The one about the bindi

I have been asked a few times to write about bindis - can white women wear them? Should we? Or should we err on the side of caution and never wear anything from other cultures? Do the rules change if we are Hindu? Or if we're married to an Indian?

So many questions. The problem is that I'm not really qualified to answer them. I can only tell you that I sometimes wear them in certain situations, why I do, and why I don't in others.

I don't wear them on the regular just because I can and it's a free country.

I do wear a bindi when I go to the temple and when I go to certain Indian festivals and cultural events - Durga Puja? Yes! International Day street fair? No! University's India Night? Sometimes. It depends on the context.

I also wear them in India because in the area my husband is from, it is ubiquitous. The day after my wedding, my mother-in-law gave me a small packet of bindi cards; I did not wear them right away as our wedding was in the US but I made sure to wear the ones she gave me daily when we went to his home. It is one small thing that can help to put his family at ease, a marker that I accept and embrace his culture (he makes no secret of the fact he accepts and embraces mine). 

So why don't I generally wear them in the US? Aren't they fashionable? Aren't I connected to the Indian community here? Aren't I married to an Indian? To tell the truth, it is exactly for these reasons that I don't.

Apparently the bindi has been "on trend" for about a year now. I am not terribly on the up-and-up regarding such things; my utilitarian approach to fashion is limited to finding things that look good on me, aren't dated, but will last me twenty years; and to check and see if skinny jeans are over yet. But generally I have seen that when something becomes "trendy," a lot of license is taken with it. Fashion is both art and business; a couple years ago when biker chic was all the rage, you could find rivets on everything from handbags to shoes, none of which need rivets in the first place. It started as something artsy and novel, and then suddenly it was everywhere because it sold. The same has happened with bindis. The predominantly white fashion industry took a very visible marker of Indian tradition and culture and removed it entirely from its cultural contexts. Perhaps because it isn't as jarring to the average white person as, say, a leather mini and pasties accessorized by a white tulle Catholic wedding veil, bindis became accessories to cutoffs and see-through shirts, not just on the ramp but on the streets of Brooklyn and Seattle. And somewhere, gestalt in the world of fashion design died a slow and painful death.

As someone with a self-described utilitarian sense of fashion, I could not get behind the bindi trend for the simple reason that it makes absolutely no sense. But then there is a question of the morality of the trend. I find it odd that someone who would likely never wear fur because it hurts animals would wear a bindi in such a way that it hurts an Indian woman. (It can and does; I can link you to narrative after narrative after narrative.) Is this the cost of my self-expression? I think this is one trend that I can't afford to partake in.

Just one example of this: Have you seen some of the pictures in the bindi tag on Tumblr? Vacant-eyed, nubile girls wearing little more than a bindi with #exotic and #indian tagged...the orientalist stereotype of the oversexed, dark, exotic other is pretty played out in 2013 but these girls are jumping right on the "exotic=sexually available" bandwagon without even realizing it. I certainly do not want to reinforce a stereotype of a "bindi-wearer" as an object of lust, especially when I know and love many women who wear bindis as an expression of their culture or their faith. I am not interested in making their lives any more difficult.

So yes - the (white-dominated) fashion industry has taken the bindi, stripped it of context, and reduced it to a sign of exotic Otherness. And the ambassadors of this trend? Gwen Stefani, who has silent Japanese girls follow her wherever she goes? Selena Gomez, who doesn't even know the bindi is Indian in origin? Not exactly my role models. 

I said earlier that there's another reason I don't wear a bindi in daily life, and that is because I'm married to an Indian and have many Indian friends. This isn't counterintuitive. My Indian friends, with the exception of a religious few who wear kumkum, not sticker bindis, generally do not wear bindis themselves, except to temple or cultural events. What reason do I have to do any different? There's another reason too; I do not wish to invite unfavorable comparisons between me and my friends - "Andrea is more Indian than you! You have become so westernized." "It is nice to see a foreigner embracing our culture that others choose to reject." I have heard these things said in my presence. Awkward. Not every Indian woman wants to wear a sari, bindi, sindoor, glass bangles, toe rings. Many have fought their families, school principals, and surrounding culture to leave these things aside. Am I, by my choosing to embrace certain aspects of Indian culture, making it more difficult for the Indian women I know to make their own choices? I will be happy to remove my bindi in solidarity with them.

