who move so far from mummydaddy, we do the only thing we can. We wallow during those brief moments we’re conscious, reconsider our stubborn and proud refusal to get married already and then, when it’s 4am and we’re awake because the drugs have worn off, we update our Facebook status with something miserable. What, you don’t? Well, I’m kinda glad I did that last thing. I woke up to a post on my wall which immediately cheered me…

I can only suggest the concoction foisted by many mother on her sick, jaded-by-alopathy children, kashayyam:

…and then there was a fantastic link to the substance he suggested.

Inji kashayam, a medicinal drink made with fresh ginger,pepper,coriander seeds and jaggery.This is mother in law’s famous recipe to make us all feel better when we are down with cold,indigestion or even nausea.Simple and easy to make…[link]

Ginger? Pepper? Jaggery? Awww, yeah. You know, I don’t know anything about cricket, I don’t watch Bollywood, I’ve never seen any of those 2nd gen experiments on celluloid which contain various combinations of “American”, “Desi” or “Chai”, but I’m brown in some very persistent, weird ways and this is one of them; I’m talking about the home remedy, the more random and bizarre, the better.

Back when I was a disdainful ten-year old, if you had told me that one day I’d be drinking, nay, CRAVING Jeera-vellam I wouldn’t have believed it. No way. Eeew. Not me. I was too cool for amber-colored water with icky masses of cumin seeds lurking at the bottom of a glass. And yet, there I was last year, 21 years older and determined to steep this mysterious drink, just so. Yes, I know it’s a brew so simple an idiot can make it, but that doesn’t lessen my anxiety, hokay? I was born here. That fact alone has me convinced that I will never be able to replicate my Mother’s legendary Meenkari-with-no-meen.

Anyway, thanks to a darling friend’s sympathetic post on my “wall”, here was another recipe which required ingredients from a store which probably also stocked ladoos (mmm…ladoos), a recipe which would probably work, if for only one reason (but it’s a powerful one, so one is all we need)— it was desi. And someone’s Mom used to make it. And it has nothing to do with medicine, over the counter or otherwise.

Placebo effect? Sure, I won’t dispute that at all. I also won’t dispute the ridiculously smug sense of satisfaction such a concoction summons, as if we have a secret, cultural-velvet-rope-thang. Those moments, when my brain is being boiled by a fever, and when I’m dazed, crazed and amazed at how good pepper, sugar and something I can’t pronounce which was allegedly smuggled in someone’s suitcase can taste…those are the moments when I am consummately down with my brown.

anna at 08:48 PM in Health and Medicine, Identity, Musings · 47 comment(s) · Direct link

December 10, 2007

The Drama of Diversity

Five years ago, I attended my first and last HOKANA FOKANA, the conference which is held every other year for Mallus who really want to marinate in Malayaleeosity. At the time, I was working for a non-profit and one of the organizers was interested in some of the post 9/11 stuff I was doing, so I was invited to speak at three of the week’s “Youth” panels.

Since they offered, and the woman who had contacted me was just wonderful to work with, I accepted. Thanks to her, I was treated to one of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had, once I arrived at the hotel in downtown Chicago, only to find myself among the most Malayalees I’ve ever seen in one place. It was a little bit bewildering, but it was edifying and fascinating, too.

There was so much to absorb: the regional cliques, the cousins from different coasts squealing as they spotted each other among the crowds, the Uncles strutting about, moustaches in full effect, declaring random things in voices so loud, the three or four white people who dared venture in to this quagmire jumped each time another Malayalee shout rang out. The energy (and scent of Drakkar mixed with Chivas) was potent. I’m glad I went. Everyone should, at some point.

I’ve often referenced my relatively “isolated” childhood— which so many of you share, according to what you confide via meetup and Gmail— and how unlike the other Malayalee Christian kids who grew up here, I never attended the Jacobite or MarThomite religious conferences which seemed to happen every few months, in different regions of the United States. Twenty years after my parents consciously blew off all of my Uncles’ recommendations that we attend that year’s FOKANA, my mother had a Eureka! moment in our kitchen, when during the one and only fight she and I ever had about my “settling down”, I shouted at her that if it were THAT important to her that I marry someone who was Malayalee and Orthodox, then perhaps they should have exposed me to actual Malayalee people while I was growing up.

