Indians are really proud of being a diverse nation. I judge people's real attitude towards diversity based upon the entirely selective, totally unscientific test of how they respond to me.
Most Indians don't consider Indian-Americans to be "real Americans." Real Americans are white, get sunburned, dislike India intensely, can't stomach spicy food and don't know more than a few token words of any local language. Interestingly, most Indians treat these real Americans with embarassingly excessive respect, as if by ingratiating themselves to Americans they can prove that they are more "Western" in outlook. But then these same Indians turn around and try to salvage the situation by trash-talking Americans behind their backs. (The most vituperative anti-American sentiment comes from Indians who are compensating for something)
But most Indians, particularly those who don't have other Indian-American friends or relatives, think that Indian-Americans are just Indians who talk funny. This is the average North Indian's attitude towards South Indians and vice versa. I never know whether to feel privileged or offended by this casual (and assumed) kinship, usually I settle for feeling both at once, and confusing myself.
But the people who really have issues are Europeans. Several centuries ago, several European thinkers got together and decided that national boundaries should be decided based upon the principle of ethnic self-determination, an idea that (much like communism or neoclassical economics) seems like a great idea until you try to apply it.
Nonetheless, because of the wishful European fantasy that all people who live in a country should look and sound relatively the same, these countries have huge issues with immigration. The UK recently decided to drop quotas for "non-European" foreign students, even though the UK has no knowledge workers and an aging population. France infamously banned the burka. Northern Italy's quaint bylanes have been defaced by neo-Nazi tags. Paris, the city where American GIs once felt more welcome than in the country they were supposedly defending, is now the city where my black friends say they experience the most racism.
A German woman I met today was super-polite when it came up in conversation that I was from the United States. But two minutes later she promptly forgot and returned to referring to me as Indian.
A French guy I met a while back refused to believe that I was not, in fact, an Indian. He asked where I was from and I said "the US." And he kept saying, "but you are actually an Indian." I eventually told him that I was an "American with extra flavor." He found this so hilarious that he started crying from laughter, and I took that opportunity to get away from him.
Why does this even matter? It doesn't, particularly. I don't usually bring up the subject of national origin unless someone else does. Nor do I mind being an Indian. I actually like having the luxury of assuming alternate ethnic identities. I've been Costa Rican in Costa Rica and Italian in Italy and Pakistani in Mexico (for fun), so it's no big deal to me.
But it is interesting how easily people accept the national origin of those who don't conform to their pre-conceived notion of racial identity. Americans are the most accepting! I have never met an American who had ANY trouble seeing me as an American, either in the US or abroad. Americans are very accepting this way, if you have an American accent and call yourself an American, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt. We are used to immigrants, and in our own weird way we actually all remember being immigrants not that long ago. Or perhaps it is the innate confidence of people who know that if you cut American GDP in half, Japan would be the world's third-largest economy (and don't start talking about the Eurozone, that's just cheating)
However. I have it on good authority that this great American trait is changing. Witness the movement against 'anchor babies'. This sort of blathering would have been rank unpatriotism even a generation ago. Now it's not as fringe as we would like.
Indians, meanwhile, are inching their way towards becoming more accepting of racial diversity. There were several Americans, both real and fake, on a recent flight I took, and the only person staring at them was me!
There's clearly a link between how accepting people are of foreigners and how their economy is doing. Americans wander the earth, smugly convinced that even when people hate us it's only just jealousy (completely justified jealousy, to be fair) and Indians wander the earth convinced that even when people hate them it's really all a big misunderstanding (to be solved with ingratiating politeness, to be fair). BUT. There will come a day soon when a foreign-looking person calling himself an Indian will no longer be such a strange event. Because Indians will start assuming that everyone wants to be an Indian.
*Note for those inclined towards political correctness: I use the terms "Indians" and "Europeans" and "Americans" a lot in this post. Please take that to mean the "Indians I have met, by and large" and "the Europeans I have met, by and large" and "the Americans I have met, by and large." These are not scientific categories. They are not deterministic. I am open to the possibility that tomorrow I will meet someone who will completely blow all these preconceived notions to smithereens. When this possibility becomes a reality, no one will be happier than me.