This is not to say that I think that white people should stay away from other cultures entirely. I do wear bindis in certain situations. I also choose to wear a wedding ring, loha, and sindoor, and choose not to eat beef, in the interest of carrying on family traditions and making my family members more comfortable. There are those who will not be okay with this; I deeply regret this but consider my commitment to my family to be paramount. I believe that there is a place for cultural sharing and syncretism, and that place is within community. Intercultural families, religious communities, close circles of trusted friends. And this sharing happens naturally, just as you would share information on what wine to serve with chicken or the best cloth diapers for your baby. It's other-centered, relationship-centered; not self-centered. The more involved I got with my local Indian community, the more I learned about various aspects of Indian culture from Indians and not from Wikipedia, the less inclined I was to just participate in the sparkly, pretty parts of the culture just to do it. Those parts come in context - for me, it is as the White American wife of a not very religious Indian Bengali, living in a small college town and all the good things and problems therein. 

A final criticism some will have is that this is a tempest in a teapot; this is an election year in India, the US government is shut down, and people have a lot more to worry about than what carefree white girls are wearing on their faces. I disagree; I think that first of all, white people have done a lot of taking and appropriation and we need to recognize that fact. We are products of our history and as such, even this issue of something as small as a dot requires a need for understanding on the part of us white girls, doing things that may not come naturally -- listening to the narratives of those whose culture we have embraced in part, learning about the context of that culture through a living community and true relationships, and accepting that even as we are individuals who make our own choices in life, those choices do affect others and we need to be aware of the consequences and our impact. In this light, we may not always get to wear whatever we want. And we may not always be able to please everybody. But pleasing people was never the goal; it's not about us. It's about how our actions show respect to others who generously share their culture with us, and how we can do our part to bring about more justice in this world. 

(Note: much of this was inspired by, and indeed written first in, a series of comments I made on Reddit in October 2013.)

The fate of the Delhi rapists, and an exercise in situation ethics

The past two days have been filled with thinking, and talking, and chatting, and Facebook commenting, about the death sentence given to the rapists of Jyoti Singh Pandey.

One has already died in custody. Amidst suspicious circumstances. The other, a juvenile at the time of the crime, will spend three years in prison and his slate will be wiped clean.

People have celebrated the verdict of death by passing out sweets. Activists against the death penalty, and indeed, the rapists' parents, have accused the court of bending to public opinion. And the question everyone asks -- and some feel fit to answer -- is, Was justice done?

The girl's parents wanted the death penalty. If we want to speak of justice, really only their opinion matters. My opinion, then, is just that - my feelings on the matter. And I am unsettled.

My first, most visceral response, was that death was too good for them. Their days are numbered and if they show any remorse at all, a swift death is certainly merciful. There are those who would inflict unmentionable punishment on the men, commensurate to what they did to the girl, but I think an eye for an eye only keeps the cycle of violence going and teaches that in some circumstances, violent acts are okay. And we have seen the lengths people will go to in order to justify rape and murder, these most heinous of crimes for which death is the recommended punishment: She was out at night. She has brought dishonor to the family. He committed a crime and was in jail. He was campaigning against morality and decency. She was asking for it. Who decides what crimes warrant cruel and unusual punishment? You'd better hope you never end up on the wrong side of that decision maker's politics, and political connections change so quickly.

Ideally, I would have liked to see them condemned not to death, but to a lifetime doing hard labor in a maximum security prison where they can no longer be menaces to society. Human rights? Certainly, give them the rights that they so callously took away -- we are not barbarians -- but the privileges of life in this free world they would never see again. Food, water, clothing, shelter, medical care are requirements, but biryani and badminton are privileges. Without leisure, without contact with their loved ones, they would have all the time in the world to think about what they had done until finally God himself granted them mercy and took them from this world. In playing God ourselves, we are being merciful to those who we say do not deserve mercy.

But the mother of the victim said, in an interview I heard earlier but can't find a link to, that the victims showed no remorse, that in court they seemed befikr - unworried. How is it punishment if there was no remorse to begin with? Zero times infinity is still zero. The main problem with my ideal punishment is that it is an ideal and shatters in the face of reality.

The two main arguments that I have heard against life in prison have been that rehabilitation does not work, so why bother, and that the cost borne by the taxpayers would be too great. To the first argument, I agree; although in the US the recidivism rate of sex offenders has been shown to be just 14 percent, this number is low because of controls in the system, including monitoring and registration. In India, where it is difficult to even get a rape case registered at the police station, these controls do not exist and the data does not apply. I do not argue then for rehabilitation at all, but for life sentences with public safety in mind: removing violent criminals from society.