“You never took me to FOKANA!”, I snapped and there it was, the look of recognition and acceptance. “How was I supposed to find this elusive dream son-in-law of yours, Ma?” I had a solid point. Every wedding we had attended in the two years preceding that argument had one thing in common besides parents who were attempting to one-up the last event by inviting an additional 100 guests; the bride and groom had met at church, at one of the regional denomination-specific conferences or yes, FOKANA. My mother never broke it down like that again. Yindeed, instead of the now familiar barrage of “Is he Jacobite? Marthoma? CATHOLIC?? Ehm…Malayalee at least???”, I was greeted with, “Found a nice boy yet?”

So these strange mega conferences, they have their place in our imperfect, carefully negotiated lives lived in on the hyphen. Sometimes, they can be an opportunity for pure good, like when one of you coordinated a massive effort to “Get Out The Marrow” at the TANA convention which was held in DC this year. What better place to rep Sameer and Vinay’s cause, than at an event which had several thousand potential matches?

From the news tab, a TOI story (“The dharma of diversity”), which I’ve included the majority of, here, so you don’t have to go there (thanks for the tip, Nanopolitan):

The United States and India both brag about their diversity — their respective diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual societies. But what happens when you put 2.6 million Indians in the US? They bring their full range of plurality with them to a country that, much like India, allows full expression.

No Indian state or group or caste is too small or too big to form a representative association in America. So, we have everything here from NAMA (North American Manipuri Association) to BANA (Bhojpuri Association of North America), from the Bruhan Maharashtra Mandali to the Bangla Samaj.

Oh, how they multiply and divide. When one Andhra caste began to dominate TANA (Telugu Association of North America), the other went on to form ATA (Association of Telugus of America). GANA could not contain the forming of the Gujarati Leuva Patel Samaj and nor could KANA hold back the birth of the North America Nair Society. When Bihar split to make place for Jharkhand, folks here made sure everyone heard it by forming BAJANA (Bihar and Jharkhand Association of North America).

Sometimes, there are so many associations for a given state or community that they form an omnibus association of associations. Thus, we have JAINA (Federation of Jain Associations of North America) and FOKANA (Federation of Kerala Associations of North America). Conversely, a mere Tamil Sangam was not large enough to accommodate the voice of Chettiars (to which belongs our finance minister P Chidambaram) who formed the Nagarthar Chettiar Sangam of North America.

What would Aishwarya Join?

A majority of people from Karnataka express themselves linguistically through 33 Kannada Kootas across North America under the umbrella of AKKA, which stands for Association of Kannada Kootas of America. But that does not account for Karnataka’s Bunts, who speak Tulu (think Aishwarya Rai), or Kodavas speaking Coorgi (think Robin Uthappa).

So, we have a Bunt Association of North America (another BANA) and a Kodava Samaja of America (KoSA). Can Konkanasthas, who come from up and down the west coast of India, have their nose cut? They have their NAKA (North American Konkani Association).

I wouldn’t ever recommend cutting a Konk. They’ll mess you up. Confront one of them and the only person who will get cut is you. ;) I have no idea what the next two groups mean:

Linguistic identity doesn’t fulfill caste affiliation. So, there is also a Vokkaliga Parishat of North America and a Veerashaiva Samaja of North America. And try this for size — a Bangalore geek in Boston is a member of both NEKK (New England Kannada Koota) and TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs).

There are also professional bodies such as AAPI (Association of American Physicians of Indian-origin) and AAHOA, which is the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association, but might well be called PAHOA to account for the dominance of Patels. More recently, journalists and lawyers have opted for the larger South Asian identity with groups such as SAJA and SABA.

You know I love coffee, right? Well the best association ever is coming up, below:

Nothing holds a mirror better to our diversity and our penchant for forming groups than AIENA (Association of Indian Entomologists in North America). Think you’ve heard it all? Beat this. There’s even a Volleyball Association of Jats in America, called JAVA (because they meet over coffee), which is an offshoot of AJA (Association of Jats in America). Talk about boosting diversity in America.

Talk about boosting, indeed. If it weren’t for these groups, how would our Dads have an opportunity to puff out their chest and feel veddy important? When else would they get to wear the sort of “prize” ribbon I am more accustomed to seeing on elementary school Science projects or award-winning livestock, at the California State Fair?

I wonder if we’ll be like this in a few decades—lobbying for another office to be created within one of these orgs (“How about Vice-President of Online Outreach and Promotional Strategies?” ) or splintering off to create a competing faction of Nairs of Northern California, so that we can be President of something too, since that bastard Sreedharan stole the election and shouldn’t be running things anyway. Goodness gracious me – no disrespect to all my Uncles—but…I sincerely hope not.

anna at 01:15 PM in Identity · 186 comment(s) · Direct link

December 03, 2007

Turban + Beard = No <3?

