There are a million things I should be writing right now and a blog post is not one of them, but this idea has been kicking around in the back of my mind for the past four or five days, ever since a conversation in my living room (that I only kind of listened to) got me thinking.
This is a post about what it means to be a "real" Indian. My friend was saying that she doesn't feel like she knows a lot of "real Indians" or even has a lot of "real Indian" friends. She meant, maybe, people who are middle-class or poor. Someone else immediately fired back: "Why does 'real Indian' have to mean poverty?"
I actually find it annoying when expats talk about "real Indians" - it reminds me of that famous exchange during the 2008 American presidential election when a McCain advisor referred to the southern portion of Virginia as the "real Virginia." When she said "real Virginian" she meant "Republican voters," the type of people who constituted the majority of the state before all the liberal DC-commuters moved into the northern suburbs.
It reminds me of the debate Jan Brewer ignited in Arizona over what it means to be a "real American."
The term "real Indian" is a branch off that same tree, although it may not initially seem that way. Whenever people use the term "real" followed by an ethnicity, they're usually about to deny that institutions and populations are capable of evolving over time. Calling someone a "real" anything doesn't acknowledge that immigration is a financial and cultural process as well as a physical one, that someone can be a new arrival in a country their family has lived in for generations, and that this doesn't make them more or less real.
I have a friend who uses the term "Indian-Indian" sometimes to refer to people who were born and raised in India (as opposed to Indian-Americans, who are either Indians in disguise or unusually tanned Americans depending on your point of view). No one is entirely sure whether this is offensive either.
***
The other day I was having a conversation with a co-worker when he told me "You know, you're a lot more Indian than I would have expected."
When I was arrived in India, I held onto my American identity like a badge or a shield. I felt like it protected me from the things about India that I didn't understand. "I'm an American, this isn't my environment," I told myself, when I failed at things that other people took for granted. I had nightmares about losing my accent, of starting to tack "only" onto the ends of sentences or of asking questions like "from where have you come?" I didn't mind it when auto drivers mistook me for an Indian and gave me a cheaper rate, but I always felt like I was taking advantage of their error, and that I knew something they didn't.
But over time - and yet still more suddenly than I could have expected - I've stopped caring about this.
Last night, I was talking with a friend who is Australian but of Italian descent, and we were talking about how people react to the fact that she doesn't fit the existing perception of a "real Australian." She referred to herself as "part of a new generation of Australians."
I liked her term. Those of us under the age of 40 are part of a new generation of people, for whom national and ethnic identity are more fluid than ever before. There are a million reasons for this -increasing globalization, exposure to different cultures, mobility, etc - but at the end of the day it's a gift. We have options that previous generations didn't have because our identities are fluid, they're a matter of choice. The idea of ethnic self-determination has been reborn in its most individual and effective avatar; as a personal decision.
I'm not trying to say that I'm not an American - that's where I grew up, that's what it says on my passport. But a passport - I'll be trite for a minute - only records where you've been, not where you're going.
From now on, when people ask me what I am, I'll remember this: "I am part of a new generation."
I realize that the two parts of this blog post are only sorta related. That's what the stars are for. Yeah, those stars in the middle. In case you were wondering. Deal with it.
This is a post about what it means to be a "real" Indian. My friend was saying that she doesn't feel like she knows a lot of "real Indians" or even has a lot of "real Indian" friends. She meant, maybe, people who are middle-class or poor. Someone else immediately fired back: "Why does 'real Indian' have to mean poverty?"
I actually find it annoying when expats talk about "real Indians" - it reminds me of that famous exchange during the 2008 American presidential election when a McCain advisor referred to the southern portion of Virginia as the "real Virginia." When she said "real Virginian" she meant "Republican voters," the type of people who constituted the majority of the state before all the liberal DC-commuters moved into the northern suburbs.
It reminds me of the debate Jan Brewer ignited in Arizona over what it means to be a "real American."
The term "real Indian" is a branch off that same tree, although it may not initially seem that way. Whenever people use the term "real" followed by an ethnicity, they're usually about to deny that institutions and populations are capable of evolving over time. Calling someone a "real" anything doesn't acknowledge that immigration is a financial and cultural process as well as a physical one, that someone can be a new arrival in a country their family has lived in for generations, and that this doesn't make them more or less real.
I have a friend who uses the term "Indian-Indian" sometimes to refer to people who were born and raised in India (as opposed to Indian-Americans, who are either Indians in disguise or unusually tanned Americans depending on your point of view). No one is entirely sure whether this is offensive either.
***
The other day I was having a conversation with a co-worker when he told me "You know, you're a lot more Indian than I would have expected."
When I was arrived in India, I held onto my American identity like a badge or a shield. I felt like it protected me from the things about India that I didn't understand. "I'm an American, this isn't my environment," I told myself, when I failed at things that other people took for granted. I had nightmares about losing my accent, of starting to tack "only" onto the ends of sentences or of asking questions like "from where have you come?" I didn't mind it when auto drivers mistook me for an Indian and gave me a cheaper rate, but I always felt like I was taking advantage of their error, and that I knew something they didn't.
But over time - and yet still more suddenly than I could have expected - I've stopped caring about this.
Last night, I was talking with a friend who is Australian but of Italian descent, and we were talking about how people react to the fact that she doesn't fit the existing perception of a "real Australian." She referred to herself as "part of a new generation of Australians."
I liked her term. Those of us under the age of 40 are part of a new generation of people, for whom national and ethnic identity are more fluid than ever before. There are a million reasons for this -increasing globalization, exposure to different cultures, mobility, etc - but at the end of the day it's a gift. We have options that previous generations didn't have because our identities are fluid, they're a matter of choice. The idea of ethnic self-determination has been reborn in its most individual and effective avatar; as a personal decision.
I'm not trying to say that I'm not an American - that's where I grew up, that's what it says on my passport. But a passport - I'll be trite for a minute - only records where you've been, not where you're going.
From now on, when people ask me what I am, I'll remember this: "I am part of a new generation."
I realize that the two parts of this blog post are only sorta related. That's what the stars are for. Yeah, those stars in the middle. In case you were wondering. Deal with it.
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