Then people will ask, why should we pay taxes to keep these people alive? That is a difficult question to answer, and the answer will depend on how an individual, and how a culture, values life itself. There are some who believe in the absolute sanctity of life -- that we may not interfere in the natural processes of giving or taking life. Others believe that all humans are allotted a set of inviolable rights without which society will collapse. Yet others believe that human rights should only be extended to those who respect human rights, and that your right to live ends when you take someone else's life. And then there are those who take a utilitarian view: if someone is an unwanted burden on society, they should be done away with sans emotion. My view is closest to the second of these, but I do understand that others hold different opinions and, as such, come to different conclusions.

Which is why, in conclusion, I believe that there was no right thing to do in this case. No action the court took can bring Jyoti Singh Pandey back, can fill the hole in her family's life, can enroll her in classes for this term and get her back on her way to becoming a medical professional. Perhaps the verdict that was delivered was the least wrong thing. But I will leave that for her family to make the final call on.

Words worth sharing today

"Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal."

- Swami Vivekananda, Welcome address to the World Parliament of Religions, Chicago, September 11, 1893. 

120 years later, we are still fervently hoping. 

It's as crazy as it's ever been, love's a stranger all around

I haven't posted in a long while, and that's because there has been so much to write about.

So much I don't feel qualified to write about.

Twenty-six people died at Sandy Hook Elementary School, twenty of them children, on December 14 of last year, bringing the total to 88 fewer people in this world because of some madman with a gun. The typical knee-jerk reactions of 'ban guns' and 'lock up the crazies' reverberated around the internets for some time, but then the NFL playoffs started and celebrities did stupid things and no one cared anymore. Simplistic and myopic solutions aren't anything you can rally around. I sit here wondering how I can advocate for better preventive mental health care in my community, but no one wants to talk about that.

A girl was brutally raped in New Delhi, and died days later in a Singapore hospital from her injuries. This news hit home pretty hard for me, as I frequented the same theater she had gone to, had difficulty getting rides back to the general area of town she lived in, and the place she and her friend were deposited after their torturous experience was on the road I traveled daily to go back and forth from work. My mind's eye cannot stop picturing that scene - two naked, bleeding bodies lying in the cold foggy night, perhaps in front of  the dentist's office, or the tire shop, shutters down. People all around saw and minded their own business. Civic sense did not exist. But it was still the straw that broke the camel's back; now people have started talking about rape in terms of power, in terms of drawing shame upon the rapist and not the victim; calls for changing the system from the ground up are being made -- but are they heeded? Outside the Internet, has anything really changed? Rapes are still happening. I suppose it is the trend we should be looking at. In five years, will women stop telling each other not to go out on the streets? Will the term 'pervert' have replaced 'eve-teaser' ? All we can do is just make tiny steps in the direction of justice.

It takes much more than talk, more than pontificating on the Internet, to change things. But talking - and listening - are still so very important. The words we use are important. Loner, loser, reject, crazy; slut, whore, dented and painted women - why do we say these things about others? Why do we say things and act in ways that push people to the margins? Are we simply trying to make ourselves look good in comparison, glad we are not 'one of those people' -- deep down, we know that there but for the grace of God we go. Marginalizing others leads to the disconnect, the lack of community that breeds a madman. Demonizing women for being women, upholding the virgin/whore dichotomy which relegates women to the status of baby factories and sex toys, leads to a culture where rape is normalized as a way for men to discredit other men and remind women of their place. Neither one is just.

The battle has raged for years in epistemological circles - does language influence culture, or is it simply the other way around? I do think that the influence does go both ways, and that as we change our language, we can start to move toward less inflammatory and more logical ways of dealing with others and moving toward a better joint future. This is not saying we should be ultra politically-correct all the time; just that the words and labels we use for others should give them respect instead of take it away.

It's not much in the face of these huge problems facing our societies today, but it is one place to start.

Why I do not identify with the word "gori"

"Yeh gori kahaan se mila yaar?"

With a wink and a nudge, this was the first time I'd heard the word 'gori' actually spoken out loud. I'd heard it in songs referring to the color of a pretty Indian girl's cheeks, movie dialogues talking about the village belle, but this time it referred to me, and it wasn't complimentary.

From the tone of voice and the body language, the speaker saw me as his friend's latest fling. I was not his fling at all; simply a platonic friend. But the implication was evident, and I shot him a dirty look while my friend explained that I actually knew Hindi. He didn't say another word to me the entire evening.

So what does gori mean, anyway? Shabdkosh.com says it is an adjective meaning "fair." Even Urban Dictionary describes it as "a word used by Indians to describe white girls...not particularly offensive." And we've all heard it in songs like "Yeh kali kali ankhen, yeh gori gori gaal" to describe a woman's beauty. The male equivalent, gora, I've mostly only heard in relation to white men, not to a fair-skinned South Asian man.