Last week, I wrote a post about ABC’s Notes From the Underbelly (which, btw, is on tonight at 9:30) and most of the comment thread was as fun and fluffy as I expected it to be. In light of that, I am half-willing to apologize for my bromidic attempt at virtually playing the right and left sides of the audience off each other, like it was an old skool rap concert or a pep rally, but most of you resisted my super-smack talk about Sunkrish vs Sendhil so all’s well that ends well…or is it?

One of the last comments on my post was left on Thursday, and it has bothered me since:

Punjabi Sikh kudis prefer clean-shaven men sans turban. They are quite vocal about that on all the Sikh dating and matrimonial sites. It has reached a crisis level in Canada and US with many Sikh men having to go to Desh to find a woman willing to take them with beard, turban and all. [link]

The handle this person chose (Broken Hearted Munda Looking for Kudi) made me extra sad. One of my closest friends is in this exact situation. He’s brilliant, hilarious, considerate and one of the sweetest people I have ever met—and he’s still single. And in his mid/late 30s. What would “normally” make a non-trivial number of girls gasp or pick out curtains— i.e. every attribute I listed in the last sentence PLUS two ivy degrees— seems to come second to the fact that he is a rather Orthodox Sikh. I don’t think the issue is his tee totaling/clean living; I think it’s his turban and beard.

Today, we received another pained comment, from a different person (Munda Still Looking for Kudi), on the same thread:

These women also cite 9/11 and subsequent discrimination against turbanned men as an excuse to avoid us like the plague. They say they don’t want to attract unneccessary attention and inconvenience and do not want to see their men and future children placed in possibly dangerous situations. Is this a cop out? [link]

Oh, 9/11. You changed everything. Now you consistently inspire nightmares like last week’s violence against an innocent Sikh cabdriver in Seattle, who was just trying to help an inebriated person get home, per the police’s request:

Trying to escape the attack, the 48-year-old victim stopped in a car pool lane Saturday night on Interstate 5, near Columbian Way, and scrambled out, state troopers said. His attacker had punched, choked and bitten him, calling him an “Iraqi terrorist,” according to police reports…

The suspect knocked off the victim’s turban and tore out clumps of his hair, according to reports. The beating continued as the victim fell onto the road. The victim briefly was hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center for injuries that included a concussion and bite marks on his head, according to police and acquaintances.

State troopers were called about 8 p.m. A Metro bus stopped next to the cab to block traffic after seeing the suspect attacking the victim in the road. Witnesses aboard the bus made dozens of calls to 911, Merrill said. [MSNBC]

The only comfort I take from that story is that the bus stopped while its riders frantically called 911…to report a crime which was inspired by those very numbers.

I must say, I can’t see any of my Sikh female friends “copping” to the reason which Munda Still Looking for Kudi cites; while plenty of them will bashfully admit that they want a clean-shaven mate, it’s not because of “inconvenience” or fears over discrimination. My friends are fierce, and take exhortations to be brave seriously; don’t go looking for a fight or commit some injustice in front of them, they’ll get righteously medieval on your kundis. (See: SM kudi Camille). But these women are also human. The heart wants what it wants and that’s demoralizing for people like my friend, with the stellar professional and emotional resume.

I know Sikh men who were born and raised here, who have gone to India for a bride and I know Sikh men who were born and raised here, who can’t conceive of such an undertaking. In three years of mutinying, I’ve heard from hundreds of you about how some of you don’t think your vesternized-selves could marry someone from the other side of the world— and yes, before a few of you angrily flame, we’ve also heard from those who are more than happy to find love thither. Why should wearing a turban or not shaving alter such feelings of apprehension regarding one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make?

What I want to know is, what do you think of these two comments and by extension, this issue? Do those of you who wear a turban plan on raising your sons to wear them? Are we heading to a future where little boys don’t run around in patkas, whether for their own safety or their future success with the kudis? I’m sure this already has been discussed on Sikh-centric sites, but I can sense that some of you want to raise your concerns here. Well, I heard you— and now I’d love to read what you have to say.

anna at 02:12 PM in Identity, Religion · 455 comment(s) · Direct link

November 29, 2007

Brown Bikers’ Big Beatz

Nobody would ever accuse desis of being quiet folk. You get a few desis together and pretty soon the volume of the chit chat rises; you get them excited and all the white people in the room start giving them dirty looks. We are voluble people.

