One of the things that I absolutely love about being in India is that I am no longer a visible minority. Meaning I can blissfully shut my eyes while getting a facial done at the airport and not have to be worried about someone making a run for it with my bag, hoping to find a foreign passport inside. I look Indian. My name’s a regular old Hindu name. I can completely (okay, maybe not completely…but close enough) blend in with India’s population.
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| I googled 'A crowd of people in India' and felt this image did a good job |
Why I love blending in so much
Growing up in the American South East was not fun to be honest. It was the complete opposite of what I expected America to be. I remember a girl arguing with the biology teacher in the 8th grade, saying that she refused to be tested on the chapter involving the Theory of Evolution because it was false. Actually, a lot of kids scoffed at evolution being taught in schools because, according to them, it was all one big lie. I remember being completely shocked—I had expected America to be the richest and most developed country in the world, a bastion of science and technology, and there I was surrounded by a bunch of people who believed that the world was 6000 years old, that abortion should be illegal, that gay marriage was ‘just plain wrong’, and that Clinton was the incarnation of the devil. I was a bit ticked off with my parents for choosing to live in such a backward part of America because my American cousins from northern Virginia or Houston didn’t have to deal with this kind of religious fundamentalism in their school.
But what I found most bizarre in Georgia was the obsession with the Civil War. You’ll see tons of cars with bumper stickers with the words ‘the south shall rise again’ (there is generally another bumper sticker with the confederate flag on it). And if you thought the word Yank can be applied to all Americans, you’re in for a surprise in the South land. The word Yank/ee is an insult.
In my experience, racism was rampant. I’m going to give you an example: a well dressed and well spoken man struck up a conversation with my mom in a bookstore—upon finding out she was from Nepal, he seemed delighted. He said something along the lines of ‘I’m so glad you’re not from Pakistan, something something…terrorist…something something…muslim countries…some really ignorant comments…etc.’ Another example, a kid in my homeroom, who was going through the confederate flag catalogue (featured a bunch of clothes with the confederate flag designs) smiled at his friend and said ‘look at this t-shirt, it says coon hunting, hahahahaha, I’m getting this.’ My reaction to this was so strong that I can’t describe it, even today. I can go on and on about why I just couldn’t stand the place and the people, but I’m going to stop. It’s a closed chapter—I don’t ever have to live there again.
There was a sizable brown community there, but they too felt completely alien to me. They were all vegetarian teetotallers, insanely religious people—kinda like the evangelical version of Hindus. They’d send their kids to the temple to memorize Sanskrit prayers and be delighted to put them on stage every Sunday to recite their memorized Sanskrit lines in front of the rest of the brown crowd. What’s the point of making your kid mug up prayers in a language he or she cannot understand? Another reason why I didn’t like them too much was that they had this superiority complex that annoyed the bejesus out of me. Our kids are smarter, our kids don’t date (I have no idea why they thought that this was something to brag about), our kids don’t do drugs, our kids respect their parents, our culture is the best, our kids go to medical or engineering school while white kids are high school dropouts who become waiters…you get the idea. To give you an example: a guy in my AP Bio had to sneak a date to the senior prom because his parents (who are second generation Americans mind you) would be appalled at the idea of their son taking a girl out on a date. Senior Prom. A friend of mine who had just moved to Georgia from Delhi didn’t like the brown crowd of Georgia too much either. I remember her telling me, “it’s like these people left India in the 1950s and are still stuck in that mindset…actually they’ve moved backwards from the 1950s.”
I am so glad we moved to Canada after that because Canadian society, be it in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Toronto, or even Chatham or Castlegar (very small towns where my parents lived for a while), is worlds apart from the American South. And no one ever brings up the American Civil War (unless it’s a history class). Win.
So anyway, back to India— I love blending in. No more awkward pauses at the doctor’s office as the nurse tries to read out your name followed by the question ‘how do I pronounce this name?’ After years of standing out, I’m back to being just a regular person. It’s a very powerful feeling.