So the denotation isn't too bad. But the connotation can vary. When it's used in a purely South Asian context, to describe a South Asian, it is generally a very positive term, albeit because of the shadeism present in South Asian culture, which is a separate issue. However, from my experiences in India, when the subject of discussion was a white woman, I never heard it used with a positive connotation. Sometimes it would be neutral, albeit objectifying - "Yeah, the gori's coming with us." Sometimes patronizing - "It's so adorable to hear a gori speak Hindi." And certainly negative - "This club is full of goris, you'll definitely get laid tonight." Gora also carries a similar neutral to negative connotation, but without the sexual promiscuity connotation of gori (which merits its own post, but I won't be the one to write it!).

And then there's the reaction of the dadi (grandmother) in this video:


Having experienced all these not-so-glowing connotations of the word when it refers to people who look like me, it is just not a term that I use to refer to myself. It's not something I think I personally can "reclaim" from the onslaught of stereotypes that come along with the term as it refers to a non-South Asian woman. And it also follows that it makes me uncomfortable when I'm referred to as gori as well, by people of South Asian descent or not. It gives me a feeling that I am not being taken seriously by the person referring to me as such, that because of my inherent 'gori-ness,' there is no way I can or should be respected as a person separate from my skin tone and all the baggage that goes along with it. Gori is a term that trivializes me as a woman with ties to an Indian family and community. It gives off wrong impressions to people about who I am. If I was Indian, it would be a different story, but I'm not, and it isn't.

Plus, defining myself via my ethnicity, particularly through the lens of someone else's ethnicity, is not very appealing to me at all. I don't believe in colorblindness and a post-racial society does not exist, but at the same time I don't need to perpetuate divides by labeling myself in ethnic terms. It Otherizes me with white people, assuming to remove privilege that is not actually removed. For South Asians, it serves to underscore my privilege as well as imply everything else about 'gori-ness' - sexual availability, lack of culture, lack of respect for elders, egalitarian to the point of embarrassment, etc. And for everyone else, it signifies nothing anyway. What am I trying to prove, and to whom?

So what should I be referred to as, then? I don't mind referring to myself as a white woman in contexts where race is important. American - sure, why not? It's the term de mode for a United States citizen, which I am. I've used the terms non-Indian and non-Bengali in particular contexts as well. I have certainly taken on some aspects of Bengali culture but I don't consider myself Bengali or Bengali-American; my future kids will be, but I'm not. Does a Punjabi who marries a Bengali take on an entirely new ethnic identity? If not, why should I?

I guess if you want to refer to me as anything, 'that big nerd who writes about culture' is pretty apropos. 

The eternal quest for the perfectly poofy roti

This post is for Ria of Me and India, as reassurance that you don't have to have the absolutely perfect cooking implements in order to make rotis! Here, I am using a plastic cutting board in place of a marble chakla and a nonstick pan instead of a tawa. Basically you just need a small rolling pin, a flat surface, a nonstick pan of some sort, and a wire rack. You can do wonders with that. 

I'll skip the dough-making part in pictures. You need to make a springy dough that doesn't stick (too much) to your hands when it's all mixed in. Some people add salt to their rotis. I usually forget. I don't make them with oil either - for me, it's just flour (here I am using regular whole wheat flour from any grocery) and water. 

Take a ball of dough about the size of a small lime and roll it in your hands until it becomes round. Then squish it in a little bit of flour. The rounder the squished ball, the rounder the roti will be. Dip the other side in flour too, then place on your rolling surface. 

Don't kill the dough. Roll it gently. You may find it 'spins' underneath your rolling pin; that's good. Try to get it an even thickness. Evenness is more important than thinness. My mother-in-law's rotis are thicker than mine and much tastier. 

Now it's flat.

Pick up and immediately place onto your preheated tawa or nonstick pan. If you have an electric stove, set it at about 7 or 8. You'll know if it's too high. Make sure you also have a second burner turned on and preheated to about 8 or 9. Put your roti rack over it so you remember it's on and don't burn yourself.

Let this sit until a bubble or two starts forming. This will be maybe 10-15 seconds. Then flip it over and let the other side cook for about 15-20 seconds. Not too long. You can use a spatula to flip the roti or use your hands. I always use my hands. Don't burn your wrists on the side of the pan though, like I often do.

 The bubble means it's ready to flip over. 