So it’s not surprising that young desi bikers in Queens are making their presence known. Out where I live, white men on motocycles remove their mufflers and rev their engines, the aural equivalent of pissing on a tree. In Richmond Hill, young Indo-Carribeans mark their territory more euphoniously using huge speakers … on their bicycles, a tradition brought over from Guyana and Trinidad.

That’s right, this desi biker “gang” is real old school, eschewing newfangled innovations like the internal combustion engine for the purity of gears and sweat.

A new biker gang is roaming the streets of Richmond Hill, Queens. This crew of mostly teenagers can be seen riding along 103rd Avenue just west of the Van Wyck Expressway. The bikes roar… these contraptions look and sound more like rolling D.J. booths.

“This one puts out 5,000 watts and cost about $4,000,” said Nick Ragbir, 18, tinkering with his two-wheeled sound system, with its powerful amplifier, two 15-inch bass woofers and four midrange speakers. It plays music from his iPod and is powered by car batteries mounted on a sturdy motocross bike. [Link]

When I started reading the article and noticed all the names were desi, I was hoping for families of four on scooters or mopeds, women riding side saddle, but bicycles are almost as good.

Let other teenagers cruise around in low riding automobiles with the trunk and backseat full of woofers, burning dinosaur juice, bringing us Indian summer year ‘round. We’re rolling rickshaw style, moving our bodies to propel the music up and down the streets, dancing in the saddle as we pedal and peddle.

Who needs an iPod when you live in a desi neighborhood?

Slideshow with pictures here. The other photos are even better.

ennis at 03:06 PM in Arts and Entertainment, Identity · 30 comment(s) · Direct link

November 17, 2007

Kiran Chetry on the "South Asia" Question

Just in case you were unaware of it, Kiran Chetry, the CNN anchor, is half-Nepali, and was born in Kathmandu.

In an interview in Nepal Monitor recently posted on our News Tab, Kiran is asked, predictably perhaps, a number of questions relating to her background. For me, her most interesting response came following a question about her “South Asian” identity:

Question: And this is about being a “South Asian.” Because you don’t really seem like a South Asian unless somebody does some research on you! There are very few South Asians actually doing major shows on cable television in the US. What does being a “South Asian” mean to you?

Kiran Chetry: I define it in a more narrow term. I feel that being half-Nepalese is my heritage, something I have always grown up being proud of and living with. It’s never been something that I dwell on a lot; I think that it’s just my life, it’s who my family is, it’s who my father is. My cousins, many of them that are my age, are here in the US, either studying or now have jobs here. And that is just a part of our culture. And I have lived straddling both.

Fair enough — much of what she said there should resonate with many SM readers. Even if your family isn’t bi-cultural, growing up in the U.S. forces you to always in some sense “straddle both” cultures. But it’s when Chetry gets to terminology beyond “helf-Nepali” (or as she says, “Nepalese”) that she starts to hedge:

But you are right, when people look at me they don’t necessarily say, “Wow, Kiran must be Asian” or “Kiran must be from Nepal.” But I think that when you get to really know me and you spend any time with my family, you see what an influence it is. Since my father is from Nepal and that is what I grew up around. It’s just me.

And there are not a lot of South Asians, if you want to put it that way, that are represented in the news. However, there are a lot more at CNN, which is interesting. We have our special correspondent Sanjay Gupta, also Betty Nguyen, who is on our air and Alina Cho, one of our American Morning correspondents. All of them are Asian, or South Asian. So I think it is wonderful to be able to see more faces of diversity. And, I am one of them, even though I may not look like I am! I think I understand what being part of the Asian culture is like, not to put everybody into one big generalization. But I definitely understand a perspective because it is part of how I grew up. (link)

She seems a bit uncomfortable with the term “South Asian,” preferring the more narrowly national “Nepali” or the more general term, “Asian.” And while she mentions Dr. Sanjay Gupta, she’s also quick to mention Alina Cho and Betty Nguyen.

While most desis I know do define “South Asian” as a subset of “Asian,” I’ve never met anyone who wanted to deemphasize (or reject) the “South” in favor of a more generalized “Asian” identity — to be defined as just Asian, and not South Asian.