Most Indians don't consider Indian-Americans to be "real Americans." Real Americans are white, get sunburned, dislike India intensely, can't stomach spicy food and don't know more than a few token words of any local language. Interestingly, most Indians treat these real Americans with embarassingly excessive respect, as if by ingratiating themselves to Americans they can prove that they are more "Western" in outlook. But then these same Indians turn around and try to salvage the situation by trash-talking Americans behind their backs. (The most vituperative anti-American sentiment comes from Indians who are compensating for something)
But most Indians, particularly those who don't have other Indian-American friends or relatives, think that Indian-Americans are just Indians who talk funny. This is the average North Indian's attitude towards South Indians and vice versa. I never know whether to feel privileged or offended by this casual (and assumed) kinship, usually I settle for feeling both at once, and confusing myself.
But the people who really have issues are Europeans. Several centuries ago, several European thinkers got together and decided that national boundaries should be decided based upon the principle of ethnic self-determination, an idea that (much like communism or neoclassical economics) seems like a great idea until you try to apply it.
Nonetheless, because of the wishful European fantasy that all people who live in a country should look and sound relatively the same, these countries have huge issues with immigration. The UK recently decided to drop quotas for "non-European" foreign students, even though the UK has no knowledge workers and an aging population. France infamously banned the burka. Northern Italy's quaint bylanes have been defaced by neo-Nazi tags. Paris, the city where American GIs once felt more welcome than in the country they were supposedly defending, is now the city where my black friends say they experience the most racism.
A German woman I met today was super-polite when it came up in conversation that I was from the United States. But two minutes later she promptly forgot and returned to referring to me as Indian.
A French guy I met a while back refused to believe that I was not, in fact, an Indian. He asked where I was from and I said "the US." And he kept saying, "but you are actually an Indian." I eventually told him that I was an "American with extra flavor." He found this so hilarious that he started crying from laughter, and I took that opportunity to get away from him.
Why does this even matter? It doesn't, particularly. I don't usually bring up the subject of national origin unless someone else does. Nor do I mind being an Indian. I actually like having the luxury of assuming alternate ethnic identities. I've been Costa Rican in Costa Rica and Italian in Italy and Pakistani in Mexico (for fun), so it's no big deal to me.
But it is interesting how easily people accept the national origin of those who don't conform to their pre-conceived notion of racial identity. Americans are the most accepting! I have never met an American who had ANY trouble seeing me as an American, either in the US or abroad. Americans are very accepting this way, if you have an American accent and call yourself an American, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt. We are used to immigrants, and in our own weird way we actually all remember being immigrants not that long ago. Or perhaps it is the innate confidence of people who know that if you cut American GDP in half, Japan would be the world's third-largest economy (and don't start talking about the Eurozone, that's just cheating)
However. I have it on good authority that this great American trait is changing. Witness the movement against 'anchor babies'. This sort of blathering would have been rank unpatriotism even a generation ago. Now it's not as fringe as we would like.
Indians, meanwhile, are inching their way towards becoming more accepting of racial diversity. There were several Americans, both real and fake, on a recent flight I took, and the only person staring at them was me!
There's clearly a link between how accepting people are of foreigners and how their economy is doing. Americans wander the earth, smugly convinced that even when people hate us it's only just jealousy (completely justified jealousy, to be fair) and Indians wander the earth convinced that even when people hate them it's really all a big misunderstanding (to be solved with ingratiating politeness, to be fair). BUT. There will come a day soon when a foreign-looking person calling himself an Indian will no longer be such a strange event. Because Indians will start assuming that everyone wants to be an Indian.
*Note for those inclined towards political correctness: I use the terms "Indians" and "Europeans" and "Americans" a lot in this post. Please take that to mean the "Indians I have met, by and large" and "the Europeans I have met, by and large" and "the Americans I have met, by and large." These are not scientific categories. They are not deterministic. I am open to the possibility that tomorrow I will meet someone who will completely blow all these preconceived notions to smithereens. When this possibility becomes a reality, no one will be happier than me.
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