Once both sides are cooked, take the roti off the pan and place onto the wire rack. Mine has a handle on it, so I'm holding the rack in one hand here. DO NOT set the rack directly onto the burner with the roti on it. I find about 1 cm off the burner is the best place for me to hold it in order to get the heat to puff it.

 A handheld rack also allows you to move the roti to the 'hotspots' on the burner so that it puffs evenly.

Your roti should puff within a second.

 FWOOM

Once it puffs, carefully take it with your hand and flip it to the other side, and puff the other side.

Again, the rack is NOT TOUCHING the burner. You can do that if you like eating burnt rotis. 

Take the roti off the rack, put into your casserole dish, and start on the next one.

If it doesn't puff, don't despair. Just put it in the casserole and start on the next one. It's still edible. Practice makes perfect though, so obviously the only way to get good at this is to make and eat a lot of rotis. Tasty practice. :)

Hand-Pulled Rickshaws of Kolkata

"You can find every kind of transportation in Kolkata," he said to me proudly, as if I had the Richard Scarry book Cars and Trucks and Things that Go in front of me and was checking off each vehicle inside. If I had, I would have had to make notes in the margins of the ones that Richard Scarry did not include.

Rickety trams. Trains departing Howrah Station. The metro slinking underground; the autorickshaws plying their routes. Ambassador taxis and Maruti 800s and the extremely occasional Mercedes. Three-wheeled cycle rickshaws, bullock carts, and men carrying dozens of chickens suspended upside down on either side of the seat of their bicycles.

And the one you will not find in any other metro area in India, the hand-pulled rickshaw, saved from extinction in this city that clings to its past just as the rickshaw pullers clung to their age-old profession in the face of their possible ban. Whether a ban has actually been put in place I do not know, nor does it matter, since they still fill the Kolkata roads regardless.

I saw many jarring things on my first trip to Kolkata. Having lived in Delhi for nearly a year, the poverty no longer moved me, but the hammer and sickle painted on the side of buildings did. The urgent monsoon sky did. And these men, thin, gaunt, darkened by the sun, often barefoot, certainly did.

Anirban Saha has done a series of photographic sessions of these rickshaw-pullers. He portrays them in black and white, in sharp focus against the blurry sped-up background of modern Kolkata. The images are poignant, but viewing them brings back the same feelings of uneasiness at class distinction that I had when I first encountered them. Intellectually, I understand their importance to the day-to-day life in the city. I understand that they remain in Kolkata by choice and not entirely by compulsion. But for someone who grew up in an egalitarian society, watching one man be beast of burden for another is uncomfortable. Children riding to school does not affect me in the same way as the fat man in a business suit, riding in broad daylight when he could easily walk. And I know I could never sit in one.

Perhaps this is what makes the most uneasy about the entire situation. It is a world I encountered, but not my world. As a foreigner, I cannot enter into that sphere. Availing myself of a ride is an image that smacks of colonialism and flies in the face of my generally-egalitarian nature. And if it were I who were taking the photos, instead of the talented Mr. Saha, it would be nothing more than poverty porn. This has little to do with skin color. He, as a lifelong resident of Kolkata, has interacted with this world from his childhood, perhaps even rode to school with a classmate or two in such a rickshaw. His eyes and his camera lens see as perfect sense what I see as cognitive dissonance. And his photos focus on the task at hand, on how the past and present coexist, not objectifying the bare feet or the wiry bodies. He is able to photograph these men and their occupation in a way a disturbed or impartial foreign eye cannot.

I encourage you to go take a look at his photos and give your own impressions.

New York Times India Ink on Bengal, and my insignificant thoughts

The New York Times India Ink blog highlighted Bengal from both sides of the border this week in a duet of well-written articles.

Arnab Ray, otherwise known as Greatbong, gave us a look back at cross-border unity and how the two Bengals have drifted further apart, in his characteristic nostalgic style.

Naeem Mohaiemen paints a picture of the struggle to cross the divide, which despite best intentions, is rewarded with isolation as cultural collaboration seems to threaten the political powers that be.

I had written my impressions here in brief, until I had a few discussions and realized how little I actually know about the situation.

Here's what I do know.

I have been learning Bengali for five years. I have teachers and mentors from both India and Bangladesh. Without their unique perspective, I would not know anything close to what I know now. You cannot learn a language if you separate it from its culture. I had previously only learned from Indian Bengali sources but I was missing something very significant. Only in the last year did I really learn anything about Bangladesh, and since then, my skill level has gone from novice to intermediate. I just feel like I have a fuller picture and I understand much more now that I am getting multiple perspectives.