What might be behind Chetry’s terminological discomfort? (Unfortunately, we kind of have to speculate here, since I don’t think Kiran Chetry has done any other interviews where she’s discussed these kinds of identity issues.)

amardeep at 08:07 AM in Identity · 202 comment(s) · Direct link

November 02, 2007

Sikh-Face -- Today's Version of Blackface

This week’s episode of NBC’s My Name is Earl (thanks, anonymous tipster) features a neighbor in the trailer park who is supposed to be a Sikh. But he looks more like the usual “turbaned” convenience store clerk/taxi driver stock caricature who shows up in Hollywood movies and TV shows from time to time.

Is it offensive? Going by just the image, I would say yes, and not just to Sikhs. I think it’s offensive to all South Asians, perhaps even to all immigrants. In a sense the “Sikh” neighbor here stands in for all funny-looking/sounding foreigners in the imaginary world of My Name is Earl, just as Apu does in The Simpsons. It’s not just the wrong-looking turban and the glued on beard, it’s the accent — he’s even wearing a Sherwani suit! (While living in a trailer park!)

On the other hand, it could be pointed out that this particular episode is making fun of the anti-terrorist hysteria that swept the U.S. after 9/11 (the conceit is that the show is actually an episode of “Cops” filmed in 2002 — and the claptrap about catching terrorists is of course all the more absurd since the show is set in a small town). It shows law enforcement officers as particularly incompetent and clueless in their attempt to “profile” suspected terrorists, including the character above. But if your goal is to make fun of hysteria using silly caricatures that actually reinforce the ignorance you’re supposedly satirizing, what are you really doing?

It could also be pointed out that a show like My Name is Earl is so generally politically incorrect (and self-conscious about that political incorrectness — “Look, see, we’re being politically incorrect!”) that getting offended about this one thing seems out of place. (Look at how women are represented in the show, for instance.) I’m not sure — but one does think of the recent controversy over the reference to the Philippines in a recent episode of Desperate Housewives, which got a fair amount of media coverage; this, it seems to me, is much more offensive.

You can watch the show on NBC.com here; it’s episode 307. The “Sikh” character (he self-identifies as a Sikh) shows up briefly in the beginning, and then again in the last third of the show.

What do you think? Is it offensive? Are you planning to write NBC?

[UPDATE: One other thing — in case you’re wondering “what self-respecting Desi would take this role?” — the Sikh character is played by an actor named Alex Endeshaw, who is ethnicity isn’t entirely clear to me from Ethiopia originally.]

amardeep at 11:52 AM in Identity, TV · 84 comment(s) · Direct link

October 21, 2007

Bobby Makes History

Mutineers, we have our first brown Governor. :) Join me, as I bold my favorite parts of the NYT article which declares this history-making outcome.

Bobby Jindal, a conservative Republican congressman from the New Orleans suburbs and the son of immigrants from India, was elected Louisiana’s governor Saturday, inheriting a state that was suffering well before Hurricane Katrina left lingering scars two years ago.

Mr. Jindal, 36, defeated three main challengers in an open primary, becoming this state’s first nonwhite governor since a Reconstruction-era figure briefly held the office 130 years ago.

With more than 90 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Jindal received 53 percent, above the 50 percent-plus-one threshold needed to avoid a runoff in November. He will be the nation’s first Indian-American governor when he takes office in January.

Have I popped champagne? Yes, I have. No, I don’t believe in teaching Intelligent Design, I certainly am not an advocate of getting rid of a woman’s right to choose and I still support hate crime legislation.

I can guzzle bubbly despite all that, because there’s something else stirring within me— recognition that someone who looks like me did something so significant, combined with an uncomplicated thrill over the fact that Bobby made history.

There are so many valid reactions to Jindal; I know about them because thanks to Amardeep’s post, we have hosted a lively discussion regarding his background, his policy positions and the greater implications of his politicking, for “the community”. Amardeep’s thoughts resonated with many of us who are conflicted about Louisiana’s new Governor. The good news is, there are no wrong reactions.

Each of us is allowed to feel how we do, so while some of you gnash your teeth, I’m happy for him and by extension, us. Better than that, the next time some little kid decides that they want to be in government when they grow up, their immigrant parents now have a visual, a template, a precedent to latch on to, much the same way my English minor was suddenly acceptable once Jhumpa won.

There is much to do, much which is owed to the great state of Louisiana and her people; this is just the beginning of that story and I idealistically hope that it has a happy ending. What Jindal can do (and really, whether he can do it) remains to be seen. But I don’t think it’s disrespectful or inappropriate to raise a glass to him tonight and wish him a sincere congratulations.

