Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Confused Desis?
Are we all confused Desi's in America, even though we are not American Born?
Apart from our skin and our unique Indian-English accent, what connects Indians in the U.S.? Not our native languages, obviously – they didn’t even connect us in India. Our aspirations? Not really - it’s every immigrant’s hope to make it big, to live the American Dream, not just ours.
What differentiates us then? To me, it’s the longing and the desire to transplant our current lifestyle in the U.S., into a surreal, similar life in India. We want to be Indians at heart, but still crave organized systems, infrastructure, a level playing field and comforts. Are these two cravings mutually exclusive? What else explains this strange Indian-ness that overcomes us when we move abroad? When I was in India, I listened to the latest English music hits, actively sought out the latest English movies and wanted to know and exhibit all the current fads in clothing and expression. I shied away from speaking Telugu or Hindi and spoke English whenever possible.
Now, I stand in line to see the latest Indian movie. I buy new releases in Hindi and Telugu music. I participate in Telugu Association events, Holi festivals and Dandia nights. I relish in speaking Telugu or Hindi every opportunity I get. Visiting relatives from India comment that we are more Indian than they are when they see children learning Bharatnatyam and Carnatic music; when they see seven year old boys play the tabla in community events and when they see teenage girls participate in Rangoli competitions with their mothers.
Yet, when we all wake up on Mondays, we’re off to school or work or busy in our lives, forgetting about our weekend reveries, our foray into our Indian-ness, and we become one in the stream of cars headed to downtown, one in the sea of back-packs headed to school, one in a very American way of life. Along with the same notes of praise among our visiting peers that we heard over weekend cultural activities, we also hear dissonance and fear during the week. We hear about the trauma of raising children of Indian origin here. “They are too American” is a complaint often heard in parenting circles. “So and so called the police on the grandparents,” echoes someone else. “Can you imagine? They said they would never come back to the U.S.” “Children need the stick as much as they need love,” others say.
How does one reconcile these issues? Apart from the show of solidarity at community and religious events, there is ample evidence of the ongoing identity crisis among Indians here. Are we Indians from India, or are we American, are we ABCD’s or Indian-American?
Added to this soul-searching, some Indian parents/groups in California are in the midst of a controversy about the representation of Indian history and culture in 6th grade text-books in the state. According to recent news report on Yahoo! and other news sites, some are claiming that there never was an Aryan invasion, others are trying to downplay the caste system and the divisive role it plays in modern-day India, while some others want to make the status of women in Ancient India politically correct, by stating they had “different duties” allocated to them, while the old version alluded to them being discriminated against.
Is this some kind of mistaken patriotism? An effort to clean-up the past and present a sanitized history that everyone can reminisce about and be nostalgic about? Children of Indian origin find it hard to understand why their parents rhapsodize about the “old days,” when they see India for themselves.
It’s extremely hard to reconcile our identity, value system and culture in a place that is so far removed from the origins and experiences that we grew up with. To me, it’s a work in progress. No one seems to have perfected a formula, yet every day, we see examples of well-adjusted Indians. So are we being successful in our integration with the American culture, or are we dividing ourselves up into an “us vs. them” category? Will our uniqueness stand the test of time or will it swallow us up into a stereotype? It appears to be seen.