I know people who have worked cross-border in film, radio, and new media, and yet they remain more influential in their country of origin. I suppose this is natural, but I still admire them for reaching out, particularly when governments don't make this easy.

If you are a student of Bengali, read the articles posted by these talented authors and gain a deeper understanding.

If you are a Bengali, read them and take away what you will; new perspectives or reinforcement of what you have always been saying.

If you are neither, still read and learn a little bit more about a part of the world you may not be familiar with.

I am once again inspired to read, to listen, and to understand. May you find something that inspires you in the same way.

Happy Diwali!

Happy Diwali! It snowed today for the first time this year. At least three inches of snow on the car this morning and the snow fell all day. It's not what you'd expect from Diwali but it is beautiful all the same.

 Here are the lights I put up today, against a backdrop of snow.

These are our 14 diyas. I have more clay ones, but they didn't fit on the plate, so I used tea lights. The two colorful ones were shaped like flowers; I got them from the Asian market. I want to find more of those! They are so pretty.

For dinner today, I made Palong Shaaker Ghonto, courtesy of Bong Mom's blog, without which I would be completely lost in life. I also made masoor dal the way A's old roommate taught me, and gajar ka halwa because, well, it's Diwali!

Tomorrow I will go to Lakshmi Puja at our local temple. Not sure what I'll cook tomorrow. Any ideas?

Oppan Lungi Style!

Bengalis in lungis dancing to a Korean song in New York City. America is great, isn't it?

Here's the video:

And here's the article:

http://opencitymag.com/first-gangnam-style-lungi-style-flash-mob-hits-the-streets-of-jackson-heights/

While watching this video, it occurred to me that I probably am too out of shape to dance in a flash mob even if on the off chance I were asked to. Maybe it's time to change that?

The acculturation spectrum

Thanks to both the inter-nets and meatspace, I have been lucky to become acquainted with many non-South Asians navigating a South Asian cultural milieu, either in the Indian subcontinent nations or in diaspora communities in Western countries. They are partners of South Asians, religious converts, Bollywood fanatics, conscientious and talented dancers and musicians. Not a single one that I have met is a silly dilettante, to be written off as having invalid motivations and experience. They -- or shall I say, we -- have all undergone some extent of acculturation with South Asian cultures.

I also have many dear friends who are approaching acculturation from opposite perspectives; second-generation Americans of South Asian descent who are enculturating themselves to either South Asian culture or American culture due to parents who rejected one or the other, and South Asians (including second- and third-generation Americans) who have married Caucasian or African-Americans and are acculturating themselves to a home culture different from the one they grew up in.

(Important Note: Are there issues of postcolonial power structures inherent in this topic? Absolutely. They cannot be ignored. But for the purposes of keeping this on topic, I will only mention it tangentially here and work under the assumption of individual authenticity and goodwill - that individuals are not actively trying to subjugate those of a nonwhite culture by their participation in that culture.  We can discuss this more in comments, if you would like.)

In the last 24 hours, I have read two articles by women married to Indians whose viewpoints on acculturation are diametrically opposed to each other.

Chardi Kala Wife writes about her identity as an Indian Australian.

And American Punjaban PI contends that Pardesis can never be Desi.

I found myself agreeing with both of them.

Acculturation isn't a race. It's not a game you're trying to win. It's trying to find the best mix of cultures for you, your partner, and your family. What works for one person could be disastrous for you.

According to J.W. Berry in Applied Psychology: An International Review (1997), the type of acculturation an individual goes through can be plotted on a two-dimensional grid. The answers to two questions determine placement on said grid:

1. Do I want to maintain the cultural identity that has formed me prior to encountering the new culture? (Cultural maintenance)
2. Do I want to participate in other cultural settings or remain mostly among my cultural group? (Contact and participation)

Answering no to the first question and yes to the second is considered assimilation or the "melting pot" approach. (However, if loss of your previous cultural identity and participation in the new setting is forced upon you by goverment/society/in-laws, it's considered the "pressure cooker" approach!)

Answering yes to the first question and no to the second is the separation approach. This approach is taken by those who might say, "I will stay in America to work, but I will not allow my children to have any American influence. They will be brought up as pure <insert your ethnic group here.>"  But if people are forced by government/society/in-laws to stay separately from the surrounding culture, but they are still allowed to keep their home culture, this is considered segregation.

Answering yes to both questions leads to the integration approach, where both cultures are respected and practiced; this can only happen if both the individual and their surrounding society are open and inclusive. According to Berry, the individual must adopt the basic values of the dominant culture, and the dominant group must also realize they need to accommodate people who are not exactly like them for the greater good.