Doing so doesn’t mean we buy in to his positions lock stock, neither does it mean he’s like, the greatest thing EVAR. It just means that we are happy for someone who accomplished something extraordinary. Congratulating Bobby is something I humbly think we should do, because ideally we should each choose generosity of spirit over bitterness and rancor. Choosing the former and congratulating a winner doesn’t lessen us or diminish our passionate convictions, it just demonstrates our tolerance, equanimity and good faith that we will allow a person’s actions to speak before we do, negatively and presumptously.

anna at 01:55 AM in History, Identity, News, Politics · 656 comment(s) · 1 reader(s) linked · Direct link

October 18, 2007

On Feeling *Extra* Brown This Afternoon

After finally deciphering and then completing the most challenging assignment I’ve had yet, I grabbed my badge and headed out. I wanted to take a little walk…I deserved to…I was done two hours before I expected to be and I felt a tiny sense of “Victory is mine!” because of it. Since I had skipped lunch, now was the perfect time to get some fresh air (and look for turning leaves). Once outside, I realized that today was the the day for our weekly Farmer’s Market. This made me mindful of how there were a finite number of Thursdays left before the weather would end the charming gathering of, oh, all of a dozen artisans and farmers, and that made me determined to appreciate everything even more. Excessive positivity (and the relief which blissfully arrives after meeting a deadline) inspired my lame ankle to try for whatever spring in my step I could muster. This was going to be nice.

I wasn’t looking for groceries, I was in search of a treat. I immediately recognized one when I saw a baker and his assistant arranging a decadent array of breads, scones, brownies, muffins and best of all…cookies. If I could list “home-made cookies” under my interests, I would. “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me”, indeed. I spotted apple cinnamon, oatmeal raisin…then a few dozen peanut butter appeared…and then something which I couldn’t visually place, it was darker than the PB and didn’t have nuts dotting its smooth surface like so many allergy-inducing polka dots. Chocolate chip, my favorite hadn’t been unloaded yet. I smiled at the three women who were crowding the stand, impatient for the official start of the market. Oh yes, I’m not joking— you cannot sell anything until it is exactly 3pm and a bell has been rung. It’s a fair and thus lovely thing, apparently.

While the three, a duo and a single milled between me and those delectable baked petit morts, I observed the women as they observed the baker. Two were old enough to be my grandmother, and one of them had beautiful skin, bright reddish-orange lipstick and very pretty hair. She was so arresting, I couldn’t even look at the other two. I was fascinated, thinking silly AnnaThoughts like “I wonder what moisturizer she uses” and “I bet she wears lots of hats”. I was so transfixed, I almost missed what was occurring directly in front of us. Almost. Thanks to being perpetually high-strung, even things in my peripheral vision cause me to swivel and investigate, so that’s what commenced my micro-Monk-like-adventure: the gesture I saw, which I wish I hadn’t, while I was looking elsewhere.

I spied, with my round Southie eyes, the baker’s assistant, dropping one and then another cookie on the ground. He lunged for both, but alas, alack, they were goners. Leaning over, he picked them up with his latex-gloved hands and then walked a few steps back to the van which he had been unloading. After hesitating, he put the two dirty cookies somewhere we couldn’t see and came back out. I resisted the urge to mutter, “I hope those didn’t go right back in the case” mostly because I was too appalled by what the assistant did next—he walked right back to the racks near us and picked up the most beautiful, luscious chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever desired. He started arranging them in the last, forlorn, empty basket. I was astounded.

No one else seemed to mind.

Let me see if I underwear this—this man, who was wearing gloves, apparently for sanitary reasons, dropped food, picked it up and then, without changing gloves, grabbed several “fresh” and so “clean” cookies like it was no big thang?

This would be an opportune time to point out that this farmer’s market occurs on 8th street NW, in Penn Quarter. That’s right, it’s a city street. Just a scant hour before, cars had been rushing over this very spot, dripping oil while perhaps crushing the dead bird I saw a few feet away. This wasn’t indoors. This. was. a. filthy (albeit pretty!) street.

I started to feel a bit anxious. I turned to the woman on my right and asked, sotto voce, “Did he just pick up stuff from the ground and then NOT change his gloves before touching the rest of the cookies?” She looked a bit stunned, then shook it off. “You’re right. That is exactly what he did.” And with a grimace, she turned and walked away, towards the mellow mushroom farmer.