Answering no to both questions leads to marginalization: an individual no longer feels at home or welcome in either culture. This can be either self-determined or forced upon individuals by society when they are not allowed to participate in the cultural practices they held pre-acculturation, but they are also rejected by the dominant society.

Think about your answers to each of these questions. Your answers don't have to be absolute; I would say "sort of" or "some" count as "yes" and "not really" or "only a little bit" count as "no." Determine whether you have a positive or negative reaction to each statement.  Which quadrant do you fall into? Are there external factors that turn separation into segregation or assimilation into a pressure cooker for you?  Keep in mind that there is not a 'right' way to acculturate, although assimilation and integration probably have more positive effects on mental health than the others.

Acculturation strategies may differ when dealing with different spheres; a typical example is a college professor of Indian descent who is successful in his work and well-liked and respected by all his colleagues, but speaks his native language at home and his personal friend circle consists only of Indians from his particular linguistic group. He's integrated into the community but takes a separation strategy in his personal life. Do you find yourself choosing or being guided to different strategies in the public and private spheres?

It is very interesting to me to see others who are acculturated into South Asian communities and realize that they are literally all over the grid. No one way to acculturate  is any better than another, as long as your health is staying intact. There are numerous variables that determine the way someone will acculturate, and they're not variables that invite moral judgment. So someone who converts to vegetarianism or chooses to dress in salwar suits instead of jeans or learns to speak their partner's language is doing so because of a myriad of different variables, both personal and social. They're not necessarily being pretentious or showing off; they are assimilating and it's working for them and their societal context.

But they are not "better" or "desier than thou" as compared to those who prefer food from their own culture or track pants or speaking in their own native language while at the same time appreciating their partner's culture. Such people are integrating both cultures, which may be very difficult to do given societal pressures. Likewise, integrators are not better than assimilators; their individual and social situation naturally leads them to taking the best from both worlds and may look nothing like the person who finds it easier to assimilate; it's comparing apples to oranges. And those who are in places where their acculturation is adversely affecting their mental and physical health should be supported, not judged.

What is your acculturation strategy?

What elements of your personal situation do you think contribute to that?

Do you feel your strategy has been more in your control, out of your control, or a mixture of both?

Do you employ different strategies in different spheres (home, work, school, when abroad, when home)?

Want to take a guess at the strategies I use? :)

If you would like to share, please do share in the comments below.

Cultural Ambassadors, or How To Actually Learn Something

While having another lovely and lively conversation with Ambaa the other day, a very interesting question was brought up, and that was the question of "cultural ambassadors."

It's a bit racist to expect that any given person of another culture can and should be a window to that culture for your knowledge and edification. At best, it's simply the intellectual fallacy of "one person represents the entire group." At worst, it's another exercise of white privilege and entitlement - that you believe you deserve to be, ought to be, educated in the ways of this strange culture by this representative of said culture.

At this point, the frustrated do-gooder throws up her hands and says, "You want me to learn. How am I supposed to learn, if you don't teach me?"

Well, you can always start learning on your own. Books are always good, and there's this thing called the Internet.

But even there, don't you need a starting place?

If you want to learn more about another culture, and you read only an introductory textbook, or worse, writings by colonial-era authors about the people they colonized, complete with the racist structures of the times, you will get a very incomplete picture.

This is partially why it's so easy for people to mistake Muslims and Sikhs, why they only things the everyday American knows about Hinduism are caste and cows. Sure, there's a lot of information out there, but where do you start?

Maybe you don't have to do anything. Maybe you just need to stop doing something instead. Stop talking. Stop overthinking. Stop stereotyping. Watch. Listen. Experience. Build relationships with people that are not based on the fact they're from another culture, but because they're interesting people. We all have differences in how we approach things; you learn from your disagreements and arguments. You learn when you ask questions with a sincere desire to know in a situation where it's ok and comfortable to ask.

But, much like relationship-based selling, this doesn't work if the emphasis is on the secondary part. You won't sell a product if you are building a relationship with an ulterior motive of selling. You have to build the relationship for its own sake. Likewise, you can't learn anything about another culture if you're only building relationships because you are curious about the culture. Every second of your interaction, then, is viewed through your lens of what they probably view through their cultural lens. Meta, isn't it? Build relationships with people, not with expectations. Expectations that they will give you something you are looking for. Relationships are for connecting, not for getting. And it's through connecting with other people that you learn about life in general and how to be a better human. That's the goal, not finding out about some strange and exotic culture.