The majority of chocolate chips were still safe. I was trying to stay positive—maybe he was rushed, absent-minded, unintentionally icky…it would occur to him…now…or…erm…now? How about now? Oh, for the love of sugar, please change your nasty #?@%!%& gloves! He walked away and I thought, “Yes! See what happens when you hope for the best?”

The duo who remained between me and the stall started speaking.

“What did I tell you?”

“No, you were so right, these are gorgeous…I can’t wait ‘til 3!”

“I’m not sure what to choose!”

“What about you, dear?”

That last question was meant for me. Now both were looking my way, expectantly. It was kind of them to include me in their conversation. I love how people in cities just do that, they just insert themselves in to your life and then a few seconds later, float out, so naturally. I also love how contrary to popular belief, New Yorkers are NOT MEAN, nooo, people in DC are way ruder, in my experience. But that’s neither here nor fair.

“Well…I know this might sound obnoxious, but…I don’t know if I can buy something after seeing him pick up cookies off the street and then NOT change his gloves.”

“Oh, I hadn’t even thought of that! My dear, you are very observant.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to seem…I don’t know…unreasonable?”

“Not at ALL. You raise a very valid concern. That’s unsanitary handling of food.”

And with that, they both turned back to the baker.

The cookies were glistening in the late afternoon sunlight. How much butter did those babies get battered with? Oh, why, WHY does this guy have to be so naree*? My cookie-lust got the better of me, empowering me to be bold. I’m a consumer! They want me to buy things, so they would want me to be satisfied, right? That’s the whole point of supporting indie everything, you get such kind, personal service, that you feel extra good when you walk out with your purchase. As long as I’m polite, a question is perfectly acceptable. If that’s all it takes to get a glove change…and thus a clean cookie…

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Yes?” He was ready for my question. He had the slightest accent and he looked and sounded a bit like the “pool boy” in Legally Blonde. You know, the one who was all…”Don’t you go tapping your last season Prada shoes at me missy” or similar. No? Didn’t watch it? Fine, let’s move on.

“Did two cookies drop on the ground?”

“Yes, but I threw them away. There’s trash in the truck.” He looked at me like, “come on, you should know better…of course I threw them out!”

“Oh, but…didn’t you…pick them up while wearing…those gloves?” I gestured towards his hands, each of which were holding 4-5 now-tainted cookies.

The smile immediately disappeared from his face. In fact, he was scowling. The epiphany had smacked him, all oops upside his head, like.

“Look, I touch the cookies, not the road!”

I nodded. “Thank you so much.”

I don’t know how he had magically avoided asphalt and thus preserved the integrity of his food-handling equipment, but I felt that it was appropriate to leave, since a line was forming for all the baked goodness.

Glum, I wandered past organic cheese samples, dried apple rings and a mini-orchid shop, over to the woman who always brings such gorgeous flowers to market. I had a question for her, about a certain…green, plant-y thing which I didn’t know the official name for. Since they were in the last few bouquets I had been given, everyone expected me to know what they were called. I’m asking for it; they are eye-catching. On Fridays, when I take the vase home (they last for over a week!) on the metro and while walking, I constantly hear “What ARE those?”

I was about to pose my question, since she had finished with an actual customer, when the two cookie ladies “cut in line”.

“Do you have dahlias?”, one asked.

The other older woman, the one who hadn’t spoken to me was eyeing me as she slowly, sensuously bit in to a chocolate chip circle of bliss. I know, she wasn’t doing it just to make me feel bad, but that was obviously the end effect.

This was really starting to bug me. I started wishing I was more “chill” about such things, her cookie looked THAT fantastic. I’m famous for washing my hands before I touch food, after I touch my laptop, upon re-entering the house, after I take off my shoes in the hallway…any time that they might be dirty. I have no more control over such rituals than I do over my obsession for 120 Minutes-era music. No cookie for me.

Here, have some context, it’s free today: I don’t think this is anything but familial myth-making, but allegedly, my first word was “chee-dirty!”. Does that count as a word? Whatevs, I grew up with typical, anal-retentive, paranoid brown parents. Which is not to say that I think Desis are somehow cleaner than everyone else, rather that they are more consumed with the concept than some.

After college, my two prospective Asian roommates (Chinese and half-Japanese, respectively) became probable and not possible roomies when I kicked off my shoes without being told, before touring the white carpeted apartment (what genius installs white rugs in a college apartment complex? Something about the G-line makes people wacky, I tell you.) Apparently, every other interested party had just stumbled on in; half had observed all the shoes by the door and asked about it…only to then strut right past, shoes still on.

See? And some of you think we have practically nothing in common with “real” Asians. ;)

[Aside: as if that last sentence wasn’t incendiary enough, I’ve got more flame bait for ya. I recall a very controversial early-early-morning breakfast, i.e. in the wee hours, after a night of partying, which was heated because the question stupidly being considered by several people in various stages of intoxication was, “Were South Indians cleaner than North Indians?”. We were all referencing our parents in our arguments for and against, as if we were still infants who hadn’t realized that we weren’t physically attached to them. Later, a Guju gf confided to me that she felt she had more in common with Southies, and not just because a Tamil family friend had taught her Mother how to make fantastic sambar…”No, it’s the cleanliness thing. I feel like with North Indians, the shoe thing is optional. My house? Not optional. Yours too, right??” Right. “But…aren’t you technically North Indian??”, I asked. She arched her back, squared her shoulders and sniffed at me. “I most certainly am not. I am Gujarati.”]

Back to the story within a story. So, after hearing about my possible first word(s), you won’t be surprised to hear about the time when I was five and my sister, in her stroller, had dropped her bottle on the sidewalk, in San Francisco. “Chee!” my mother hissed, grabbing it and swinging it above my baby sister’s dimpled, grasping hands. We were near the park, so it wasn’t so odd that we almost immediately encountered another stroller. That baby’s pacifier fell out, and bounced on the ground, twice. That mother stopped, shrugged, picked it up, wiped it on the back of her pants and popped it right back in her baby’s waiting mouth. I still remember the disgusted look on my mom’s face. “Why are Americans so dirty?” she muttered in Malayalam.

“Aren’t we Americans?”

“Where is your brain and smart mouth when Americans ask you that? You just stare at them, like you are a dumb. Of course we are. But we are clean ones.”

Beyond the fact that “Americans” seemed to be code for white people, I was perplexed by this new designation of “clean” vs. “dirty” Americans.

When I was growing up, there was no five-second rule; if it dropped, it got tossed, and yes, a “Chee! Dirty!” was usually uttered by someone in the vicinity, to commemorate the fallen.

Twenty-seven years after a scolding on a San Francisco sidewalk, my phone rang, on a street 3,000 miles from fog, hills and proper sourdough bread. I answered. It was my best friend.

“You have good timing!”

“Not really. You’re just uber-predictable. I knew you’d be free for a bit.”

“Hey…can I ask you if I overreacted to something?”

“hold on…let me clear my throat…I’ve got Dionne Warwick on the brain…”

I told her everything (obviously with less punctuation or consideration for detail) and by the time I got to the part where the assistant had returned from tossing the dirty cookies, only to pick up the innocent choc-

“GASP! NO!! That is NASTY. And on a freaking city street! Eww, eww, eww, eww, ewww.”

“Oh…wow. Thanks. I thought that maybe I was the weird one, since the other people weren’t bothered, but you caught it before I could even-”

“NO! Who does that? I mean, it’s one thing when you’re in a restaurant, I’ll grant you that you have no knowledge of what’s going on in the kitchen, etcetera…but to see it first-hand…I wouldn’t have been able to eat it, either. You’re not veird.”

I sighed with relief as I contemplated the odd mish-mash of feelings within. There are moments when I just feel more desi than I usually do, or when I’m reminded that I was raised differently. I’m not talking about being othered by others, I mean little eurekas of my own, about something just like this. Often, when I question myself about a reaction to something, the answer will float to my surface like one of Razib’s old comedic comments…

…Brown.”

“Gawd, why do you tell me this stuff? It’s like the time that guy at Au Bon Pain dropped all those bagels on the ground, made eye contact with you and STILL put them out to be sold. I couldn’t eat bagels for like, a year. Who are these narees?”

“I think they’re a tiny, indie…not exactly a storefront-in-dc type of establishment.”

“Good.”

“Yes. Your Marvelous Market addiction can continue, in peace.”

“Isn’t it amazing?”, she asked.

“What?”

“The ridiculously different standards we have about cleanliness, compared to others.”

Ah, there. I was not alone. Perhaps we never are, despite how we feel.

“Amazing and inconvenient”, I said. “My attempt at cookie-ing uncovered an…inconvenient truth.”

“That your parents raised you right?”

“Yeeeeah, let’s go with that one.”

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Naree…is such a brilliant Malayalam word. It encompasses so much in its tw