Because nothing is strange and exotic, really. It's all normal to somebody; if it wasn't, it wouldn't exist.

The goal in becoming proficient in cross-cultural communication is not to know everything about a culture. It's about how to shift into a different sort of normal. And you can't learn that from reading books or interrogating people. You learn it by watching, listening, living in relationship with others. 

One of those girls

I've gotten used to that feeling now. It's the Inward Cringe. The eye rolling, slightly sinking feeling when a politician doesn't know the difference between Muslims and Sikhs, a celebrity thinks it's okay to use brownface, a movie star shoots a film about India and converts to Hinduism as a result, and most recently, when a magazine prints a feature full of embarrassing cultural appropriation.

And it's weird that this makes me uncomfortable, because I'm not even Indian. Or maybe it is because I'm not Indian. I'm married to an Indian citizen, have lived in India, and have been acquainted with Indian communities in the US for over a decade. And every time one of these stories pops up, I'm a little embarrassed and frustrated - how come people don't have even basic intercultural knowledge when it comes to South Asia? - and at the same time, I wonder if I am perceived in the same way as Julia Roberts or Anja Ploetz -- as "one of those girls." A cultural dabbler; a dilettante; the girl who, wearing a sparkly salwar suit in the convenience store, tries to strike up a conversation in Hindi with the Sri Lankan working behind the counter; someone who flippantly talks about how Americans don't really have a culture so is it so wrong if I like yours? It's so spiritual. So colorful.

I feel I have to justify myself in some ways, so here's my story, in short form: I'm married to an Indian, who I met because I was learning Hindi and he thought it was weird. I was learning Hindi because I had recently started singing in it. Singing in Hindi happened because a few of my friends from India would listen to their CDs in my car and I learned some of the words so I could sing along, then one of them entered me in a talent showcase and it spiraled a little out of control to the point where I had 1-2 singing engagements a month. Plus, I wanted to learn Hindi so that I understood when these same friends were talking about me. :) They taught me to cook, we'd hang out together, we'd go to cultural events together; making Indian food and wearing bangles to appropriate events quickly seemed normal to me, not weird or special or exotic. We'd make vada pav and then go watch an independent movie at the Angelika in jeans and halter tops, or we'd go for a Diwali celebration dressed up in sarees and then have dinner at an Italian restaurant. I was brought up in multicultural cities and understood that "different" from one point of view was "normal" from another one, and that nothing was really "different" once you got used to it. Cultural mix was just a part of life.

And when I was singing, I tried to be especially careful. I knew I didn't understand everything, and I wanted to make sure I was appropriate, not appropriating. Even when in Indian dress, I refused to wear bindis for the longest time, mostly because of the impression Madonna and Gwen Stefani gave of white women wearing bindis. It was not until I was at an engagement and a woman huffily stuck a bindi on my forehead in the bathroom that I actually wore one on stage. Eventually, my rule of thumb became "do appropriate things when appropriate." And to do this requires a lot of listening and not very much talking, a lot of observing and as little "look at me" as possible. It requires humility, gratitude, and the constant need to 'check your privilege' and realize that you can be both a guest and a part of the group all at the same time. It requires building relationships, building trust, and - this is the tough one - being okay with however others choose to view you.

But I still bristle when someone asks me "why I am into Indian culture" because even though Indian culture is a fairly major influence on my life, culture isn't something you're "into" like knitting or river rafting or the complete works of Justin Bieber. I know this, but I don't know that other people know that I know this. And although I certainly accept that I can't change anyone's first impression of me, I still do not want to be viewed as that silly dilettante, as one of those girls. I've spent ten years deconstructing stereotypes, trying to not become a stereotype, and every time something like this hits the news, it seems it's back to square one. It's almost like I have to say something about Julia Roberts, Gwen Stefani, Anja Ploetz, in order to distance myself from them, to prove that I am somehow different from them.

But at the same time, am I?

What do I know about Anja Ploetz other than what the editors of New York Magazine decided to include in their 100-word article? What do I know about the blonde girl in the magenta sari at the farmers market?

Does being married to an Indian or living in India or having a basic understanding of intercultural communication make us superior to those who do not have that kind of connection?

Does it give us the right to judge?

Is it appropriate to try to distance ourselves from those we perceive as dilettantes?

Does it give us the responsibility to educate or deconstruct stereotypes?

Let me know your thoughts.


(This post is in part inspired by Jessica Kumar's article "Conversion vs. Covenant: White Hinduism - a Religion of its Own?")